Lit Hub Daily: April 25, 2024

TODAY: In 1938, George Orwell’s book Homage to Catalonia is published.   Which books are on Danielle Dutton’s nightstand? Diana Arterian takes a look. | Lit Hub Criticism Earl Swift on what a series of killings in rural Georgia reveals about the continuing regime of racial terror in the post-Civil War American South. | Lit Hub History “There are two kinds of novels about American life in the digital age: panoramas and selfies.” 5 book reviews you need to read this week. | Book Marks  “And so the beleaguered St. Lawrence beluga had a new enemy: the American showman.” On P.T. Barnum and animal welfare in 19th century America. | Lit Hub History Maris Kreizman explains why giant book preview lists might not be as helpful as readers think. | Lit Hub Criticism What is a wonder of the world, anyway? Bettany Hughes on the human need to map out monumental greatness. | Lit Hub History “She called me up and said the boy pushed his sister. You don’t hit girls. Certainly not my little girl. So I get in my station wagon and drive from Edgewood to Garfield to spank my son.” Read from Elwin Cotman’s story collection, Weird Black Girls. | Lit Hub Fiction Remembering Trina Robbins, cartoonist and legend of the underground comix movement. | The Comics Journal “And still, no one knew for sure what had become of Beit Nattif and the men left behind there.” Mohammad Tarbush on the displacement of his family after the Nakba. | Asymptote Renowned poetry critic Helen Vendler dies at 90. | The New York Times The debate continues: does The Tortured Poets Department constitute poetry? | Dazed Ryan Britt and J. Michael Straczynski on the legacy of one of speculative fiction’s most unforgettable (and controversial) voices: Harlan Ellison. | Inverse Vivian Gornick remembers the scene (and chocolate pudding) at New York lit world haunt Café Loup. | Grub Street