Lit Hub Daily: January 31, 2024

Lit Hub Daily

January 31

TODAY: In 1935, Japanese author and Nobel Prize laureate Kenzaburō Ōe is born.

"The entire measure of someone's commitment is how much they post about their commitment." Rebecca Solnit on how to comment on social media. | Lit Hub
Paradise Lost: How the transatlantic slave trade helped fuel violent conflict in West Africa. | Lit Hub History
"I was fascinated by both Jean and Pat's wartime stories but equally interesting to me were the lives they'd led since 1945." On writing female spies' classified adventures. | Lit Hub
"I try to remember that I'm not my job. I'm not a teacher. I'm not a professor. That's just work that I do." Brandi Wells on trying to stay true to her identity as a writer. | Lit Hub
For your aesthetic edification, here are the 12 best book covers of January. | Lit Hub
AudioFile's best audiobooks of January | Lit Hub
"Ever since humans left this planet, it's been only machines like 314 and me." Read from Bora Chung's new novel, Your Utopia. | Lit Hub Fiction
Hisham Matar's My Friends, Adam Shatz's The Rebel's Clinic, Kaveh Akbar's Martyr!, Simon Shuster's The Showman, and Álvaro Enrigue's You Dreamed of Empires all feature among January's best reviewed books. | Book Marks
Nihar Malaviya, Penguin Random House's CEO, "doesn't like to talk about himself." | The New York Times
One of the most comprehensive bills countering book bans in the US is reintroduced to the New Jersey State Senate | Book Riot
How to approach a book editor: "What you should do, what you can but don't need to do, and what you will have to do to get published." | Chronicle of Higher Education
Just a normal country doing normal things: Russia has placed London-based, best-selling novelist Boris Akunin on its Most Wanted List, presumably because he's had the temerity to criticize Vladimir Putin. | PEN America
"Britney's stuffed animals sit in a neat row. A snow-white bear wears a baby blue NSYNC T-shirt. The porcelain dolls glare at me." Emmeline Clein visits the Britney Spears house museum. | The Paris Review
Kathryn VanArendonk profiles "the mortal queen of faerie smut" Sarah J. Maas. | Vulture