LitHub Daily: August 26, 2015

TODAY: In 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson meets Thomas Carlyle, beginning 38 years of (bromantic) correspondence. 

• Justin Taylor on the total weirdness of the book tour, “the part of the writing life least reconcilable with all of the others.” | Literary Hub
• Brilliant female novelists vs. the institution of marriage: on the pre- and post-divorce writing of Edith Wharton, Clarice Lispector, and Colette. | The Boston Review
• An interview with Lewis H. Lapham, consummate man of letters, author of over 600 essays, and discoverer of the fountain of youth. | Full Stop
• Flesh, fluids, and excretions: morality and art in the sex scenes of Lidia Yuknavitch. | The New Yorker
• “The notable difference between black excellence and white excellence is white excellence is achieved without having to battle racism.” Claudia Rankine’s profile of Serena Williams. | The New York Times
• In praise of Patrick Bateman’s music criticism, the spiritual progenitor of every white guy’s music blog. | The New Inquiry
• Alejandro Zambra and his editor discuss midnight phone calls, the difference between a snicker and a guffaw, and whether fiction is closer to lying or telling the truth. | McSweeney’s
• Bloody spurts, broken bones, and twisted genres: Haints Stay and the myth of the Wild West. | The Oyster Review
• On the Beckettian nature of Pac-Man and the Pac-Manian nature of a writer eating Eggos: the topography of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine. | Blunderbuss Magazine

Also on Literary Hub: In praise of the new modernists · A poem by Solmaz Sharif · A story by Miles Klee about a family at the pool

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