LitHub Daily: October 14, 2015

• The National Book Award shortlists have been announced; but who has the best cover? Allow us to judge these worthy books on looks alone. | NPR, Literary Hub
• The efficiently organized bedlam of the Frankfurt Bookfair begins today. Apparently Hitler will be there, and the German literary scene is analogous to a serial killer. | Literary Hub
• Congratulations to Marlon James, who has won this year’s Man Booker Prize for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings. | The Man Booker Prize
• Why do readers continue to revere Thoreau, a narcissistic jerk, and Walden, “the original cabin porn?” | The New Yorker
• “I simply do not believe that literature is about inflicting pain, choosing elites, or providing utility.” Scott Esposito defends un-difficult literature. | Entropy
• Two literary investigations of political repression and sexuality, brought to you by Canada’s pioneer of speculative fiction (Margaret Atwood) and France’s “enfant terrible and dirty old man” (Michel Houellebecq). | The Atlantic
• Luc Sante reviews Richard McGuire’s Here, a graphic novel set in the corner of a living room and spanning from 3,000,500,000 B.C. to A.D. 22,175. | The New York Times
• From Odysseus’s encounters with witches to Gothic romance, a history of pre-Poe horror. | Flavorwire
• “I really miss modernism.” Sarah Nicole Prickett on control, dualities, and the fiction of Henry Mathews, written like gossip. | Hazlitt
• “She paused to look at her reflection in the black-tinted windows. Ungodly!” A short story by Sarah Levine. | Storychord

Also on Literary Hub: Paul Holdengraber and Claudia Rankine talk race, hope, and getting pulled from a security line at Heathrow, in episode 4 of A Phone Call From Paul · Read a selection from Garth Risk Hallberg’s massive debut, City on Fire · Five books making news this week: Nobel, Booker, Hallberg, and the great Patti Smith · The story of Virginia Pye’s grandmother, an American widow alone in 1930s China  · A poem by Wayne Koestenbaum · Why the printed book will last another 500 years · A story by William H. Gass