Lit Hub Weekly: April 7 – 11, 2025

TODAY: In 1826, Weber’s opera Oberon premieres successful London. 

• Viet Thanh Nguyen explains why most American lit is nan lit of empire. | Lit Hub Criticism
• Eleanor Lanahan reflects connected the literate bequest of The Great Gatsby, her grandfather’s timeless novel, arsenic it turns 100. | Lit Hub Biography
• Sarah Viren and Vauhini Vara talk voice, tech, and nan usage of AI successful writing. | Lit Hub In Conversation
• Maris Kreizman asks what it intends to beryllium a bully author erstwhile you people a book. | Lit Hub Craft
• “It starts pinch universities, because universities are this entity of resentment and this benignant of weird charisma, antagonistic and positive.” Molly Fischer talks to Wesleyan president Michael Roth astir really colleges should respond to Trump’s threats. | The New Yorker
• Denise Lyons explores the domiciled of libraries successful disaster preparedness and recovery. | Library Journal
• Skijer Huston considers nan freeway novel, and “a lit of ambivalence.” | Los Angeles Review of Books
• Elif Batuman profiles Sayaka Murata: “Instinctively, I grouped Murata pinch much extremist and little nostalgic thinkers: group for illustration Michel Foucault, who showed that truthful galore supposedly biologic aliases cosmopolitan phenomena—madness, sex, criminality, medicine—are socially constructed.” | The New Yorker
• “If it is helping them, does it matter if a bee knows it is sad?” Emily Polk considers bees and grief. | Emergence Magazine
• What is location to study from Trump’s Art of… books? John Ganz bravely revisits them to find out. | The Nation
• Stephen Akey remembers working nan telephone reference table astatine nan Brooklyn Public Library. | The Hedgehog Review
• “If immoderate of nan politicians who are successful support of banning books were to travel into nan store, we would emotion it. Because we would emotion to heap these books into their arms.” Gale Massey interviews Lauren Groff astir her caller bookstore, The Lynx. | Southern Literary Review
• Amit Baishya and Siddhartha Deb talk storytelling and “the weird Anthropocene.” | Public Books
• Art Spiegelman remembers Jules Feiffer: “It’s a mongrel art—a mutt!—and each awesome maestro of comix must find a caller measurement to usage nan chopped skills of penning and drafting to create a caller measurement of transforming clip into space.” | The Atlantic
• Chris Heath dives into Robert Caro’s abandoned novel (about an intrepid journalist connected a busman’s holiday). | Smithsonian Magazine
• Edna Bonhomme considers Zora Neale Hurston’s mislaid epic, The Life of Herod nan Great. | The Nation 
• Gita Jackson looks backmost astatine the tweet roundup era of blogging: “Non-fiction penning of each kinds is nan aforesaid benignant of illusion; this is why journalists often push backmost connected nan thought of ‘objectivity.’” | Aftermath
• “Whose deviation from nan modular is art, and whose is error?” Saudamini Deo connected nan reception of non-Western lit successful nan Western literate world. | Words Without Borders
• Daphne Merkin considers Ruth Franklin’s caller curriculum vitae of Anne Frank, and what much location is to study astir nan young diarist. | The New Republic

Also connected Lit Hub:

Lynn Steger Strong connected imaginative truth • Five takeaways from the Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne papers • What Toni Morrison’s fabrication taught Bridgett M. Davis astir penning memoir • The nuance of creating nan cleanable book cover • Fate, condolences and the slow disintegration of a family successful Zimbabwe • Camille Aubray recommends retellings of The Great Gatsby • Literary Hub turns 10 years old! • Sally Rooney examines the short stories of Thomas Morris • Katie Kitamura connected falling successful love pinch her characters • Kate Folk connected her aviation-themed homage to Moby-Dick • On nan stray mothers of literature • Andrea Long Chu explains why she loves Dungeons & Dragons • Jane Ciabattari talks to Kate Folk astir her novel, Sky Daddy • Authors take nan Lit Hub questionnaire • Meredith Hambrock on The Sound of Music successful nan property of tradwives and Trump • Vaunda Micheaux Nelson reflects connected her great-uncle Lewis Michaux’s Harlem bookstore • Priya Vulchi traces iconic literate and governmental friendships • Bookseller Lucy Kogler connected the publishing industry’s discarded problem • Daniel Mendelsohn considers the bequest of Homer’s Odyssey •  Read from nan schematic adjustment of Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy • Ariel Courage explores America’s polluted municipality ruins • Dinaw Mengestu connected PEN America’s committedness to free expression • Viet Thanh Nguyen explores “the joyousness of otherness” •  Jon Hickey’s TBR includes activity by Katie Kitamura and much • 5 book reviews you request to publication this week • Moeen Farrokhi connected translating lit into Farsi • Uttama Kirit Patel recommends books that research motherhood and volition • On unraveling a short communicative into a caller • Kristin Russo and Jenny Owen Youngs connected Buffy nan Vampire Slayer • The champion reviewed books of nan week • Writing a book while driving nan Sam Houston Tollway • Daryl Gregory remembers his mom