Lit Hub Weekly: May 10 – 14, 2021

TODAY: In 1856, L. Frank Baum is born.

Tayari Jones reconsiders a watershed moment of Black storytelling, Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place, nearly 40 years later. | Lit Hub
How an obsessive scholar saved Iceland’s literary legacy, while a three-day fire burned down Copenhagen—and virtually every book in it. | Lit Hub History
Pride and Property: Phyllis Richardson on the homes that influenced Austen’s writing, from the rectory at Steventon to Chawton cottage. | Lit Hub
Sarah Broom on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, John Banville on Graham Greene, Lauren Oyler on Torrey Peters, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
From family estates to wartime residences, Phyllis Richardson looks at the homes that inspired Agatha Christie’s settings. | CrimeReads
Carmen Maria Machado responds to the parents and school boards seeking to ban her memoir, In the Dream House. | The New York Times
Barry Jenkins discusses The Underground Railroad, the horrors of American history, and avoiding the exploitation of Black trauma in art. | BuzzFeed News
Kiese Laymon explores “the paradoxes of revision, restoration, and repair” in Black friendships. | New York Magazine
So much for companionable solitude—Walden Pond is teeming with jellyfish. | Atlas Obscura
This is how trans and nonbinary voice actors are radically changing up the audiobook landscape. | BuzzFeed News
“These concerns are the stuff of life: What are other people for? What do we want from them?” On reading Jon Klassen’s new children’s book on the eve of the After. | Los Angeles Review of Books
Jessi Jezewska Stevens considers Georgia O’Keeffe, Toni Morrison, and flowers, which are “endlessly accommodating of projections.” | The New Yorker
When it comes to learning, do digital or printed texts work best for students? | Los Angeles Times
“Ghosts feel distinctly Korean to me, and they’re something I’ve shared closely with my mother.” Alex Sujong Laughlin considers the power of ghost stories and the Korean diaspora. | Harper’s Bazaar
“I’m interested in reading broadly, but I want to first and foremost read the work of Black women writers.” Newly appointed Triangle House literary agent Kima Jones on finding new works by marginalized writers. | Okayplayer
“The spirit of manifest destiny has been rebranded into the travelogue.” Rosa Boshier breaks down the relationship between capitalism, appropriation, and place. | Catapult
How much do writers make for their books? A look at the numbers. | Book Riot
“I have to fight being subsumed into the system, and I don’t always do that.” Alison Bechdel analyzes power, separatism, and gaining mainstream recognition. | Vulture
“For me, the secret to surviving parenthood is the same as the secret to surviving anything tough/demanding: community.” Nicole Chung on letting go of illusions in parenting, and saying yes to dessert. | Raising Mothers
“She’s an albacore around my neck.” A masterclass in malapropisms from The Sopranos. | Counter Craft

Also on Lit Hub:

How a pandemic reading project turned Josh Raff into an Austenite • Read an interview with Anne Carson and Robert Currie • Sean Flynn sets out to purchase a peacock • Antonia Pont in praise of sitting • Why do we find creepy children so compelling? • A brief history of the Times wedding pages • How an Irish barman left his mark on the literary world • Anna Dorn on trying to avoid a law career • On being told that your debut novel is plotless • Kate Durbin talks to Chelsea Hodson about the Greek Chorus of objects on Hoarders • John Domini reckons with the Neapolitan Mafia • Sarah Sentilles on the complicated pain of trying to adopt a child • Alison Bechdel on transcendentalism and bliss • Nesrine Malik investigates the roots of “political correctness” • Jennifer Weiner takes the Lit Hub Questionnaire • Andrew McCarthy on landing his career-changing role in Pretty in Pink • Suzanne Simard on the moral reckoning of clear-cutting a forest • The most discussed books on the internet, according to robots • Ashley Nelson Levy wonders how the pandemic might change motherhood literature • Who owns the seaside, anyway? • Marc Hamer on following the Vita Sackville-West school of gardening • On the redemption of Rudy Gobert, COVID Patient Zero of the NBA • Nandana Dev Sen on translating her mother • Martha C. Nussbaum on abuse in the art world • “I thought: Oh, thank God. There are gay women in heaven” • When did mountain climbing become equivalent with business success? • How desire propels the writing life • Joshua Corey on the “macabre waltz” of Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger • How the singular “they” saved a translation • Tobias Carroll rereads the work of M. John Harrison

The Best of Book Marks:

Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina, Charlotte’s Web, and more rapid-fire book recs from Mary Morris • From the archives: The authority of suicide in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar • Dracula, The Time Traveler’s Wife, The Men Who Stare at Goats, and more rapid-fire book recs from Ruth Ware • New titles by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Stacey Abrams, and Edmund de Waal all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week