Lit Hub Daily: In Which Joy Williams Responds to Our Questions Via Typewriter

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Lit Hub Daily

“It was only months before that I was devouring Walter Farley and writing love letters to a horse. (I will have you… I will!)” In which Joy Williams responds to our questions via typewriter. | Lit Hub Questionnaire  

Colson Whitehead talks crime fiction, midcentury modern furniture, and why a heist novel was the best way to tell the story of New York. | Lit Hub

It’s a busy month for books... Here are 15 new ones out today! | Lit Hub

George Makari considers the phobic world of Richard Wright’s Native Son, which “asks the reader to identify either with a brutal killer or with an evil social order.” | Lit Hub Criticism

Is Pinocchio really about lying? Or why we should all go to school? | Lit Hub

This month’s 5 Authors, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers features Ben Apatoff, Callie Garnett, Lee Matthew Goldberg, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, and José Vadi. | Lit Hub Questionnaire  

“Headless walruses were washing ashore and they were trying to figure out, were the heads removed before or after they went in the water?” Mary Roach on finding the weird and wild in science stories. | Lit Hub Nature

Amanda Jayatissa celebrates the slow-burn suspense of South-East Asian thrillers. | CrimeReads

“Nouveau roman meets Manhattan geography, under sci-fi moonlight.” When John Updike reviewed Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis. | Book Marks

WATCH: Edward Glaeser on the evolution of city life · Azeem Azhar on the exponential gap of technology. | Lit Hub Virtual Book Channel

Ottessa Moshfegh recounts a chance encounter with an unforgettable artist on the eve of 9/11. | GQ

In praise of using a physical dictionary, which “feels like prying open an oyster rather than falling down a rabbit hole.” | New York Times Magazine 

Janice Lee on her new novel, the apocalypse, and intentional composition. | The Rumpus

How two recent novels challenge horror’s Final Girl trope. | Slate

“Writing fake letters to advice columns could not be considered a good career move.” On the consequences of practicing an underappreciated art. | Gawker

Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff are asking Amazon to prevent its algorithms from promoting books that misinform the public on COVID-19. | The Guardian

Tia Williams lists the books she read while writing her latest novel, including those by Stephen King, Melissa Febos, and others. | New York Magazine

Listen to The Iliad book by book on Season 2 of Audiobook Break.

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Sarah Thankam Mathews reads her story “Rubberdust,” on Storybound.

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On So Many Damn Books, Julie Shapiro and Claire Boyle on producing the latest issue of McSweeney’s, an audio-visual exploration.

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Dana Gioia on why Ray Bradbury’s work is still essential, on Big Table.

Through the testimony of siblings, parents, friends, lovers, and other witnesses close to the case, Boys Enter the House retraces the footsteps of John Wayne Gacy's victims as they make their way to the doorstep of the Gacy house itself. Start reading now.

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