Lit Hub Weekly: February 26 – March 1, 2024

Lit Hub Daily

March 2

TODAY: Poet and activist Sarojini Naidu dies in 1949.

Robert Moor examines Matthew J.C. Clark's Bjarki, Not Bjarki: On Floorboards, Love, and Irreconcilable Differences and the rise of autojournalism. | Lit Hub Criticism
"The peculiar way in which we form memories can lead us to stray far from reality, yet gives us the fuel to imagine a world with endless possibilities." On Solomon Shereshevsky, the man who remembered everything. | Lit Hub Science
Steven W. Thrasher on the murder of journalists in Gaza and the loss of critical American voices in journalism: "What will we do when the Times is the only major news outlet left standing covering matters of war?" | Lit Hub Politics
"The adaptations based on the work of Black writers often involved considerable restructuring, usually because the studios changed the narratives to appease white audiences." Charlene Regester on the fraught relationship between early Black writers and the American film industry. | Lit Hub Film
In light of several Supreme Court cases regarding free speech on the internet, David Cole asks: Who should regulate speech online? | The New York Review of Books
"A group of librarians and web technologists found themselves in Dublin, Ohio, arguing over what single label should be used to designate a person responsible for the intellectual content of any file that could be found on the world wide web." On how we came to describe web content. | Aeon
Abdi Latif Dahir on the queer literature boom across Africa. | The New York Times
"If there's ever a question of whether to offer kindness to someone in pain, the answer is yes. Do it." Emily Raboteau considers the necessity of rituals at the end of the world. | Orion
Sigrid Nunez talks Seussian aspirations and rereading Rilke. | The Guardian
Alex Kirshner on the decline of the "onetime titan of digital media," Vice. | Slate
Anthony Lane considers the works of Lord Byron two centuries after the poet's death. | The New Yorker
On "bookshelf wealth" as a design trend and what it says about readers, wealth, and performance. | The Guardian
"The pressures of migration mean that smaller languages will have to survive in urban environments if they are going to survive at all." Ross Perlin on New York City's deep linguistic diversity. | The Atlantic
Why was Mark Twain so obsessed with Joan of Arc? | JSTOR Daily
"The demons of academic philosophy come in familiar guises: exclusivity, hegemony and investment in the myth of individual genius." On folktales and philosophy. | Aeon
An interview with Harry Nordlinger: "I was always into horror, although I was also very scared. I was a very scared kid. Like, I would not be able to sleep at night." | The Comics Journal
Can you end a sentence with a preposition? Merriam-Webster says you have the right to. | NPR
"If I wanted a rule that would apply to a body of people in an effective way, I would go into advertising." Imogen Dewey interviews Nam Le. | The Guardian
It's time for a game: overheard at ASA 2023 or MLA 2024? | Public Books
"It [English] still bears the imprint of its colonial past and its modern-day clout tied to anglophone countries, particularly the United Kingdom and the United States." On the spread of the English language. | The Millions
These are the best fictional spies, as recommended by espionage writers. | Los Angeles Times
"I yearn to return to Gaza, sit at the kitchen table with my mother and father, and make tea for my sisters. I do not need to eat. I only want to look at them again." Mosab Abu Toha chronicles his family's daily struggle to find food in Gaza. | The New Yorker
Lee & Low's 2023 survey on diversity in publishing reveals that the industry remains overwhelmingly white. | The New York Times
Katie Tobin considers the enigma of Simone Weil, "one of the twentieth century's most compelling—and contradictory—figures." | Verso
In a newly found letter, Arthur Miller explains Death of a Salesman to a college student. | The Atlantic
"It kept me somewhat sane, hopeful to dive into a future where the words I write would outlive the powers that wanted them dead." Aria Aber interviews Palestinian-American poet Fady Joudah. | The Yale Review
"..if it helped the book, then of course I would do it. But after losing several Sundays to a blank document, I realized that mining for soundbites felt deeply at odds with the work I wanted to put into the world." Tajja Isen on writing promotional essays as an author. | Vulture
Doctor T.J. Eckleburg has a few words for the marketing agency he hired for his billboard. | McSweeney's
Architects Antoine Picon and Carlo Ratti in conversation with Julien Crockett about sensible cities and hybrid physical and digital spaces. | Los Angeles Review of Books
"Such a collective practice eschews competitiveness to 'make visible the slow, fractured, and creative accretion of ideas that underwrites all acts of criticism.'" On the language of women's land, and its evolution. | Public Books
What happens when we run out of land? Here are five solutions from science fiction. | Reactor
On Dune and building fictional languages for literature. | The New Yorker
Colin Ainsworth visits Chip and Joanna Gaines' new Waco hotel to check in on Larry McMurtry's library. | The Paris Review
"I felt I was smuggling contraband in from the realm of the actual." Amitava Kumar on writing a novel with pictures. | Hazlitt