TODAY: In 1628, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, leaves a performance of Henry VIII by The King’s Men at the Globe Theatre after watching the play’s Duke of Buckingham beheaded. The character is not based on Villiers, but rather Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, who had been executed for treason in 1521. Villiers is assassinated less than a month later.
- M.V. Ramana on why nuclear power won’t solve the climate crisis. | Lit Hub Science
- Did you know that poetry used to be an actual Olympic event? (And that the first openly gay Olympic medalist was a poet?) | Lit Hub Sports (sort of)
- “So many of us won’t listen, or are afraid to listen. Maybe we do listen but don’t understand. Maybe we can’t hear them from inside our willing derangement.” Ashley Shelby on writing in the midst of climate grief. | Lit Hub Criticism
- Alex Espinoza, Questlove, and more! These are the best audiobooks of July. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- “Sail with seafarers, / travel with wanderers, / as they say in church.” Read new work by Ukrainian poet and soldier Artur Dron, translated by Yevheniia Dubrova and Hanna Leliv. | Lit Hub Poetry
- Sara Martin on lying about reading The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo: I thought I had earned the right to say I had read The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo because I’ve read so many things that no one has ever asked me about or will ever ask me about. | Lit Hub Memoir
- “The mine was in the high desert of central Nevada at 6,500 feet. It was thirty miles from the nearest ranch and fifty miles from the nearest town, Tonopah.” Read from Willy Vlautin’s new novel, The Horse. | Lit Hub Fiction
- “I listened, tried to understand what I couldn’t yet articulate. I’m still trying.” Momtaza Mehri reflects on the life and legacy of Sinéad O’Connor. | Granta
- Normal times: A chief deputy constable in Texas spent two years trying to bring felony charges against three librarians for distributing pornographic material like… The Bluest Eye. | NBC
- Jane Breakell on being a Muppet: “It’s funny how children’s media riles us. We all think we own it, that our own particular memory is the authentic one, and that any change is ruinous.” | The Paris Review
- “I learned how the need to see validation in another person’s eyes is universal; how kindness brings light into the world; how the smallest gesture, whether noble or cruel, can have unforeseeable consequences.” Peter Dubé on what cruising taught him about love. | The Walrus
- Gaza’s students on the loss of their universities: “My academic life was once bustling with activity…Now, I realize how truly fortunate I was to experience such bliss. I yearn for it all.” | The Nation
- The miniscule worlds of children’s book illustrator Loren Long. | The New York Times
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