LitHub Daily: March 22, 2016

TODAY: In 1832, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe dies; his last words, according to his doctor, were, “Mehr Licht!” (“More light!”). 

• Revisiting Joan Didion’s remarkable essay, “Sentimental Journeys,” as a way to understand Donald Trump. | Literary Hub
• Lisa Levy on Chris Pavone’s finely wrought espionage fiction and why the best spies are married. | Literary Hub
• A brief history of New York values: David Reid on the seething immorality of 1940s Greenwich Village, and a Democratic party at war with itself. | Literary Hub
• On Emily Dickinson’s self-creation (or why Emily Jr. “annihilated” Emily Sr.). | Literary Hub
• Purple novels and white privilege: A short story by Ian McEwan and poetry by Claudia Rankine from this week’s New Yorker. | The New Yorker
• I am trying to find out what endures: An interview with Helen Oyeyemi. | NPR
• To compete with our ever-shrinking attention spans, renowned publishing institution James Patterson is launching “a new line of short and propulsive novels.” | The New York Times
• Alex Mar writes about “Nerd Queen, a person of rare esoteric knowledge” and “Mother of Modern Witchcraft,” Doreen Valiente. | Tin House
• “What changes when the poet we’re teaching is not only alive, but on Twitter?” On teaching poetry, both contemporary and historical. | Pedagogy & American Literary Studies
• Danielle Dutton on Margaret Cavendish’s elaborate costumes (which included both philosophers’ caps and pasties). | The Believer Logger
• On the rising popularity of Korean literature, France’s Livre Paris fair, and the “politics of literary creation and translation.” | Ploughshares
• “I collect all the passwords to my shrines.” Poems by Sally Wen Mao. | BOMB Magazine

Also on Literary Hub: Visiting the P.G. Wodehouse Society of Lahore · Books making news this week: candidates, winners, and sellouts · The New York Review of Comics: from Mark Beyer’s graphic novel, Agony.

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