July 25, 2025

Today, we’re appreciating the literary value of pranks, rounding up the best reviewed books of the week, considering technoableism, and more!

On Lit Hub dot com:

Katie Yee explains what pranking the Lit Hub staff taught her about writing: “Both pranking and writing are exercises in careful observation.” | Lit Hub Craft
Alex Poppe considers her family’s history of immigration and why distinctions between expats, economic migrants, an refugees shouldn’t matter. | Lit Hub Politics
Michael Clune’s Pan, Barry Mazor’s Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story, and Linn Ullman’s Girl, 1983 all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. | Book Marks
Kalie Cassidy recommends books that explore the myths of sirens by Cassandra Khaw, Rose Sutherland, Emilia Hart, and more. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
“When an obsession comes that wants words to be art, you choose (or invent) whatever container will best display it.” Matthew Clark Davison and Alice LaPlante on the power of hybrid writing. | Lit Hub Craft
“On the Internet, she says, a new platform where students can log on and do homework together. From all over the world. It’s a lockdown thing.” Read from Linn Ullmann’s novel Girl, 1983, translated by Martin Aitken. | Lit Hub Fiction

“Technosolutionist approaches to disability as something that can be eradicated through technological innovation exacerbate existing forms of erasure by promising a future without disabled people.” Anya Heise-Von Der Lippe on disability erasure and technoablism. | Public Books
Rami Abu Jamous details the death of Obeida, one of hundreds of Palestinians murdered while waiting for aid distribution to feed his family. | The Nation
Brooklyn Public Library librarians recommend eight books to help you understand the present moment in America. | Electric Literature
Is Anita Loos’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes actually the Great American Novel? Why the undersung book deserves more appreciation. | The Paris Review
“In the shadow of rhetorical warfare and actual persecution, trans writing about sex has acquired a curiously contradictory character.” Emily Zhou explores memoirs of trans women’s sexualities. | Defector
What did Agatha Christie actually do that time she disappeared? As it turns out, we still don’t know. | JSTOR Daily