Lit Hub Weekly: August 29-September 2, 2022

TODAY: In 1897, Sally Benson, best known for her semi-autobiographical stories collected in Meet Me in St. Louis, is born.     

• “Once in awhile, something explodes, but August is August.” Myroslav Laiuk on life in Kyiv, August 2022. | Lit Hub Ukraine

• How to write a book without getting in your own way: On self-hatred, the semblance of stability, and getting to work. | Lit Hub Craft & Advice

• Casey Parks reflects on the personal stakes behind her search for hidden queer history in rural Louisiana. | Lit Hub Memoir

• “If it weren’t for Beyoncé, another girl like us with an untraceable name, we wouldn’t have had much in common.” Remica Bingham-Risher on stepmotherhood, lineage, and the weight of names. | Lit Hub Music

• Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch, Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Afterlives, and Mohsin Hamid’s The Last White Man all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Month. | Book Marks

• Olivia Rutigliano ranks the 80 greatest con artists in movies and TV, from The Lady Eve to Matchstick Men to The Hustler and back. | CrimeReads

• John Burnett reports on the ways that local libraries have become a cultural battleground, especially in conservative areas. | NPR

• “It was the novel’s repetitions, more than any other transgression, that drove early reviewers to unknown furies.” Meghan O’Gieblyn on Marguerite Young’s Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, “one of the most widely unread books ever acclaimed.” | n+1

• Lesley Chamberlain considers the “narrow focus” of Rilke’s life, and the “huge questions” of his poems. | Poetry 

• A brief history of the iconic life of Clippy, Microsoft Office assistant. | Seattle Met

• A dive into the escapist worlds of Maurice Sendak. | The New York Times

• What makes Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice so divisive? | Alta

• “Is it art if it makes everyone mad? Not necessarily, but in this case yes.” Keith Gessen on Turgenev’s Fathers and Children. | The New Yorker

• Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood talk all things evil. | Interview

• Yurina Yoshikawa recommends five translated books from Japan “that feel like antidotes to our accumulated stress of the last few years.” | NPR

• Aina Marti-Balcells and Bibiana Mas, the founders of the new publishing houses Héloïse Books and 3TimesRebel Press, talk about publishing women in translation. | Words Without Borders

• “He had memories of his ‘wasted years.’ He felt the weight of that wasted time in a way I couldn’t.” How writer Jon Sternfeld finished Michael K. Williams’ posthumous memoir. | GQ

• “There were no villains, and that’s what made it such a difficult story.” Kathleen Hale discusses her new book, Slenderman. | Hazlitt

• In a diary entry from 1823, Johann Peter Eckermann recounts some writing advice from Goethe. | The Paris Review

• Spencer Quong talks to Tash Aw and Édouard Louis about collaboration, translation, and friendship. | Astra

• Keziah Weir looks at the wave of follow-ups to Pulitzer Prize-winning novels—from Less Is Lost to The Candy House. | Vanity Fair

Also on Lit Hub:

Mario Vargas Llosa considers the eternal youth of Flaubert’s writing • How can global cities adapt to the climate crisis? • Deborah Liu in praise of Pizza Hut’s Book It program, which encourages (and feeds) voracious readers • Follow along with Tolkien devotee Jenna Kass and fantasy philistine Dylan Roth as they recap the new series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power • Sonya Huber rethinks what we mean when we talk about voice • On Black feminists’ fight against the carceral state • How Silicon Valley conquered the post-Cold War consensus • Meet the players (and coaches) who built Toledo’s pro women’s football team • Guy Delisle revisits a brief interaction with his cartoonist idol José Muñoz • How creative thinking can inform medical science • Which big fall book should you pluck from the masses? • Mia Mercado on the anxieties of performing “niceness” • On Robinhood, bitcoin, and the democratization of everything • Against Draculas and Humbert Humberts • From surfboards to seed corn, how society creates trends • “College football is in some sense Thomas Jefferson’s fault.” • On the past and future of film in Gaza • How American conservatives embraced intellectual justifications of racism • Rio Cortez on Afropioneerism and Afrofrontierism • Courtney E. Martin on writing about school integration—and finding an unexpected audience • Untangling my character’s grief from my own • The literary film and TV you should stream in September • A brief history of photography told through antique dog portraits • On the Supreme Court’s dark, theocratic turn • Considering French literature in the #MeToo era • How maple syrup preserves Native culture • Elisa Gabbert on capturing beginner’s luck