Lit Hub Weekly: October 16-20, 2023

• “The fact that literature is not helpless is proven by the fact that it attracts power.” Nobel Laureate  on a lifetime of art and activism. | Lit Hub

• John Freeman says goodbye to Freeman’s: “It can make you feel a bit gloomy, unless you accept that like New York City itself, literary magazines are by nature—most of them, not all—meant to be ephemeral.” | Lit Hub

• Pamela Newton reflects on Alexander Stille’s The Sullivanians, and the realities and narratives of her childhood in an urban commune. | Lit Hub Memoir

• “The ambition of the book is to tell the whole story of Israel/Palestine.” Nathan Thrall talks to Masha Gessen about his new book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama. | Lit Hub In Conversation

• Despite some pitfalls, writes Olivia Rutigliano, Martin Scorcese’s Killers of the Flower Moon remains a haunting, massive achievement. | Lit Hub Film & TV

• Teju Cole’s Tremor, Sly Stone’s Thank You, and Marie Ndiaye’s Vengeance is Mine all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks

• Allison Epstein considers the intersection of folk tales and horror. | CrimeReads

• Kevin Young, Elisa Gonzalez, and more writers remember Louise Glück. | The New Yorker

• “The most difficult challenge in our lives is to face our contributions to the systems that reproduce inequality and consequential cycles of violence.” Sarah Schulman on the Hamas-Israel War. | New York Magazine

• “She is remapping where we believe we must look if we are to understand [American] history and the world it has created.” Imani Perry profiles Jesmyn Ward. | The New York Times Magazine

• “Ye’s vicissitudes trouble me in particular because I had a father once. He was brave and chaotic too. Awful and beautiful too. A workaholic full of ennui too.” Harmony Holiday on Kanye West. | The Paris Review

• Sophie Gilbert ponders Wes Anderson’s Roald Dahl adaptations and what they tell viewers about both artists. | The Atlantic

• Florence Hazrat considers the exclamation point! | The Millions

• Canadian authors including Yann Martel, Alix Ohlin, and Heather O’Neill weigh in on their books being used to train AI. | The Walrus

• In the face of the rising tide of bans, Scholastic is taking the cowardly stance of allowing schools to opt out of providing diverse books at its bookfairs. | NPR

• “What there isn’t, and what there never is, is a genius every three months. This is something promoted by the publishing industry, and not just publishing, but every single walk of life you can imagine.” Sophie Vershbow interviews Fran Lebowitz. | Esquire

• A 21-year-old computer scientist used machine learning to read a 2,000-year-old scroll that was buried under volcanic ash in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Neat! | Vice

• Emily Zarevich considers Sylvia Plath’s fascination with bees. | JSTOR Daily

• Your local Barnes & Noble may be getting a makeover. | The New York Times

• More than 600 writers and artists have signed an open letter “demand[ing] an end to the violence and destruction in Palestine.” | London Review of Books

• “I have always been bothered by memoir writers who are obviously making stuff up, but I am now also bothered by the possibility that we are all making it up, all the time.” Sallie Tisdale on memoir and memory. | Harper’s

• Michael Ledger-Lomas considers the field of literary biography and the search for wisdom in George Eliot. | The Point

Also on Lit Hub:

Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan on how the “Iron Horse” spelled doom for the American Buffalo • An open letter to the Frankfurt Book Fair in support of Adania Shibli • On the grim realities of the metaverse • In praise of fiction’s friendly ghosts • J. Ryan Stradal on memorializing his mother through fiction • Molly McGhee on unlearning the lessons of Dick Lit • Ye Chun reflects on learning to write in English without disappearing • Finding novelistic inspiration in museum wall labels • John Lee Clark traces the nomenclatures applied to the DeafBlind community over the centuries • The trap of fairytale victory endings in historical fiction • Yes, your cat really is talking to you • Hilary Mantel’s longtime editor reflects on a writer at the peak of her powers • Ritu Mukerji on the life of Ann Preston • How mass media made mass protest • Masha Udensiva-Brenner on the lives of Russian expats in Tbilisi • Michael O’Sullivan follows W.H. Auden across Europe • Ahmed Naji narrates his own obscenity trial • Dispatches from a sensory deprivation tank • On the cultural legacy of angels • Lessons from an art conservator’s biggest failure