TODAY: In 1923, Iraqi poet Nazik al-Malaika, the first Arabic poet to use free verse, is born.
- Ayobami Adebayo on writing infertility in a world that sees childlessness as a tragedy. | Literary Hub
- 100 books across America: fiction and nonfiction for every state in the union. | Literary Hub
- Young, gifted and black: on the politicization of Nina Simone. | Literary Hub
- Daniel Silva on seeing his thriller plots come to life in the real world. | Literary Hub
- On the obsessions of Gene Smith, legendary collector of downtown New York. | Literary Hub
- “Hawking’s prose is as informal and clear as his topics are profound.” Read a 1988 review of The Brief History of Time. | Book Marks
- Thomas E. Ricks on rewriting Churchill and Orwell and publishing’s “hidden middle stage, the offstage act of editing.” | The Atlantic
- When life hands you lemons, make a $300, 600-page coffee table book: Beyoncé will release How to Make Lemonade, a look behind the making of her most recent album, as part of a new limited-edition box set. | Los Angeles Times
- “(How many exclamation points do I have to use nowadays to come off as normal???)” Short fiction by Joshua Cohen. | WIRED
- “Vladimir Lenin . . . saw in the development of a black proletarian consciousness the greatest potential for revolution in America.” When the Harlem Renaissance came to the Soviet Union. | The New York Times
- The Village Voice, founded in 1955 (and distributed for free since 1996), is shutting down its weekly print edition. | Vulture
- “I’ve always felt very splintered and resistant to labels in a weird way.” Kaveh Akbar interviews Morgan Parker. | Divedapper
- How the post-Trump thirst for dystopian fiction is serving for readers as “a gateway to other books” from new authors—or in the activism/politics section. | Entertainment Weekly
Also on Lit Hub: Nadeem Aslam tackles the political complexities of Pakistan · How to spend a literary long weekend in Las Vegas · Read a selection from Paul Lynch’s latest novel, Grace.
