Lit Hub Weekly: September 23 - 27, 2019

• Michael S. A. Graziano considers the astonishing alien intelligence of the octopus, and the evolution of animal consciousness. | Lit Hub Science
• What if the secret to writing is… not writing? Kate Angus makes the case for fallow periods. | Lit Hub Craft and Advice
• The forgotten black women of the Italo-Ethiopian War: Maaza Mengiste on gender, warfare, and women’s bodies. | Lit Hub History
• Judith Butler on Bari Weiss, Rumaan Alam on Ben Lerner, Hanif Abdurraqib on Ta-Nehisi Coates, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• Tess Gerritsen celebrates seven crime novels and thrillers that take place in Maine—America’s land of the Gothic. | CrimeReads
• Chanel Miller, whose account of sexual assault at Stanford captured national attention, critiques the justice system and media coverage of the assault in her new memoir. | The Washington Post
• Hear from staff at the Copper Queen Library in Bisbee, Arizona, which Library Journal named the best small library in America earlier this month. | Tuscon.com
• “More courage, Bari Weiss!” Judith Butler on How to Fight Anti-Semitism. | Jewish Currents
• In the era of Facebook conspiracy theories and deep fakes, maybe book publishing needs to take a closer look at its fact-checking problem. | The New York Times
• From Atlas Shrugged to On the Road: a selection of cult books that . . . haven’t aged very well. | BBC
• “In English are impressions of the road’s landscape, many of which appear in Lolita. In his native Russian are practical notes on the price of oil, food or rooms for the night.” Elsa Court deciphers the notes Nabokov took on the road. | Granta
• “Sentimentality is the anti-heart, a heart substitute, and nothing terrifies me more than tipping into it.” Kimberly King Parsons on short stories, desire, and the grotesque and holy body. | Bookforum
• Edward Snowden on how getting sued by the Department of Justice helped his book sales. | The Hollywood Reporter
• “It’s like having Elle Woods recommend a book to you. Who’s going to say no to that?” How Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club became “publishing’s secret weapon.” | Vox
• Is the mall the “Platonic ideal of reading environments”? (Your answer might depend on how much you like the smell of Auntie Anne’s pretzels.) | The Washington Post
• “Wurtzel was oversharing before oversharing even became an everyday term we use, writing in a way that made people recoil with discomfort.” On the legacy of Prozac Nation, 25 years later. | Longreads
• Seven writers were among the recipients of this year’s MacArthur Foundation “genius” grants, including Ocean Vuong, Valeria Luiselli, and Emily Wilson. | The Hub
• As rare first editions of Dashiell Hammett books prepare to go to auction, including The Maltese Falcon and Red Harvest, his biographer Richard Layman pays tribute. | Christie’s
• “Spoiler alert: in the end, they all die. Everybody dies.” Is Death on the Beach the most depressing book in the English language? | The Baffler
• “What if plants are smarter than we think—a lot smarter?” Cody Delistraty on the weird and mysterious intelligence of plants. | The Paris Review

Also on Lit Hub:

Thoughts from high schoolers on Lit Hub’s climate change library • Announcing the shortlist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize • Kathleen Jamie considers a passing eagle, and the beauty of desolation • How Rivka Galchen decided to stop worrying (kind of) and write a kids’ book • Jake Skeets finds inspiration in a famous family photo • Alfredo Corchado on anti-immigrant sentiment and the horror of the El Paso shooting • The Jazz Age heiress who witnessed WWII up close • Misguided chivalry, disastrous dates, and other cartoons in which Liana Finck draws some conclusions about love • Dana Schwartz on Rainbow Rowell and the power of falling in love with characters • Dermot Bolger on Bruce Springsteen and working-class Dublin • Ann Patchett in conversation about her new novel • How Stoicism and the Epicureanism speak to these uncertain times • If you existed in multiple universes, how would you act in this one? • How did animals become symbols of grief? • Don’t cross Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman sucks, and more important lessons from the set of Kramer vs. Kramer • On the difficulty of explaining why a piece of music is good • Elif Shafak on the Cairo of Naguib Mahfouz • On coming to terms with family secrets when your father is an actual spy • Noah Cho on the freedom of tossing The Scarlet Letter from a high school curriculum • John Berger’s brief musings on time • Sonja Livingston on the complicated history of canonization • On Gandhi and nonviolence as a spiritual virtue • How the word “ghetto” traveled from Europe to America • Leslie Jamison on weddings • The three words that almost ruined Sonya Huber as a writer: “Show, don’t tell” • How tiny Hungary made soccer into the game we know and love • A brief history of the personalized bookplate • The end of the decade is almost here, but which books from the last ten years will stand the test of time?

Best of Book Marks:

10 Controversial Classics for Banned Books Week • Every 5 Under 35 Honoree Ever: a lengthy list of literary wunderkinder • Three Flames author Alan Lightman recommends five great magical realist novels, from Invisible Cities to One Hundred Years of Solitude • Sharlene Teo on Shirley Jackson, Moby Dick, and hating Pride and Prejudice • Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments: propulsive and relevant or rushed and pursued by its TV progeny? • New releases from Ann Patchett, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Patti Smith, Leslie Jamison, and more all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

New on CrimeReads:

Oyinkan Braithwaite talks with CrimeReads about sisterhood, serial killers, and Lagos • “Plagues and infestations are the original noir and set the stage for the morally ambiguous hero.”  • Derik Cavignano breaks down the formula behind the best crime thrillers • Take a journey to Monte Carlo with international jewel thief “Diamond Doris” • September’s best international crime fiction • The story of Martin Scorsese’s gangland epics is the story of American social mobility • Miriam Alexander-Kumaradoss talks with the founders of Blaft, the groundbreaking pulp fiction press of Chennai, India • How crime fiction can illuminate the kaleidoscopic identity of Budapest • September’s best debut crime and mystery fiction • All the best true crime out this September