Lit Hub Weekly: April 28 – May 2, 2025

TODAY: In 1810, Lord Byron swims crossed nan Hellespont, a tumultuous strait successful Turkey, conscionable arsenic legendary Greek leader Leander supposedly swam nan aforesaid four-mile stretch.  

• Charlotte Beradt connected nan psychological effects of totalitarianism and how Nazi Germany perfected nan creation of fear. | Lit Hub History
• Tobias Carroll explains what Elon Musk doesn’t understand about Iain M. Banks. | Lit Hub Criticism
• Sam Weller connected Ray Bradbury’s underappreciated classic: “The Martian Chronicles is simply a superior book astir superior quality themes. It is subject fabrication arsenic a reflection of modernity.” | Lit Hub Criticism
• Cutter Wood connected Thomas Browne and the joys and possibilities of exploring nan unknown. | Lit Hub Craft
• Mitchell S. Jackson sounds Shakespeare for nan first clip successful his 40s: “[E]ven successful this dogged civilization war—no, particularly successful this fierce warfare for nan norm of achromatic culture—I’m claiming aged William of Stratford arsenic mines, too.” | Esquire
• What does it return to constitute a cookbook? Jenn Sit, editorial head of cooking astatine Clarkson Potter, talks culinary inspiration and caller nutrient canons. | Eater
• “Kemp’s attraction camps literalize gender expectations arsenic compulsory, inescapable structures successful which group aren’t individuals but representatives of an ideal.” Arielle Isack considers nan heteropessimism of Sophie Kemp’s fiction. | The Baffler
• Jill Lepore recommends 100 classical books for 100 days of nan Trump administration. | The New Yorker
• Daniel Lavery wants to cognize what’s going connected with book festivals and nan powerfulness of storytelling. | The Chatner
• Maddalena Poli connected why pre-modern Chinese lit is in. | Los Angeles Review of Books
• Francis Northwood looks astatine nan problematic business of nan power fueling AI. | The Baffler
• Sadie Stein remembers Jane Gardam, who has died astatine 96. | The New York Times
• Feroz Rather talks to novelist and writer Aria Aber astir language, dislocation, and excess. | Public Books
• Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses family history, otherness, and nan first 100 days of nan 2nd Trump administration. | Democracy Now!
• “It is nan daily, diaristic churn that gives her unloosed first caller nan consciousness of a afloat textured fictional world.” Anne Enright examines nan narration betwixt Helen Garner’s fabrication and her diaries. | London Review of Books
• “What’s undeniable is that 4chan helped shape nan contented ecosystem arsenic we cognize it.” Kyle Chayka connected nan life, death, and disastrous bequest of nan infamous imageboard. | The New Yorker
• “Allowing re-creation of known stories by caller authors gives these monsters an afterlife of their own, leaving lasting impacts connected nan genre for decades, aliases moreover hundreds of years to come.” Olivia Pavao connected nan nationalist domain arsenic scary hero. | Public Books
• Gina Gagliano catches up pinch comics publishers 4 months aft primitively talking to them astir the effects of Trump’s tariffs connected their work. | The Comics Journal
• Zoe Dubno considers Shulamith Firestone’s Airless Spaces and how capitalism makes america each miserable. | The Nation

Also connected Lit Hub:

Forrest Gander talks to Poets.org • Milo Todd connected tracing and preserving trans history • Alok A. Khroana examines William Dalrymple’s The Golden Road • Read “Shots Fired connected New Year’s Eve,” a poem by Ali Black • Harry Bliss and his adjacent encounters with Sy Hersh • Resurrecting Murray Kempton, a forgotten American journalist • Reimagining movies as vintage book covers • Recovering World War II’s stolen and looted artworks • Nin Andrews connected writing a memoir astir her father • Shelby Van Pelt remembers her first penning people • Guadalupe Nettel connected capturing nan surreal successful nan time to day • Zoe Roth examines Charlotte Beradt’s The Third Reich of Dreams • The literate movie and TV coming to streaming successful May • April’s champion reviewed books • Courtney Gustafson explores casual misogyny successful animal rescue • These are April’s champion book covers • Get fresh for April paperbacks • How London’s Great Plague of 1666 paved nan way for modern investigation • The astir anticipated May audiobooks • My mean, rich, basking ex-friend is a mediocre literate darling and I dislike it • Dive into the history of surf literature • 5 book reviews you request to publication this week • The humanities domiciled of shot successful Black communities • Lauren Haddad sings nan praises of Twin Peaks • Ancient Rome’s most celebrated emperors • On nan Lit Hub Podcast: Leaving Twitter, publishing poetry, and talking about… men who read? • Ten caller universe-expanding children’s books • New poesy collections are coming successful May • On being both a genitor and a memoirist • This month’s SFF brings stories of queer futures