TODAY: In 1908, In 1929, Scotland Yard seizes 13 paintings of male and female nudes by D. H. Lawrence from a Mayfair (London) gallery on grounds of indecency under the Vagrancy Act 1838.
- Actually, Ezra, nothing we write is all that new: Margot Livesey on literary homage, and writing in the shadow of tradition. | Literary Hub
- Rajpreet Heir has been going to the Indianapolis 500 her entire life, but this year, there was something different about America’s most famous race. | Literary Hub
- Maybe it’s time to let mythical Venice crumble into the sea. | Literary Hub
- Speaking with the surviving members of the Beat Generation, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, Diane di Prima, and Herbert Gold. | The Washington Post
- “In England it was viewed as a jolly good yarn, but they didn’t think of Gilead as something that was going to happen to them.” Margaret Atwood and Junot Díaz discuss The Handmaid’s Tale, our current political climate, and Drake. | The Boston Review
- On Octavio Paz’s 1974 book The Monkey Grammarian, which “best showcases the way his worldview was reshaped” by his time in India. | Los Angeles Review of Books
- On xenophobia, reading The Merchant of Venice, and confronting “the crueller strains of our cultural legacy.” | The New Yorker
- Wading into a “morally complex minefield”: On a new exhibition dedicated to Philip Larkin. | The Guardian
- “Maybe because I was a daughter, or because I was Baba’s daughter, Maman reserved all her austerity for me.” An excerpt from Dina Nayeri’s novel, Refuge. | Guernica
- Warner Bros. and the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien have settled an $80 millon lawsuit over merchandising, hopefully settling fans’ confusion over “seeing The Lord of the Rings associated with the morally questionable (and decidedly nonliterary) world of online and casino gambling.” | The New Yorker
Also on Lit Hub: Nick Ripatrazone’s high school fixation with aliens · Against foodies: lessons from eating out of the trash · Take a first look at We Shall Not All Sleep, Estep Nagy’s new novel.
