“Every novelist’s life has taken place during times of turmoil.” Jane Smiley considers how the essay and the novel inform each other. | Lit Hub Criticism
Nick de Semlyen reveals the literary roots of Die Hard (yes, your favorite Christmas movie is based on a book). | Lit Hub Film & TV
Alexander Chee recommends Natalia Ginzburg’s novella Valentino, “a story as devastating as it is hilarious.” | Lit Hub Criticism
Martha Hodes reflects on why she didn’t want her beloved father to read her memoir, the story of her childhood hijacking. | Lit Hub Memoir
Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos, Deborah Levy’s August Blue, and Frieda Hughes’s George: A Magpie Memoir all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
The best psychological thrillers of June 2023. | CrimeReads
Salman Rushdie is planning to write a book about being stabbed onstage in New York last year. | The Guardian
“Does Comey—do any of these politicos turned authors—have anything to reveal at all?” Jacob Bacharach on James Comey’s crime novel. | The New Republic
Going beyond True Grit in examining Charles Portis’s legacy. | The Atlantic
“Walking the property’s grounds, I thought about what it means to be allowed entry into a stranger’s Eden.” Alissa Bennett recounts trespassing on Edith Wharton. | The Paris Review
How the French government—all the way up to President Emmanuel Macron—is using science fiction to prepare for a variety of apocalyptic futures. | France 24
Fara Dabhoiwala considers the necessity of the index. | NYRB
81 queer and feminist books coming out this summer. | Autostraddle
“Pursuing optimal wellness, whether as a billionaire trying to age himself backward or a glowy-skinned influencer forever calibrating her microbiome, is a lonely business.” Jessie Gaynor on fictionalizing wellness food. | TASTE
Mosab Abu Toha and Nathalie Handal discuss memory, poetry, and the literature of Gaza. | Words Without Borders
Hannah Steinkopf-Frank explores the queer publications of the Weimar Republic. | JSTOR Daily
New York’s prison system has reversed a policy that would have blocked incarcerated writers and artists from publishing their work and receiving compensation. | Yahoo
What would the world look like if something we’ve become used to were no longer around? The first episode of a new podcast from Omar El Akkad looks at sand. | Without
Joyce Maynard on why you should travel with things you love (in her case, a sequin dress, handmade cowboy boots, and a vintage jacket.) | WSJ
There’s still time for you to understand the Anne Carson discourse. | The Hub
Considering what Canada’s content mandates, intended to protect the country’s culture from “the encroaching power of its southern neighbour by mandating a certain percentage of homegrown TV and radio,” mean for artists. | The Walrus
