LitHub Daily: September 30, 2016

TODAY: In 1868, the first volume of Little Women is published. 

• “The time I wrote a 150,000-word pulp novel in a month to win a bet.” Stanley Donwood on the story behind Catacombs of Terror! | Literary Hub
• Finding a forgotten book on surviving the Holocaust: P.N. Singer on rescuing his grandfather’s book from oblivion. | Literary Hub
• Bethanne Patrick recommends five great books to read amid the September onslaught. | Literary Hub
• Alexandra Kleeman on the deep connection between literature and dreams, the scripts for femininity and masculinity, and her gravitation towards menace, fear, and dread. | Bookforum
• “Her mother had died a month ago and she was drawn to anyone who wore their pain outwardly, the way she couldn’t.” An excerpt from Brit Bennett’s debut novel, The Mothers. | BuzzFeed Reader
• I know that I’m in the depths of a living, breathing thing: J. Drew Lanham reflects on man’s relationship with nature. | Places Journal
• “What the melancholic indulges in is not the self, but in the feeling of isolation, and in the distance itself.” Colin Dickey on melancholy, depression, and the distinction between the two. | Catapult
• “What if we eschewed the violence of our institutions in favor of something yet to be invented?” and other questions from Khadijah Queen. | The Offing
• J.K., E.L., and beyond: A list of the 25 most influential writers in Hollywood. | The Hollywood Reporter
• How a translator is like a ninja, and 35 other comparisons: Writers and translators share their most apt metaphors for translation. | Words Without Borders
• Portland’s actual feminist bookstore, In Other Words, has put up a sign decrying Portlandia’s “Transmisogyny – Racism – Gentrification – Queer Antagonism – Devaluation of Feminist Discourse.” | Jezebel

Also on Literary Hub: Jason Novak illustrates Ron Padgett’s “How to be Perfect” · A jarring mistake at the National Museum of African-American History · In honor of Maggie Nelson’s MacArthur Foundation’s ‘Genius Grant,’ and excerpt from her book Jane: A Murder · Learning, but without credit: from the short story “Accepted” by Vanessa Hua

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