TODAY: In 1849, Edgar Allan Poe is found delirious in a Baltimore gutter under mysterious circumstances. This is the last time he is seen in public before his death.
- So, you want to read some horror? Here’s a spooky season starter kit for the genre-curious. | Lit Hub Genre
- “Despite decades of sedimented violence, the narrative of Bangladesh has been, for at least the past 15 years, a patramyth.” On the power of graffiti in protest. | Lit Hub Politics
- Are you the asshole if you think someone else in your book club is an asshole? Kristen Arnett answers this awkward question and more! | Lit Hub Craft
- Liesl Schillinger on what the Supreme Court could learn from Siena, the 14th century Italian city state. | Lit Hub History
- “This maximalist approach to storytelling relies on astounding powers of memory and invention.” 5 book reviews you need to read this week. | Book Marks
- “The switch is not just between words, syntax, and grammar. It’s of something fundamental and rooted in my core.” Sayantani Dasgupta on living between three languages. | Lit Hub Memoir
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On finding purpose and joy in raising sheep: “My existence had an aim and my incompleteness was ended. I let go of my sadness. It was a new-found freedom.” | Lit Hub Nature
Article continues after advertisement - In praise of how chowder builds warm, cozy, and delicious communities. | Lit Hub Food
- Dan Jones on the palace intrigue behind Henry V and the battle for England’s throne. | Lit Hub History
- “The most pivotal thing to happen in the weeks that followed was the drumming; no, the most pivotal thing to happen in the weeks that followed was the dances; no, the most pivotal thing…” Read from Yuri Herrera’s novel Season of the Swamp, translated by Lisa Dillman. | Lit Hub Fiction
- Susie Mesure on the Appalachian literature that’s truer than Hillbilly Elegy. | Prospect
- “To me, Coates’s calm in the face of the anchor’s aggression and willful misinterpretation of his work reminded me of the Passover parable of the four sons.” Meredith Shiner on why attacks on Ta-Nehisi Coates demonstrate the failures of media. | The New Republic
- Scholastique Mukasonga on the Rukarara River and the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda. | The Paris Review
- A new (and very different) celebrity/author collaboration is coming: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben wrote a novel together. | The Guardian
- “Desert looking disconnects us from temporal expectations we’ve developed in an age of spectacle.” Forrest Gander considers the desert. | Orion
- Nick Ripatrazone on Carl Phillips’ relentless questioning. | Poetry
