Lit Hub Daily: November 7, 2024

“To be a mother was what a girl wanted then, and I did not.” Honor Moore on motherhood as a choice, not a destiny. | Lit Hub Memoir Dai George explains how Dylan Thomas made “the avant-garde sexy and immersive like no one else.” | Lit Hub Criticism Is protest a form of creative expression? Amber Massie-Blomfield explores the intersection of art and activism. | Lit Hub Politics Maris Kreizman finds a few silver linings among recent book trends. | Lit Hub Criticism “With this sly sleight of hand, Senna deftly scrambles hierarchies of race, class, and culture.” 5 book reviews you need to read this week. | Book Marks Malwina Gudowska considers illness and death through the lens of autocorrect: “I crave reflections on how a story of disease and mourning is written on both the body and the page.” | Lit Hub Health Sy Montgomery demystifies the complex world of breeding, studying, and bonding with chickens. | Lit Hub Food Christopher R. Browning on the unsettling similarities between contemporary American politics and the Nazi takeover of Germany: “How could the origins of a regime that was so catastrophic in its consequences have been so contingent?” | New York Review of Books “In his love for Austen’s work, we glimpse a Darwin less often discussed: one with a deep reverence for beauty, aesthetics and the arts.” On Jane Austen, Charles Darwin, and the nature of beauty. | Aeon Poet Emilie Menzel discusses transfiguration, storytelling as a means of healing, and queer mythology. | Full Stop Take a deep dive into all the literary references on The Cure’s new album. | Vulture “It can feel like there will never be any escape. The only one available to me as a writer is to tell the truth of this moment, over and over again, as it shifts and changes.” Kaitlyn Greenidge reflects on writing through a new reality. | Harper’s Bazaar Lia Galván Lisker recommends ten great contemporary Mexican novels, all written and translated by women. | Words Without Borders