Lit Hub Daily: June 6, 2019

• “However grim the global picture, there’re battles to be fought and won for the good.” Robert Macfarlane talks to Andrew Ervin about finding hope in the world’s darkest places. | Lit Hub
• The case against R. Kelly is a case against us: Treva Lindsey on Jim DeRogatis’s unflinching look at R. Kelly. | Lit Hub
• Love is patient, love is kind, sometimes love is a slant rhyme: the optimist’s guide to what to read at your wedding. | Lit Hub
• “I am black and reflective.” Keith S. Wilson and Jericho Brown talk truth, tradition, form, and more. | Lit Hub
• When we read the Bible as literature, do we retain its truths? Jay Parini on John Barton’s new History of the Bible. | Lit Hub
• “With grief, there is no right or wrong—it just is. So much of life just is.” Kim Hooper on the heavy toll of miscarriage on a marriage. | Lit Hub
• The story of Britain’s first woman soccer player, the impeccably named Nettie J. Honeyball. | Lit Hub
• Justin Torres on Ocean Vuong’s debut novel, Leslie Jamison on Miriam Toews’ Women Talking, and more of the Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• On the 75th anniversary of that fateful landing, renowned WWII historian James Holland recommends the five best books about D-Day. | Book Marks
• Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls: a willy-nilly skip through a personality-devoid life OR a punch-to-the-heart reminiscence?. | Book Marks
• All the crime podcasts you need to listen to this summer, recommended by podcast correspondent Emily Rose Stein. | CrimeReads
• “The challenge was not getting a book into print, but convincing the thing that writes that it is possible to publish a book without going insane.” Helen DeWitt on writing, reading, and the uses of language. | Full Stop
• Fifty queer writers on their favorite LGBTQ books. | O
• “There is no such thing as historical destiny. Struggle is all.” Alexander Hemon on the complicated history of Yugoslavia—and the history of his family. | The New Yorker
• Sure, there are the odd genius loners, but writers are more prolific when they cluster. | City Lab
• William Blake, radical abolitionist: on the poet’s “vigorous denunciation of both slavery and racism.” | JSTOR
• “Sojourning in a chateau can’t be nearly as much fun as sojourning in a château.” On the future of accented characters in English. | The Week

Also on Lit Hub: On The Maris Review, Nicole Dennis-Benn talks to Maris about the idealistic fantasies of Jamaica and America • Selahattin Demirtaş on writing from a Turkish high-security prison • Why cities lose in winner-takes-all elections • Read from De’Shawn Charles Winslow’s debut novel, In West Mills.