Lit Hub Weekly: November 29 – December 3, 2021

• Read an exclusive excerpt from The Steal. 

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• “These men are not merely passively ‘compromised’ but aggressively compromising, in ways that our misogynistic culture obscures.” Mary K. Holland considers David Foster Wallace scholarship after #MeToo. | Lit Hub

• Seven writers talk about balancing their creative lives with their day jobs, from bartending to construction. | Lit Hub

• Still the one: Michael Dirda considers the perennial resonance of Frank Herbert’s masterpiece (yes, of course it’s Dune). | Lit Hub Criticism

• 44 writers share their favorite books to give as presents in the Book Marks Holiday Gift Guide. | Book Marks

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• Dean Jobb on Marthe Hanau, the greatest con artist in Parisian history. | CrimeReads

• “I love my son, and I am not at peace with the sacrifice I was required to make.” Merritt Tierce on the abortion she didn’t have. | The New York Times Magazine

• “Writing is a lot easier than getting up onstage and singing and dancing, I’ll tell you that.” Mel Brooks discusses becoming a memoirist at 95. | The New Yorker

• On the life and legacy of Stephen Sondheim. | Vulture 

• “What should my generation of activists preserve from earlier stages of the movement, and what should we discard?” Megan Stephan on feminist memoirs. | Public Books

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• Long before Henry David Thoreau, formerly enslaved Black people made Walden Woods a home. | The Washington Post

• “God, after all, may have sent the Flood to revise his work, but he too saved the best bits of his first draft in the Ark.” Peter Ho Davies considers the saving of darlings. | Bookforum

• How historically accurate is the Old Testament? | Smithsonian Magazine

• “More speech, however exhausting, is required, if not necessarily desired, by everyone.” Lorrie Moore on marriage and the weight of expectations. | NYRB

• “I will keep coming back to Louise Meriwether’s masterpiece of a novel because in it, she shows us that we do matter.” Deesha Philyaw revisits Daddy Was a Number Runner. | The Paris Review

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• Crystal Hana Kim considers how research can lead to richer narrative fiction. | Catapult

• “I’m living my truth. I knew that truth about myself for all those years, but there were a few dozen reasons why I couldn’t live it until now.” Lucy Sante on aging, identity, and life at 67. | Oldster

• On police procedurals, Latasha Harlins, and white subterfuge. | The Believer

• “While the world tries to emerge from the darkness of pandemic, we face questions about how to reassemble ourselves across the gash.” Stacy Mattingly considers Balkan literature and living in aftermath. | Guernica

• Rachel Toor shares her experience developing connections with book editors. | The Chronicle of Higher Education

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• Alexis Clements breaks down the fracture “between artists and the institutions that commission, exhibit, produce, and/or distribute their work.” | LARB

Also on Lit Hub:

Hilma Wolitzer on what it’s like to keep writing at 91 • Michelle Nijhuis on masculinity and queerness in The Power of the Dog • Francine Prose on encountering the literary strange • How has the Arab Spring changed fiction? • Leigh Stein on life as a working writer • Mark Scarbrough on the wrong way to write a memoir • Did this Italian electrical scientist inspire Dr. Frankenstein? • On the lasting impact of Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ protest at the 1968 Olympics • How Dorothy Day’s anger was an expression of her faith • James Hannaham on creating the stories you want to create • 21 writers on their favorite movies to watch during the holidays • Liz Weiss on intertwining her writing life and her puppet life • A long year of pandemic reading with children • Peek into the little-known archives keeping Civil Rights stories alive • How watching British reality TV helped Kirthana Ramisetti finish her novel • Emma Straub on opening her bookstore, Books Are Magic • Volcanoes—supernatural deities or comic book villains? • Literary Film and TV to stream in December • A eulogy for Charles Bowden • Hisham Matar revisits Joseph Conrad’s story “Amy Foster” • Samantha Allen makes a literary case for slasher films • On the origins of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen • Lydia Davis on how translation opens a writer’s mind • A conversation with Oscar-winning screenwriter Emerald Fennell