TODAY: In 1957, A California Superior Court judge rules that Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” is of “redeeming social importance” and therefore not obscene.
- “I found it hard to articulate the way a word could take up space in a body.” Sarah Viren talks to Alex Niemi, translator of Laura Vazquez‘s The Endless Week. | Lit Hub On Translation
- Christopher Spaide recommends new poetry collections coming in October by Gbenga Adesina, Cameron Awkward-Rich, and more. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- Lily King’s Heart the Lover, Mariana Enriquez’s Somebody is Walking on Your Grave, and Souvankham Thammavongsa’s Pick a Color all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. | Book Marks
- Thea Riofrancos on the astonishing biodiversity in the Atacama Salt Flat and the environmental cost of green capitalism. | Lit Hub Climate Change
- Andrew Ervin looks for answers to (impossible) questions about American democracy in recent books by Luke Kemp and Richard Mabey. | Lit Hub Politics
- Gaar Adams chronicles queer life in Abu Dhabi, from concerts to karaoke bars. | Lit Hub Memoir
- Sarah Mesle explores the power in imagining your ideal reader: “Who is your girl? Where is she going?” | Lit Hub Craft
- “After Mother’s burial in a freakish sunshine that was followed by a violent purple hail, Brian and Conor filled in the grave with two long spades.” Read from Elaine Feeney’s novel, Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way. | Lit Hub Fiction
- “The postcolonial future would, more often than not, be ruled by Mobutus, not Lumumbas.” Sandipto Dasgupta on the life and work of “anticolonialist luminary” Andrée Blouin. | Boston Review
- Gavin Francis considers two recent books that explore the “elusive work” of psychiatric care. | New York Review of Books
- Ashley Stimpson on the beauty and resilience of swamplands, and the importance of protecting them. | Longreads
- “This AI slop is just harvesting the remnants of legacy journalism, insulting the legacies of the dead and intellectually impoverishing the rest of us.” When AI-generated biographies capitalize on death and grief. | 404 Media
- Paul Reitter examines the (un)translatability of Kafka. | The Hedgehog Review
- Two De La Soul biographers discuss their different approaches to writing about the same group with Oliver Wang. | Los Angeles Review of Books
