Lit Hub Weekly: November 26 - 30, 2018

• “It’s not good news that Garp is still relevant. We should be ashamed that sexual intolerance is still tolerated, but it is.” John Irving wishes The World According to Garp was a period piece. | Esquire
• What should a writer do when their publisher goes under? | Forbes
• “No matter what we write, white people can turn our stories into weapons.” Terese Mailhot on telling Native American stories. | Mother Jones
• “I think we need to make them more conventional, maybe just, in a way, not as good.” When real poets write fake poems for movies. | The New York Times
• Mychal Denzel Smith on James Baldwin and the burden of the black public intellectual. | Harper’s
• On Barracoon and Zora Neale Hurston as accomplished ethnographer. | The Nation
• We know Victor Hugo as a literary realist. His ink drawings, on the other hand, share more in common with the surrealists. | JSTOR
• “We all have days when even the best classics seem a great bore.” Is the pursuit of literary glory a fool’s errand? | NYRB
• If what you’d like to do today is aimlessly browse 319 of the best books that came out this year, NPR’s book concierge is here for you.| NPR
• Women’s rage is so hot right now—on the murderous women of Megan Abbott’s Give Me Your Hand, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, and Adrienne Celt’s Invitation to a Bonfire. | BuzzFeed News
• Because we’re already living in a capitalist dystopia, Margaret Atwood will publish a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale in 2019. | The Guardian
• “You think: ‘Here is a woman who really knows what it’s like to vomit.’” Patricia Lockwood on Lucia Berlin. | London Review of Books
• “Ping-pong is fast, reactive. Literature is slow and dreamlike. But both transcend ordinary reality.” From Nabokov to Updike, fiction writers love a nice game of table tennis. | Vol. 1 Brooklyn
• A library on the U.S.-Canada border has been a reunion point for separated Iranian families. | Reuters
• “When you get to a place where you think, ‘Oh I’m so fabulous, I did this so well,’ you’re screwed.” An interview with Danielle Steele in the aftermath of her 174th book. | Refinery29

Also on Lit Hub:

Can you name the bestselling book of 1982? It’s not good. As are most of the biggest bestsellers of the last 100 years • Meet the showgirl who discovered Lolita: Sarah Weinman on the woman who helped Nabokov’s masterpiece find its American publisher • “Black children deserve the most abundant love ever created.” Kiese Laymon in conversation with Brandon Taylor • Why look at art when you could watch TV? On John Berger’s revolutionary art criticism • “The writers working away from the mainstream are often the most exciting ones.” A profile of Brigid Hughes, editor and founder of A Public Space • At WS Merwin’s old French farmhouse, Michael Wiegers surveys the landscapes (and donkeys) of the poet’s life • Richard Beard on writing his brother’s death, four decades later • “Like the ghostwriter, the translator must slip on a second skin.” Ten literary translators on the art of translation • What silent film can show us about writing • “No one has ever offered me any writing advice, nor did I ever ask,” and other revelations from Joyce Carol Oates • The former editor of The Guardian on what it was like to work with Julian Assange to publish Wikileaks • From a thriving literary scene to rent that won’t ruin your life: five reasons a writer should move to St. Louis • “What horrible price do we pay when we go against the laws of nature?” Joy Lazendorfer finds echoes of Frankenstein in the California fires • “I felt myself to be a much more fearful and tender reader at 57 than I was at 20.” Helen Schulman on As I Lay Dying, for today’s edition of The Avid Reader • “Travel writing, by a Nigerian who travels in parts of Africa, is a means of repair.” Emmanuel Iduma surveys the complicated oeuvre of African travel writing • The owners of Point Reyes Books on the limits of categorization, fighting dystopian creep, and the power of a small-town bookstore. Trump’s  radical remaking of America • Can you measure the happiness of your favorite story? • Jay McInerney recommends eight full-bodied novels for the literate oenophile • The Lit Hub staff’s favorite stories from November

Best of Book Marks:

In honor of her 75th birthday, we look back at the first reviews of every Marilynne Robinson novel • Helen Schulman on five books that came out of Stanford, featuring works by ZZ Packer, Tobias Wolff, and Ron Hansen • “I will hate you till the day I die”: 9 famous authors who responded to their bad reviews • This week in Secrets of the Book Critics: Ron Slate on Moby-Dick, Cane, and the addiction to visibility • Broken Amazon employees, fugitive slaves, a history of American torture, and more Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week • Our Literature in Translation Columnist Heather Cleary and Open Letter Books Publisher Chad Post talk Macedonio Fernández, Dubravka Ugresic, Mathias Énard, and more • A murderous sibling, a guide to insomnia, and a quest for the hangover cure all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

New on CrimeReads:

V. M. Burns recommends the coziest bookshop mysteries around, perfect for bibliophiles • “Plots are like a disease with me.” Sarah Weinman on Merriam Modell / aka Evelyn Piper, the reluctant icon of mid-century suspense • The year may be winding down for most of us, but for booksellers, it’s just getting started. Here’s a (former) bookseller’s guide to shopping during the holidays • Debut crime writers Kelly J. Ford, Gale Massey, and P. J. Vernon on the #ownvoices movement and breaking into publishing as a queer crime writer• “Is it morally defensible to own a Charles Manson dish towel?” True crime expert Tori Telfer answers this question, and many others, in her new true crime advice column • David Kimmel on discovering a crime in the family, 150 years after the fact • The opulence of the Gilded Age went hand in hand with suffering, inequality, and of course, plenty of murder.Rosemary Simpson rounds up 6 works of historical fiction that use their Gilded Age settings to the fullest • Paul French takes us on a tour through Mumbai’s crime writing scene and asks if Mumbai is, indeed, the most noir metropolis in the world • “I was fortunate to have a job that let me drive fast, carry a gun, and fight a bad guy or two.” Marc Cameron on the experiences that prepared him to continue the character of Jack Ryan • Alex Segura and Monica Gallagher, creators of the new hit podcast Lethal Lit, on crime fiction, audio storytelling, and why we need more powerful heroines • Mimi Wong interviews South African crime writer Imraan Coovadia about spy fiction, afrofuturism, and time traveling while black • From gloomy newshounds to cheerful sinners, the CrimeReads editors pick their favorite stories of 2018