Lit Hub Daily: August 29, 2023

TODAY: In 1992, English children’s book author Mary Norton, best known for the Borrowers series, dies at 88.    

• How legendary editor George Weidenfeld got Nabokov’s Lolita published in an era of obscenity laws. | Lit Hub History

• 20 new books to pick up from your local indie. | The Hub

• Against monoliths: Megan Kamalei Kakimoto on the many ways to tell a Hawaiian story. | Lit Hub

• “I’d rather have a flux than a period, I think. At least nouns like flux and flow can be turned into usable verbs.” On the etymology of periods. | Lit Hub

• What to read when you’re expecting (a baby). | Lit Hub Reading Lists

• Louise Hare recommends 7 great crime novels set in Harlem. | CrimeReads

• Helen Lewis digs into the absurdity of blurbs (and coins the unforgettable term blurblejerk.) | The Atlantic

• Deanna Kreisel details some ghostly encounters of the literary kind. | 3 Quarks

• “Chagrin, in Margo Jefferson’s hands, is a flashlight aimed down a dark path, illuminating the way forward.” R.E. Hawley on criticism after #MeToo. | The Point

• Lincoln Michel considers the similarities and differences between fantastic modes, from surrealism to contemporary fantasy. | Counter Craft

• “It’s the falling out of love that moves the narrative forward, because singledom, as Rachel quips, is where plot exists.” Dilara O’Neil on Nora Ephron’s divorce plot. | The Nation

Also on Lit Hub: Angie Kim on measures of happiness • On the ancient genre of garden poems • Read from Lars Iyer’s latest novel, My Weil