Lit Hub Weekly: August 14-18, 2023

TODAY: In 1631, John Dryden, England’s first Poet Laureate, is born.

Lewis Buzbee laments the difficulty of getting rid of books: “I don’t get rid of them, per se; rather, I set them afloat, in search of new homes.” | Lit Hub
“A certain step toward falling in love.” On the pleasure and communion of Jane Austen’s country dance. | Lit Hub Dance
Farah Karim-Cooper considers how Othello can spotlight white supremacy, past and present: “If Iago were real and alive today, he’d spend most of his time in a Reddit chatroom provoking misogynistic, racist and homophobic involuntary celibates to deepen their fear and hate.” | Lit Hub Theater
“Of all the writers I’ve known, Hilary was the most single-minded.” Miranda Miller remembers her friend Hilary Mantel’s incredible talents. | Lit Hub
Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting, William Boyd’s The Romantic, and Patti Hartigan’s August Wilson: A Life all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
“Everyone, believer and nonbeliever alike, enjoys a good story. And so it seems to me that the first rule of evangelical nature writing should be: Tell one.” Jonathan Franzen on birds, the Bible, and why nature writing needs to be about more than just nature. | The New Yorker
Melissa Febos on the profound impact of Judy Blume. | NYRB
“There is no way to determine the influence of a book.” Garret Keizer considers the book banners. | The New York Times
Derek Owusu writes about the fallout from being named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. | GQ
“Middle age isn’t something you can prepare for adequately. You have to figure out how to move through it intuitively and you have to endure it.” Diane Mehta on the freedom of learning to swim in her 50s. | The Guardian
A school district in Iowa is using ChatGPT to help ban library books. | Popular Science
“I was completely and utterly consumed into the BTS content production machinery.” Anton Hur on keeping the secret of the biggest translation project of his life. | Open Secrets
Dave Zirin considers The Blind Side and the white-savior trope. | The Nation
Mark Athitakis looks to Arizona-set books of the past—from Willa Cather to Denis Johnson—for lessons for a parched future. | The Washington Post
Meet Leighton Davies-Smith, the inventor obsessed with perfecting the writing pen. | The Wall Street Journal
Isle McElroy recommends books that explore how marriage really works. | The Atlantic
Adam Kirsch considers Zadie Smith and the young Gen X novelists. | Harper’s
“I wanted to write a poem about how the extreme heat of the ocean is breaking my heart, but the whales beat me to it.” Alexis Pauline Gumbs on making sense of images of a climate in crisis. | Harper’s Bazaar
Elizabeth Metzger interviews the anonymous creator of the Instagram account @poetryisnotaluxury. | Los Angeles Review of Books
Molly Templeton explores the ritual of rearranging your books. | Tor