Lit Hub Weekly: March 22 – 26, 2021

TODAY: In 1931, the English writer Arnold Bennett dies of typhoid in London, shortly after a visit to Paris, where he drank local water in an attempt to prove it was safe.

“People who buy books! What a special category of souls.” Nicola DeRobertis-Theye on coming of age in a struggling Berkeley Bookstore. | Lit Hub
How E.O. Wilson’s concerns over species extinctions, population declines, and habitat losses converged in an accidental writing career. | Lit Hub Nature
“By relearning his grandmother’s old style of storytelling, Márquez began telling a story unlike any before.” Angus Fletcher on what Gabriel García Márquez understood about rediscovery. | Lit Hub Criticism
Are climate change novels a form of activism? In a two-part conversation, seven novelists weigh in. | Lit Hub Climate Change
Alma Katsu, author and retired intelligence professional, recommends the best spy novels written by spies. | CrimeReads
Parul Sehgal on Francis Bacon, Kali Fajardo-Anstine on a new Chicana voice in American fiction, and more Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
Yasmin Tayag on the hypersexualization of Asian women, Nicole Chung on being adopted by white parents who struggled to see her as Korean, and Charles Yu on anti-Asian violence and dehumanization. | GEN, Time, Los Angeles Times
“Imagining is a Black tradition. It is a queer tradition.” Shayla Lawz on speculative fiction and the revolutionary act of imagining. | Catapult
Sara Gruen, the best-selling author of Water for Elephants, has spent years trying to prove the innocence of an imprisoned man—at enormous personal cost. | The Marshall Project
“I feel like that’s something that sometimes gets lost in our culture, where everything’s about building a brand before you even have an established creative process.” Ada Limón on her writing process and finding joy in what you do. | The Creative Independent
Fear, loss, and the lessons of C.S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed in a year of pandemic. | Vox
“Writing perpetrators out of all these narratives means that while the narratives pretend to have concern for victims, victims are not who they’re protecting.” Rebecca Solnit on misogyny and victim blaming. | The Guardian
“None of today’s ‘girl singers’ have crafted as sophisticated a drag as Dolly.” Tressie McMillan Cottom on the “Daughters of Dolly” and the subversiveness of drag. | Essaying
“I gave myself the simple assignment to look in the mirror and try to describe myself accurately and, to the best of my ability, without judgment.” Susan Stinson on finding the language for fatness. | Poets & Writers
Emily Bernard revisits Audre Lorde’s groundbreaking explorations of power, racism, and the body in her writing. | New Republic
Translator James Byrne highlights literary activism amid the military violence in Myanmar. | World Literature Today
“Le Guin or Butler or Chandler are genre writers and transcendent writers. They are highly literary and proudly working in genre traditions.” Considering the jargon of the sci-fi and literary genres literary. | Countercraft
“Pathological and immoral as Tom may be, he certainly let us in on his brand of fun.” Edmund White on The Talented Mr. Ripley. | T Magazine
Finland has a national epic poem that contains forest demons, wolves that stalk the deadlands, and a divine maiden who gets pregnant by the wind—and you can read a translation of it right this way. | Public Domain Review
“Poetry has been a good segue into thinking about voice and style in the way I did with the novel.” Gabriela Garcia on Of Women and Salt and narrative themes. | Elle
The story of Roberta Saltzman, who built a legendary library of hundreds of Jewish cookbooks from the past and present—the largest in the world. | Atlas Obscura

Also on Lit Hub:

Julie DiCaro on sexism in broadcast journalism • Marina Abramović on encountering the body • How Mark Twain documented an early transatlantic cruise • Cheryl Thompson on finding space as a Black Canadian writer • Five books you might’ve missed in February • Nadia Hashimi reflects on writing full stories about Afghan characters • On the rise and fall of Charles Ponzi • The power of childhood memories • Learning to go with the flow, in writing and rafting • On the intricate craftsmanship of turning Urushi trees into lacquer • Laura Maylene Walter on the art of belief • What it’s like to operate on a 500-pound polar bear • Adrian Piper’s letter to editors • Helen Frankenthaler and the downtown art scene of 1950s NYC • Amity Gaige on taking a disastrous sailing trip for research • Remembering when women ran television • Five books that expand our idea of oral histories • Melanie Challenger considers the desire to be done with bodies • Why Alfred Hitchcock’s films still feel dangerous • Roy Yamaguchi on making a life as a poet • Mia Bay maps the dangerous history of segregated travel • Gina Nutt on horror films and everyday dread • Megan Fernandes finds life in pandemic New York • On the long history of racism in US tax laws • Asma Uddin on the complexities of the liberal-Islam coalition • Chris Colin asks writers to imagine a life without internet • When Dostoevsky hit the St. Petersburg literary scene • Daniel Heller-Roazen tries to pin down a little-known Kafka story • Ilan Stavans on the art of translation • Kelsey Osgood on the trope of Tragic Literary Woman • The senior editors of NOON talk running a nonprofit lit mag

Best of Book Marks:

Don Quixote, Franny and Zooey, Slaughterhouse-Five, and more rapid-fire book recs from Adam Levin • “There is blood here and vigor, love and hate, irony and compassion”: a 1959 review of Philip Roth’s debut • White Noise, Austerlitz, The Catcher in the Rye, and more rapid-fire book recs from Mark O’Connell • A biography of Francis Bacon, a history of female TV pioneers, and a darkly comic Japanese workplace novel all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week