Lit Hub Weekly: October 9 - 12, 2018

• Lauren Groff, Sigrid Nunez, Terrance Hayes, Jenny Xie and more: the finalists for the 2018 National Book Awards have been announced. | National Book Foundation
• “I wonder if, like me, Matilda ever felt trapped by her past.” Mara Wilson on Matilda—and her—30 years on. | Vanity Fair
• “The library is a gathering pool of narrative and the people who come to find them.” Susan Orlean on growing up in the library, and finding her way back. | The New Yorker
• “They said the photocopy was killing the book, but we knew that literature survived in those stained pages.” Alejandro Zambra on the magic of the literary photocopy. | The Paris Review
• Will television—with its insatiable hunger for new stories and snappy dialogue—save the novel? | The Times
• “He referred to me as a matron, for example, which is not just sexist but also ageist.” Kate Atkinson responds to Jonathan Dee’s New Yorker review of her new novel. | The Guardian
• Good news for book hoarders: growing up in a house full of books (over 80, to be precise) has been found to lead to higher skills in reading, mathematics, and digital communication. | Mental Floss
• Which children’s classic secretly taught Sartre’s existentialist philosophy to Americans? Prepare to have your mind blown. | Full Stop
• From classic to forgettable, a ranking of every Murakami book. | Vulture
• An interview with historian Joseph Crespino, whose biography of Atticus Finch unpacks Harper Lee’s ambivalence towards her most famous character, and challenges  our “romanticized notions of racial morality.” | Pacific Standard
• Colson Whitehead’s new novel, The Nickel Boys—which explores the horrors of a Florida reform school under Jim Crow—will be released in July of 2019. | The New York Times
• In advance of the Netflix adaptation, writers consider the enduring terror of “the greatest of all haunted house novels”—Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. | The Guardian
• Why we need erotica, or how to read the Story of O “as a form of finding liberation from the mental ties that might otherwise bind us.” | LARB
• “I had to find humility to sit as a writer among writers.” Amelia Gray, Megan Abbott and Charles Yu on going from the novelist’s desk to the TV writing room. | Vanity Fair
• Suspicious about the happily ever after machine? Here are some books that might help. | BuzzFeed Reader

Also on Lit Hub:

When you discover you’re a character in someone else’s novel: John Wray on the anxiety of reading about “John Wray” • What Beowulf Sheehan learned while photographing literary greats • Going hungry at the most prestigious MFA in America: Katie Prout on class, work, and making ends meet in Iowa • Inside the rooms where famous books were written •  Charlotte Shane on commodified feminism, and the dangers of the mainstream • “Our stories are our power, our key to survival.” Gabrielle Bellot on Brett Kavanaugh, who we believe, and her own story of abuse • “Adoptees have so rarely gotten to tell their own stories.” Nicole Chung talks to Mira Jacob about her new memoir • Secrets of the Book Designer: Alison Forner on creating the cover for Lisa Brennan-Jobs’ Small Fry • Isabel Allende’s complicated history of fictionalizing national tragedy • Nora Krug’s graphic memoir on homesickness and Heimat • Hope Ewing talks to Talia Baiocchi about how to make a career writing about booze • Alison Pearlman on the weird world of secret menus • How the communist blacklist shaped the entertainment industry as we know it • Midnight in the garden of Haruki Murakami superfans: Fran Bigman reports from a certain late-night book launch at Three Lives Bookstore • “An unpredictable life. . .” Andre Naffis-Sahely on the life and times of Knud Holmboe, the Danish journalist who drove across North Africa in the 1930s • “She painted other women as she saw them: courageous, resourceful, rebellious and strong.” The #MeToo moments of Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi

Best of Book Marks:

From Americanah to The Call of the Wild, classic reviews of beloved books featured in The Great American Read that show love in all its many forms • The Sadness of Beautiful Things author Simon Van Booy recommends five books on the sadness of love • This week in Secrets of the Book Critics: NBCC Award-winning critic, poet, and essayist William Logan on Moby Dick, Claudia Emerson, and Samuel Johnson • What the critics wrote about the 2018 National Book Award Finalists • The horror master on Tana French’s spooky Irish thriller, a Mitch Albom beatdown, Deborah Eisenberg’s sensational stories, and more Reviews You Need to Read This Week • New titles from Haruki Murakami, Michael Lewis, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

New on CrimeReads:

Happy Birthday, Elmore Leonard! A list of his best opening lines, ranked • “We’re all unreliable narrators.”—Tana French on gaslighting, giving voice to new perspectives, and whether there’s such a thing as a feminist crime novel •  Demian Vitanza on the weight of words in prison, and how fiction writing can be the truest representation of prisoners’ experience • A celebration of the whisky-soaked wit and wisdom of James Crumley, in honor of the 79th anniversary of his birth • ”I am, by nature, a loner. I watch and listen; the writer’s job.“ Joe Ide on Sherlock Holmes, Los Angeles, and the strange nature of instant fame • The best of the science fiction crossover mystery, featuring Marie Lu, Malka Older, Nnedi Okorafor, and more, as recommended by Claire O’Dell • Lou Berney on a longstanding fascination with characters on the run, and what he learned about life and storytelling from 10 classic chase novels • A look at outlaw culture and America’s criminal families, from Fox Butterfield • Mystic River, The Shining, Man on Fire, and more: the best crime films streaming this October • Paul French’s “Crime and the City” column travels to Phnom Penh and looks at the burgeoning noir scene in Cambodia’s capital city • Hackers, assassins, and deadly apparitions: all the best thrillers to read this October • Five atmospheric thrillers set in the far north, as recommended by Swedish crime writer Susanne Jannson