Lit Hub Weekly: November 25 - 27, 2019

• Of Bohumil Hrabal’s six great loves, guess how many were cats? (Hint: almost all of them.) | Lit Hub Memoir
• The car culture that’s helping destroy the planet was by no means inevitable: on the relentless campaign to force Americans to accept the automobile. | Lit Hub History
• Here are the 78 best book covers of the year, according to the best designers in the industry. | Lit Hub Design
• Hilton Als on Joan Didion’s early novels, Daniel Woodrell on the stories of Larry Brown, disgruntled writers versus woke culture, and more of the Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
• As part of our celebration of the decade in books, we’re putting a spotlight on the rising stars of crime fiction. | CrimeReads
• Some historians believe playwright John Fletcher finished writing Henry VIII after Shakespeare died. With the help of machine learning, one academic claims to have shown which parts of the play were written by one or the other. | MIT Technology Review
• “In Didion’s fiction, the standard narratives of women’s lives are mangled, altered, and rewritten all the time.” Hilton Als on Joan Didion’s early novels of American womanhood. | The New Yorker
• “The truth is a constant negotiation between what the individual thinks and feels and what the rest of the world thinks and feels” On Meghan Daum, Wesley Yang, Bret Easton Ellis, and the “liberal backlash to woke culture.” | The New Republic
• “These proposals… connect us to the land and to the traditions that have sustained us since the beginning of civilization. And they are pleasurable.” Alice Waters introduces Wendell Berry’s 1989 essay “The Pleasures of Eating.” | Emergence Magazine
• “India isn’t by any means the worst, or most dangerous, place in the world—at least not yet—but perhaps the divergence between what it could have been and what it has become makes it the most tragic.” Arundhati Roy on the existential threat facing her country. | The Nation
• “Other people’s first novels were always going to be coming-of-age stories, and mine was always going to be about divorce.” Taffy Brodesser-Akner on writing about divorce as a still-married person. | Slate
• The debut novel by screenwriting heavyweight Charlie Kaufman, the mind behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Adaptation, is about a washed-up film critic who comes across a movie that’s… 3 months long. | Entertainment Weekly
• “We have still only seen the first sparks of the fire.” Parul Sehgal on a decade of women’s rage in literature. | The New York Times
• In praise of “the perfect New York bookstore,” Three Lives & Company. | The New York Times
• E-books at libraries have taken off, and publishers are not thrilled about it. | The Washington Post
• “Sometimes, Friendsgiving is a choice to do better; and, sometimes, it’s a choice to simply do something else.” Bryan Washington on the joys of this month’s other holiday. | The New Yorker
• Amazon is reducing its holiday orders from publishers, so why not buy your books directly from small presses? Here’s how to do it. | Chicago Tribune
• “If all you have is a wake-up call, that’s it, the moment passes, the media loses interest, moves on.” Margaret Atwood reflects on the past decade. | Vulture

Also on Lit Hub:

A literary adaptation for every Thanksgiving vibe • On reading John Cage in Reykjavik • Naguib Mahfouz’s daughter fights to preserve her father’s legacy • Five great small press audiobooks to gift anyone on your list • How two new books grapple with the ethics of parenthood • Alireza Taheri Araghi on stories of Iran told at a distance • On Pauline Kael’s controversial criticism of Citizen Kane • Kerri K. Greenidge on how William Monroe Trotter mobilized black Americans across class lines • On the storytelling legacies of Jay-Z and Rakim • The outsize impact of textiles on world history • Leila Taylor and M. Lamar discuss the long history of Afrogoth, from Toni Morrison to Kara Walker and beyond • Six novels that capture the gripping story of Detroit, past and present • Ian McKellen almost didn’t play Gandalf! • Thomas Lynch on “sin-eaters” and other bygone Catholic traditions • Allan Metcalf on the evolving legacy of Guy Fawkes • How to throw a shower for an important new arrival: your novel

Best of Book Marks:

New on CrimeReads:

V. M. Burns recommends six cozies about pets and poodles • 25 (more) crime novels short enough to finish in an afternoon • These food-themed cozy mysteries from Rosemarie Ross are perfect Thanksgiving reading • Margot Hunt looks at five villains who have had about enough of the domestic life • Ryan Steck rounds up six thrillers you have to read this month • Mauro Altamura signed up as an extra on ‘The Irishman’—he’d been struggling with the legacy of the Hoffa killing for 50 years • Michael Hughes on growing up during the Troubles • Lisa Preston rounds up six contemporary authors who channel their agrarian roots in crime fiction • Con Lehane and Randal Brandt talk detectives, the wonders of research libraries, and a real-life murder in the archives