Lit Hub Weekly: May 5 – 9, 2025

TODAY: In 1950, Belle da Costa Greene dies.  

• “More than that, governmental creation that seeks only to speak to this infinitesimal tends to flatten communicative successful its effort to beryllium relevant.” Kevin Nguyen doesn’t deliberation we request timely novels. | Lit Hub Politics
• After 20 years, Kazuo Ishiguro reflects connected nan decades-long process down Never Let Me Go. | Lit Hub Craft
• “The deeper problem isn’t conscionable astir fees. It’s astir nan personality of nan literate world.” Benjamin Davis investigates the emergence of nan submission business complex. | Lit Hub Book News
• Why lawyers emotion Jane Austen: “This powerfulness to persuade, erstwhile it does succeed, often forms nan cardinal cog to Jane Austen’s plots.” | Lit Hub Criticism
• Melina Moe considers Amanda Jones’ ​​That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning successful America, which attempts to reside some “the nationalist defamation of a librarian accused of willfully utilizing book action to pervert patrons, and nan broader mobility of really books should beryllium selected (and challenged) successful nationalist collections.” | Los Angeles Review of Books
• In nan property of A.I., Joshua Rothman wonders: “In really overmuch of our reasoning lives will we beryllium passengers, alternatively than pilots?” | The New Yorker
• “What is happening astatine this infinitesimal does not dictate what is going to beryllium happening tomorrow.” Angela Davis discusses Gaza, June Jordan, and solidarity. | Democracy Now!
• Sam Rosenfeld considers Who Is Government, Michael Lewis’ paean to civilian service, successful nan property of DOGE. | The New Republic
• “My theory: conscionable arsenic nan Janeite has lived a amended life, they will dice a amended death—perhaps not free from existential distress but much equipped to meet it.” Wendy Anne Lee ponders really Jane Austen prepares america for death. | Broadcast
• “I find its authorities detestable but its sound irresistible.” Vinson Cunningham mediates connected his love/hate narration pinch The New York Post. | The New Yorker
• Gabriel Mckee considers Mothman, UFOs, and Gray Barker’s bizarre and fascinating writing. | The MIT Press Reader
• Hari Kunzru connected wellness grifters, New Age conspiracies, and “do your ain research” successful times of fascism. | New York Review of Books
• “The dream of a narration unencumbered by reality is simply a dream of a poem unencumbered by prose.” Andrea Long Chu connected Ocean Vuong. | Vulture
• “Would we get a different position of translation, 1 that is some much illuminating and much appreciative, if we turned to translators themselves?” Lawrence Venuti connected why critics tin do amended erstwhile discussing translation. | Public Books
• Joe Sacco explains why he returned to comics publicity astir Palestine: “I cognize nan cities they’re bombing. I person friends there. I’ve written astir nan history of those places I’ve walked in.” | The Comics Journal
• “No satirist arrived astatine our dystopian infinitesimal amended prepared than Carl Hiaasen. The bad guys successful Hiaasen’s books person ever been vulnerable and mockable.” Dan Kois connected “the bard of Florida’s fever swamps.” | Slate
• Pete Wells considers revered cookbook writer Marcella Hazan’s culinary legacy. | The New York Times
• Lara-Nour Walton reports on nan NYPD’s astir caller wide apprehension of student protesters astatine Columbia. | The Nation
• Robert D Zaretsky explores nan history of swooning complete awesome art. | Aeon

Also connected Lit Hub:

Why nan ineligible occupation needs to guidelines up to Trump • Sarah Manguso and Liana Finck Challenging the depiction of children arsenic “adorable idiots” • A dispatch from Oliver Baez Bendorf, writer successful exile • 10 awesome May nonfiction books • Astrid López Méndez connected feeling guidance to poetry • A quality history of depicting dogs successful creation • Novels about female friendship • Charles Dickens’s own Dickensian puerility • Navigating a tumultuous narration with a father • What tin a instrumentality vessel reveal astir nan world economy? • Jemimah Wei discusses writing Singapore • Family, home, and really migration splits nan self • The extremist New York history behind hip-hop • Reality TV is rotting your encephalon • How British imperialism caused famine successful Ireland • The individual mythology of an orangish • On decentering whiteness successful literate spaces • The allure (and dilemma) of trunk literature • What’s a psoas? • How William Blake influenced Oscar Wilde’s circle • Michele Filgate connected navigating nonaccomplishment alongside her father • “Rivers are the veins of our mother, nan earth” • Excavating the women snipers of nan Red Army • Fusing investigation and filmmaking to constitute a caller • What tin beryllium done astir Trump’s devastating NEA cuts? • Becky Aikman connected the “Atta-Girls,” women pilots who chased adventure • Jennifer Hope Choi’s TBR pile • Gavin J. Grant and Anne Ursu connected chronic illness, writing, and family • Fourteen books connected Black motherhood by Black daughters • Amie Souza Reilly reflects connected “the creation monster” • Patrick Dougher remembers his punk stone stint moving astatine The Strand • Joy Harjo writes astir the aftermath of her mother’s decease • The intersections of traditional and modern parenting successful Kenya • The imaginative power of going for a locomotion • Globe-spanning books connected World War II