April 19, 2023 ‹ Literary Hub

TODAY: In 1989, English novelist and playwright Daphne du Maurier dies at 81.   

• “In the frequency of our family there is hum, high and happy, of three humans sharing their lives with a beast.” Ramona Ausubel on falling with a dog (and the world). | Lit Hub Animals

• Alison L. Strayer describes the process of translating Annie Ernaux’s new “journal of observations,” Look at the Lights, My Love. | Lit Hub On Translation

• A reading list of twins in literature, featuring Brit Bennett, Donna Tartt, and more. | Lit Hub Reading List

• Kevin Chong suggests staying open to surprises while writing. | Lit Hub Craft

• “You can let a lot of life pass you by, sitting at home, waiting for people to need you.” Mary Louise Kelly on the contradictory feelings of leaving her children for reporting trips. | Lit Hub Memoir

• “Plants don’t make the easiest protagonists.” Katy Simpson Smith recommends 7 novels overgrown with plants. | Electric Lit

• Read Saskia Hamilton’s poem “Faring,” introduced by Claudia Rankine. | The Paris Review Daily

• “‘Creativity,’ as the name for a personal attribute or a mental faculty, is a recent phenomenon.” Louis Menand on the origins of creativity. | The New Yorker

• Rapid-fire book recs from Caroline Kepnes. | ELLE

• Memoirist Amy Silverstein on the “stagnant science and antiquated, imprecise medicine” of organ donation, and preparing to say goodbye to her transplanted heart – and life. | New York Times

• “I wasn’t sure what to expect when I signed up for one of the first ever sleepovers at California’s largest new and used bookstore.” One night at The Last Bookstore. | Los Angeles Times

Also on Lit Hub: How language acquisition nourishes a love of literature • A conversation with Elizabeth Graver • Read a story from Steven Heighton’s posthumous collection, Instructions for the Drowning