Lit Hub Weekly: August 12 - 16, 2019

• “I annoy everyone around me by observing out loud what everyone already knows.” Sarah M. Broom on coming of age—and learning to see—in New Orleans. | Lit Hub Memoir
• Maggie Paxson on the French village that saved hundreds fleeing Nazi persecution. | Lit Hub History
• From Alexander Jessup to Anna March, the Summer of (literary) Scam has been going on forever. | Lit Hub Craft and Criticism
• Ron Charles on Téa Obreht’s revisionist western, Angela Flournoy on Sarah Broom’s New Orleans memoir, Sloane Crosley on Olga Tokarczuk’s feminist crime tale, and more of the reviews you need to read this week. | Book Marks
• Madeline Stevens on the strange intimacies, unspoken rules, and warped social world of nannying. | CrimeReads
• Bridget Jones and Thomas Cromwell feature on this list of the 25 most important characters of the past 25 years (along with Pikachu, The Rock, and Milkshake Duck). | Slate
• “Every year, I get goosebumps.” A high school English teacher on sharing Toni Morrison’s Beloved with his students. | The Atlantic
• The 1962 African Writers Conference was a historic meeting of some of the world’s most prominent African authors. Since then, massive literary gatherings throughout the continent haven’t been as popular—until recently. | Quartz Africa
• “Of all the things I did not expect to see on the barricades outside San Juan’s Justice Department after midnight, it was a boy blowing a shofar at the cops.” Molly Crabapple reports from Puerto Rico. | NYRB
• What were people reading in the summer of ‘69? Jacqueline Susann, The Godfather, and a little book by a medical student named Michael Crichton. | The New York Times Book Review
• “It was this recuperative alchemy that defined soul, as a music and an ethos”: How the music of the “High Priestess” of soul, Nina Simone, shaped Toni Morrison’s approach to fiction. | The New Yorker
• “Charlie Chaplin was adamant that the true author ‘had an aristocratic attitude’ and wasn’t a glover’s son.” On the weird world (and celebrity endorsements) of Shakespeare conspiracy theories. | Inside Hook
• From Circe to Baba Yaga (and many, many more)—the witch in literature has made a stunning resurgence. Why now? | The Guardian
• “Like twin moons, wife and marmoset closely orbit their beloved Leonard, Virginia often provoking Mitz to little fits of jealousy.” On Sigrid Nunez, Virginia Woolf, and the literary marmoset. | The Paris Review
• Why hikers on the Appalachian Trail love fantasy novels—how they might make the hikes a little easier. | Outside
• “It isn’t the great book I had hoped it would be. It’s just a run-of-the-mill book.” How The Grapes of Wrath came to be. | The Guardian
• The New York Public Library’s two stone lions, Patience and Fortitude, are getting a ($250,000) bath—with lasers. | Gothamist
• A new literary timeline of African-American history, as brought to life by work by Barry Jenkins, Yusef Komunyakaa, Eve L. Ewing, Jesmyn Ward, ZZ Packer, Yaa Gyasi, and many more. | The New York Times Magazine
• “I put 1,400 pages in the trash.” Read an interview with Téa Obreht. | TIME
• Let us now praise pretty, pretty books. | The Washington Post

Also on Lit Hub:

“Touch base,” “least worst option,” and more Americanisms the British can’t bloody stand • Fifty years on from Woodstock, take a look at some of Jim Marshall’s iconic photos of the festival • Isabelle Davis on the power of sex in romance novels • Where have all the pirates gone? • Ibram X. Kendi on the arbitrary hierarchies upon which racism is built • Lawrence Weschler remembers his dear friend Oliver Sacks • Sorry, old white guys: turns out, vocal fry has “a unique history and specific social utility” • Do we care enough about animals to save them from extinction?• Susan Harlan on the bittersweet feeling of reconnecting with a forgotten language • Sean Gandert on loathing, leaving and coming to love Albuquerque • David Carlin on absent fathers, missing histories, and the intoxicating other worlds of the encyclopedia • In the era of prepackaging, India’s community cookbooks are having a quiet renaissance • Six books you should read about the multifaceted Lone Star State • Sister Helen Prejean on leaving home, and life before Dead Man Walking • On the tragicomic farce of faking it in the lab • Lyz Lenz on seeking darkness, finding new creation myths, and hitting the road • Roy Jacobsen on the sagas of Iceland • The very first books published by some of your favorite publishing houses • Rebecca Makkai in conversation on the HIV/AIDS activism in 1980s Chicago • The one-star Amazon reviews of Lolita include some “thoughtful, productive, and intellectually complex” arguments

Best of Book Marks:

Absalmon! Absalmon!: William Faulkner’s 1952 review of The Old Man and the Sea • In the Country of Women author Susan Straight recommends five great memoirs about mixed-race families, from Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime to Luís Alberto Urrea’s Nobody’s Son • This week in Secrets of the Book Critics: Erica Wagner on anti-nostalgia memoirs and Walt Whitman at 200 • Téa Obreht’s revisionist western, Olga Tokarczuk’s murderous fairy tale, and Sarah M. Broom’s New Orleans memoir all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

New on CrimeReads:

Howard Michael Gould guides through the most criminally underappreciated cult classics of 1970s cinema • David Handler on the life and work of Geoffrey Homes, the godfather of film noir • From Becky Sharpe to Miss Marple, Louisa Treger celebrates 10 women in literature who make their own way • Marlowe Benn rounds up 7 mysteries by, about, and for bibliophiles • Sherri Smith on 7 of the wellness industry’s worst criminals • Former undercover FBI agent and crime writer Dana Ridenour on the 5 best true crime memoirs of going undercover • 6 new true crime books to check out this August • 50 years after the death of Brian Jones, conspiracy theories abound• Elizabeth Macneal on 5 villains that inspire complicated reactions from readers • Matthew Farrell on 6 psychological thrillers featuring psychiatric professionals