Literary Hub - Lit Hub Daily: April 29, 2021

Click here to read this email in your browser.

Lit Hub Daily

A hundred days into Joe Biden’s presidency, Rebecca Solnit reckons with the effects of the last presidency: “It was a disorder from which we were forever trying to emerge into order, like people clawing a slimy bank, only to slump back into the ooze.” | Lit Hub Politics

“I felt like that girl from The Twilight Zone, lost in another dimension watching myself live like a child but not really feeling like one.” Brandi Carlile remembers the existential dread of an 80s childhood. | Lit Hub Music

The 11 best book covers of April have it all: humor, attitude, and no small amount of Gen Z yellow. | Lit Hub

Anjali Enjeti talks to Devi Laskar about reckoning with white supremacy and feminism, her writing practice, and the non-neutrality of silence. | Lit Hub

On the specific struggle of writing about a close group of friends hanging out together, during a year when you can’t see your friends. | Lit Hub

Capitalism is going to have a heyday with our emotional dependence on AI, says Kate Darling. Exhibit A: Sony’s robot dog, which costs $2,900. | Lit Hub Tech

Nicole Eustace examines the Great Treaty of 1722—in which colonialists unintentionally preserved Indigenous ideas about crime and reconciliation—before it disappeared into obscurity. | Lit Hub History

Parul Sehgal on Alison Bechdel, Hermione Hoby on Jhumpa Lahiri, Leslie Jamison on Susan Taubes, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks

Jesse Q. Sutanto on crafting a cozy mystery inspired by the cheerful, conflicting advice of her wacky Indonesian family. | CrimeReads

Cecilia Muñoz considers the myths and emotions wrapped up in immigration policy, and what happens when those stories are exploited. | Lit Hub Politics

If reading this year has been particularly tough, these books might help you refocus. | The Guardian

In spite of some gains in disability representation in publishing, there is still

“a lack of both understanding and specific initiatives among some (though not all) publishers,” Margaret Kingsbury writes. | Book Riot

“Tan inspired me and so many others who followed to write the stories that only we could tell.” Vanessa Hua on the incalculable impact of Amy Tan. | PBS American Masters

Read the story behind Whoever Said Dykes Can’t Cook?—the 1983 lesbian cookbook that combined art, food, and fundraising. | Atlas Obscura

“Inside the classroom, we tidied up our diction. But outside, I spoke guid braid Fife, ken.” Val McDermid stands up for the Scots language. | Financial Times

Why are we so fascinated by full moons? Nina MacLaughlin ponders humanity’s lunar love affair. | The Paris Review

On The Last Archive podcast, New Yorker writer and historian Jill Lepore investigates purveyors of doubt—hoaxers, fraudsters, pseudoscientists—and how the peddling of doubt evolved over the 20th century, leading to the Capitol Insurrection on January 6. Listen at http://podcasts.pushkin.fm/lithub.

On Open Form, Tracy O’Neill talks to Mychal Denzel Smith
about the refreshing lack of cynicism in Ball of Fire.

*

What creative satisfaction looks like to Elissa Washuta, on WMFA. 

*

In the final episode of Finnegan and Friends, James Joyce’s musicality
and the most mystifying ending ever written.

*

Gabriela Garcia talks about historical forces that shape

individual lives, on The Maris Review. 

*

What are the downsides to the way we tell stories?
Matthew Salesses guests, on Book Dreams. 

*

Why Mik Grantham insisted on having a tooth on the cover of her debut
poetry collection, on Otherppl. 

*

Phoebe S.K. Young discusses the political implications of camping, on Keen On.

* 

Nilanjana Bhowmick on the women leading the farmers’ protests in India,
on The Quarantine Tapes. 

*

Pasadena City College President Erika Endrijonas on leveling

the playing field, on Change Lab.

Copyright © 2021 Literary Hub. All rights reserved.

Unsubscribe | Manage Preferences