Lit Hub Weekly: January 25 – 29, 2021

TODAY: In 1931, Australian novelist, short story writer, and essayist Shirley Hazzard, is born.

Happy weekend: here’s (one of) Joan Didion’s seminal essay(s), “Why I Write.” | Lit Hub
Astrophysicist Avi Loeb investigates that giant interstellar object that passed through our solar system (please tell us you haven’t forgotten about ‘Oumuamua!). | Lit Hub Science
“Much of what has been created to give purpose to lonely, empty hours will not be seen by future generations—the muffins eaten, the gardens remodeled or abandoned. Words on the page, though, have longevity.” Anne Youngson considers pandemic hobbies and writing fiction. | Lit Hub
Joanna Schaffhausen on crime fiction and the true nature of sociopathy. | CrimeReads
Parul Sehgal on Lauren Oyler, Ruth Franklin on Rumaan Alam, Durga Chew-Bose on Joan Didion, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
A look at the many lives of Ignazio Silone, author of “one of the great anti-facist novels of the 20th century.” | Jacobin
“I’ve come to a place where I think cis readers can keep up.” Torrey Peters on writing about trans life. | Slate
“Leonora Carrington recognizes this subversive, eccentric position of womanhood.” Olga Tokarczuk on The Hearing Trumpet and the feminism of eccentricity. | The Paris Review
On Raven Leilani’s Luster and narrators that “reverse the gazes of centuries” in their portrayals of whiteness. | Ploughshares
This year, a number of books entering the public domain were written by authors of the Harlem Renaissance. | JSTOR Daily
Lydia Kiesling recommends the 40-year-old parenting book that actually made her a better parent. | The New York Times
“The greatest trick that Irmgard Keun ever played was convincing the world she didn’t exist.” On the banned German novelist who disappeared herself from the Nazis. | Smithsonian Magazine
A New Mexico book club is helping people in their town get vaccinate d m ore efficiently, because apparently book clubs are our healthcare system now! | The Washington Post
Experiencing “information overload”? Turns out, people have been complaining that there are too many books since the printing press was invented (and in some cases even before that). | Lapham’s Quarterly
“Didion worked hard at her sentences, and no magazine journalist has done better than her best. But style is just the baseline of good writing. Didion’s innovation was something else.” Nathan Heller’s grand unified theory of Joan Didion. | The New Yorker
Michael Dirda on the “dangerously fascinating” world of books about books. | Washington Post
“One lesbian at every company is often tasked with speaking for LGBTQ+ people as a whole.” Former NYLON editor-in-chief Gabrielle Korn talks about representation in women’s media. | Vogue
“Books aren’t holy, and declaring in capitalized, weirdly baroque
curse words that you don’t like certain popular or well-regarded ones isn’t particularly scandalous or interesting.” Against the never-ending Classics Discourse. | Jezebel
“Soon the novel became more than an escape—it was a world in which the emotional resonances of our new lives were embodied in a story we could recognize, something we could name.” On reading Piranesi while recovering from Covid. | Electric Literature
“Sometimes I just open a book and the sentences convince me: You have to translate this book.” Anton Hur on the books that choose their translators. | Asymptote

Also on Lit Hub:

Soledad Fox Maura asks if it’s finally time to ditch the label “domestic fiction” • Eman Quotah reflects on creating her own literary tradition • Joyce Maynard on the day she spent with Christa McAuliffe before the Challenger disaster • adrienne maree brown on cancel culture and transformative justice • James Geary on collecting the poems of Alvin Feinman • Carys Davies on writing about political crisis • P. Carl on the 22 books that helped him write about transitioning • A brief history of the death penalty in America • Danielle Geller traces her mother’s footsteps • Rhian Sasseen on learning how to ride a bike as an adult • Mark da Silva on the value of writing a book that might never be read • Gabrielle Glaser on the history of “girls in trouble” • Kaori Fujimoto on the highs and lows of learning to write in a second language • Michelle Duster remembers the legacy of Ida B. Wells, her great-grandmother • Robert Michael Pyle on the life cycles of a place • Now that the COVID-19 vaccine is here, can we start daydreaming about travel again? • Najib Sharifi and Shafi Sharif remember photojournalist David Gilkey • What do Michael Jordan and the Dalai Lama have in common? • Alexander Weinstein on the role of spirituality in storytelling • What it’s like to record a 29-hour audiobook with President Obama • Todd Robert Petersen on that weird monolith that showed up in a Utah canyon • Maurice Chammah on what journalists can learn from reading fiction • Congresswoman Barbara Lee remembers her mentor, Shirley Chisholm • Liese O’Halloran Schwarz wrote a novel about family secrets—and finally dug into her own

Best of Book Marks:

White Noise, Jesus’ Son, Goodnight Moon, and more rapid-fire book recs from Jenny Offill • A month of literary listening: AudioFile’s best audiobooks of January • From the archives: the first reviews of every Virginia Woolf novel • Luster, The Fire Next Time, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and more rapid-fire book recs from Avni Doshi • New titles by Joan Didion, Robert Jones Jr., Tove Ditlevsen, and George Saunders all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Month