“Once in awhile, something explodes, but August is August.” Myroslav Laiuk on life in Kyiv, August 2022. | Lit Hub Ukraine
How to write a book without getting in your own way: On self-hatred, the semblance of stability, and getting to work. | Lit Hub Craft & Advice
Casey Parks reflects on the personal stakes behind her search for hidden queer history in rural Louisiana. | Lit Hub Memoir
“If it weren’t for Beyoncé, another girl like us with an untraceable name, we wouldn’t have had much in common.” Remica Bingham-Risher on stepmotherhood, lineage, and the weight of names. | Lit Hub Music
Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch, Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Afterlives, and Mohsin Hamid’s The Last White Man all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Month. | Book Marks
Olivia Rutigliano ranks the 80 greatest con artists in movies and TV, from The Lady Eve to Matchstick Men to The Hustler and back. | CrimeReads
John Burnett reports on the ways that local libraries have become a cultural battleground, especially in conservative areas. | NPR
“It was the novel’s repetitions, more than any other transgression, that drove early reviewers to unknown furies.” Meghan O’Gieblyn on Marguerite Young’s Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, “one of the most widely unread books ever acclaimed.” | n+1
Lesley Chamberlain considers the “narrow focus” of Rilke’s life, and the “huge questions” of his poems. | Poetry
A brief history of the iconic life of Clippy, Microsoft Office assistant. | Seattle Met
A dive into the escapist worlds of Maurice Sendak. | The New York Times
What makes Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice so divisive? | Alta
“Is it art if it makes everyone mad? Not necessarily, but in this case yes.” Keith Gessen on Turgenev’s Fathers and Children. | The New Yorker
Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood talk all things evil. | Interview
Yurina Yoshikawa recommends five translated books from Japan “that feel like antidotes to our accumulated stress of the last few years.” | NPR
Aina Marti-Balcells and Bibiana Mas, the founders of the new publishing houses Héloïse Books and 3TimesRebel Press, talk about publishing women in translation. | Words Without Borders
“He had memories of his ‘wasted years.’ He felt the weight of that wasted time in a way I couldn’t.” How writer Jon Sternfeld finished Michael K. Williams’ posthumous memoir. | GQ
“There were no villains, and that’s what made it such a difficult story.” Kathleen Hale discusses her new book, Slenderman. | Hazlitt
In a diary entry from 1823, Johann Peter Eckermann recounts some writing advice from Goethe. | The Paris Review
Spencer Quong talks to Tash Aw and Édouard Louis about collaboration, translation, and friendship. | Astra
Keziah Weir looks at the wave of follow-ups to Pulitzer Prize-winning novels—from Less Is Lost to The Candy House. | Vanity Fair
