Lit Hub Weekly: May 5 - 9, 2025

• “More than that, political art that seeks only to speak to this moment tends to flatten narrative in its attempt to be relevant.” Kevin Nguyen doesn’t think we need timely novels. | Lit Hub Politics
• After 20 years, Kazuo Ishiguro reflects on the decades-long process behind Never Let Me Go. | Lit Hub Craft
• “The deeper problem isn’t just about fees. It’s about the identity of the literary world.” Benjamin Davis investigates the rise of the submission industrial complex. | Lit Hub Book News
• Why lawyers love Jane Austen: “This power to persuade, when it does succeed, often forms the central cog to Jane Austen’s plots.” | Lit Hub Criticism
• Melina Moe considers Amanda Jones’ ​​That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America, which attempts to address both “the public defamation of a librarian accused of willfully using book selection to pervert patrons, and the broader question of how books should be selected (and challenged) in public collections.” | Los Angeles Review of Books
• In the age of A.I., Joshua Rothman wonders: “In how much of our thinking lives will we be passengers, rather than pilots?” | The New Yorker
• “What is happening at this moment does not dictate what is going to be happening tomorrow.” Angela Davis discusses Gaza, June Jordan, and solidarity. | Democracy Now!
• Sam Rosenfeld considers Who Is Government, Michael Lewis’ paean to civil service, in the age of DOGE. | The New Republic
• “My theory: just as the Janeite has lived a better life, they will die a better death—perhaps not free from existential distress but more equipped to meet it.” Wendy Anne Lee ponders how Jane Austen prepares us for death. | Broadcast
• “I find its politics detestable but its voice irresistible.” Vinson Cunningham mediates on his love/hate relationship with The New York Post. | The New Yorker
• Gabriel Mckee considers Mothman, UFOs, and Gray Barker’s bizarre and fascinating writing. | The MIT Press Reader
• Hari Kunzru on wellness grifters, New Age conspiracies, and “do your own research” in times of fascism. | New York Review of Books
• “The dream of a relationship unencumbered by reality is a dream of a poem unencumbered by prose.” Andrea Long Chu on Ocean Vuong. | Vulture
• “Would we get a different view of translation, one that is both more illuminating and more appreciative, if we turned to translators themselves?” Lawrence Venuti on why critics can do better when discussing translation. | Public Books
• Joe Sacco explains why he returned to comics journalism about Palestine: “I know the cities they’re bombing. I have friends there. I’ve written about the history of those places I’ve walked in.” | The Comics Journal
• “No satirist arrived at our dystopian moment better prepared than Carl Hiaasen. The bad guys in Hiaasen’s books have always been dangerous and mockable.” Dan Kois on “the bard of Florida’s fever swamps.” | Slate
• Pete Wells considers revered cookbook author Marcella Hazan’s culinary legacy. | The New York Times
• Lara-Nour Walton reports on the NYPD’s most recent mass arrest of student protesters at Columbia. | The Nation
• Robert D Zaretsky explores the history of swooning over great art. | Aeon

Also on Lit Hub:

Why the legal profession needs to stand up to Trump • Sarah Manguso and Liana Finck Challenging the depiction of children as “adorable idiots” • A dispatch from Oliver Baez Bendorf, poet in exile • 10 great May nonfiction books • Astrid López Méndez on feeling resistance to poetry • A human history of depicting dogs in art • Novels about female friendship • Charles Dickens’s own Dickensian childhood • Navigating a tumultuous relationship with a father • What can a container ship reveal about the global economy? • Jemimah Wei discusses writing Singapore • Family, home, and how immigration splits the self • The radical New York history behind hip-hop • Reality TV is rotting your brain • How British imperialism caused famine in Ireland • The personal mythology of an orange • On decentering whiteness in literary spaces • The allure (and dilemma) of trunk literature • What’s a psoas? • How William Blake influenced Oscar Wilde’s circle • Michele Filgate on navigating loss alongside her father • “Rivers are the veins of our mother, the earth” • Excavating the women snipers of the Red Army • Fusing research and filmmaking to write a novel • What can be done about Trump’s devastating NEA cuts? • Becky Aikman on the “Atta-Girls,” women pilots who chased adventure • Jennifer Hope Choi’s TBR pile • Gavin J. Grant and Anne Ursu on chronic illness, writing, and family • Fourteen books on Black motherhood by Black daughters • Amie Souza Reilly reflects on “the art monster” • Patrick Dougher remembers his punk rock stint working at The Strand • Joy Harjo writes about the aftermath of her mother’s death • The intersections of traditional and modern parenting in Kenya • The creative power of going for a walk • Globe-spanning books on World War II