This week on the bookish internet

• Current science fiction is not all gloomy and doomed dystopias. Alyssa Hull writes about solarpunk and hopepunk, science fiction that gives us better versions of the future. (LitHub)
• We hear a lot about diverse stories, but Neha Patel reminds us that diverse covers matter, too. (Book Riot)
• Valerine Stivers cooks with Shirley Jackson…sans arsenic. (The Paris Review)
• Tim Dowling takes us behind the scenes with audiobook narrators. (The Guardian)
• Michael Schmidt discusses the scribe who (may have) saved The Epic of Gilgamesh for us by writing down his people’s epic. (LitHub)