TODAY: In 2012, Maurice Sendak dies.
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Cross your legs, stretch your hymen: Danielle Dreilinger on the college courses that sought to curb divorce. | Lit Hub
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“It changes it from an entertaining satire about grubbing minor poets into a truly great story about thwarted friendship and human loneliness.” How a Robert Bolaño story influenced Chris Powers’ new novel. | Lit Hub
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David Coggins wants you to experience the poetry of fly-fishing. | Lit Hub Sports
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Excavating the life of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of American classic The Yearling. | Lit Hub Biography
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Parul Sehgal on Sarah Schulman’s history of ACT Up New York, Sam Byers on Rachel Cusk’s exquisite cruelty, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
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From sourdough starters to extreme home reorganizing, Elizabeth Penney has a cozy mystery for every lockdown hobby. | CrimeReads
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“What we are witnessing is not criminal negligence, but an outright crime against humanity.” Arundhati Roy on India’s COVID crisis. | The Guardian
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Computers are getting better at writing. (Not literary newsletters though, right? RIGHT??) | The New Yorker
- Tobi Haslett looks back at the political potency of last summer’s riots. | n+1
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“These adjunct novels are versions of the bildungsroman, the novel of education—but here education means learning just how precarious your future is.” On the rise of “adjunct lit,” and generative rage. | The Nation
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Reading 14th-century stories can help reveal “how we turn trauma into memory, narrative—and, perhaps, transformation.” | LARB
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An ode to Libby, the library app where “it’s easy to get carried away.” | Engadget
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How Dickinson “embraces speculation and the speculative, sexuality and seances” in order to tell the story of a woman in the absence of vast archives—and why it matters. | Electric Literature
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Stacey Abrams and Michael Connelly hop on Zoom to talk shop. | Elle
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Larissa Pham describes writing for other Asian women who will encounter her book as “something like a lighthouse spotting another lighthouse from far away.” | The Believe
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“The Eleventh Hour, I Spy, Where’s Waldo?, Magic Eye: I wanted all books to make me feel the way these did when my whole body and brain lurched with the click of visual recognition.” Elissa Washuta on world-opening possibilities of picture books. | The Paris Review
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Jason Reynolds, Marc Brown, and Mo Willems show off their literary treasures on Antiques Roadshow. | Publishers Weekly
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“Your body knows when you spend too much time trying to see into a space where you physically cannot go.” Marie Mutsuki Mockett recounts her mother’s last days. | The Cut
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“Lahirism cannot be divorced from an associated politics—the politics of respectability.” Sanjena Sathian on good immigrant novels and the shadow cast by Jhumpa Lahiri. | The Drift
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Forty years after Lucille Clifton lost her house to foreclosure, her children bought it back and plan to turn it into a space for emerging and established artists and writers. | Harper’s BAZAAR
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“Like most women who write, I live my life according to the firmly stated judgments of literary men.” On the long tradition of “helpful men” who dismiss women’s writing. | The Nation
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Eliza Kostelanetz Schrader rereads Stone Butch Blues and embraces an identity that “isn’t static but continues to twist and turn.” | Guernica
Also on Lit Hub:
Brandon Taylor on how Thomas Dworzak captured our long year on Zoom • These famous writers have very strong feelings about punctuation marks • Suzanne Coven talks to Leslie Jamison about writing and medicine • Alison Dean on trying to punch like Ernest Hemingway • Who was sci-fi iconoclast Izumi Suzuki? • Anna Sale on why it’s so hard to talk about money • Against leaving your options open • Gian Sardar on writing across cultures • Books that expand the tradition of the flâneur • Bethany Kaylor explores the feminist history of DIY manuals • How the pandemic has changed teaching high school English • Adam Mansbach on writing an honest elegy for his brother • The editors of Ugly Duckling Presse describe their eclecticism • Robert Frost’s thoughts on sports, real estate, and drinking • Julian Sancton recounts the Belgica expedition • How John Steinbeck’s diaries got Stacey Swann through her writing slump • Chiara Marletto looks beyond our traditional conception of physics • “I’d invested too much of my identity into what I thought a writing career should look like” • Charlotte Whittle on translating Norah Lange • Eddie S. Glaude Jr. rereads James Baldwin’s Nothing Personal • Laura Dave on process, writerly affirmations, and Bruce Springsteen • How Malcolm X inspired John Coltrane • In search of a living pterodactyl • Carol Smith on finding a lexicon beyond words after loss • “I had no idea that my life was in desperate need of a Swedish artist born in 1862” • How US newspapers became ubiquitous in the 1830s • Phoebe S.K. Young considers how companies brand The Great Outdoors (i.e. aggressively) • Eric Jerome Dickey’s agent of 25 years reflects on the writer’s legacy • Gail Reitano pays tribute to Kim Chernin
The Best of Book Marks:
A new Andy Weir space adventure, a tale of feral motherhood, and a reissued classic by a groundbreaking Black author all feature among May’s Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books • The Little Prince, The Fire Next Time, Becoming, and more rapid-fire book recs from Officer Clemmons • “The women of Cusk’s novels long to feel free.” Lori Feathers on the novels of Rachel Cusk • New titles by Andy Weir, Alison Bechdel, and Olivia Laing all feature among the Best Reviewed Book of the Week
More from CrimeReads:
Ten crime novels you should read this May, from cozies to noir • Harlan Coben on his journey from tour guide to bestselling author, interviewed by Rick Pullen • Travel vicariously with Rhys Bowen’s favorite international series • Brian Klingborg on the search for China’s serial killers • Michelle Dunne on the Irish women reinventing the thriller • Clare Whitfield with a list of fictional murderers hiding in plain sight • L.R. Dorn on Chester Gillette, Theodore Dreiser, and America’s true crime fascination • The nominees for the 2021 Anthony Awards have been announced • The most common fight scene mistakes in fiction, according to author and Taekwondo instructor Melissa Koslin • Linwood Barclay on his life in books, interviewed by Otto Penzler