THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1923, Italo Calvino is born.
- “But you are making plans / without a future and my now / is twisted into your crying.” Read “Entanglements,” a poem by Ursula K. Le Guin about cats. | Lit Hub Poetry
- Anna North explores literature of the Roman Empire (and how learning Latin can help untangle history from the present). | Lit Hub Craft
- How Silicon Valley became a center of American authoritarianism: “Some of the tech leaders presented themselves as moderates, but they politicked and spoke like right-wing reactionaries, especially on social media.” | Lit Hub Politics
- Why don’t Americans talk about the Spanish-American War? “Not until the conflict in Cuba and the Philippines did America’s love of war become so bold that one can track the transformation.” | Lit Hub History
- Sonora Jha considers the challenges of satirizing a character who reminds her of herself. | Lit Hub Craft
- Kevin Wang on translating Terao Tetsuya’s Spent Bullets and the legacy of Taiwan. | Lit Hub On Translation
- Eli Rallo writes about avoiding the OB-GYN, OCD obsessions, and pretending to be okay. | Lit Hub Memoir
- “When Teresa first arrived, about a year back, she’d tried to smuggle in cocaine stuffed inside a ball of knitting yarn.” Read from Delaney Nolan’s new novel, Happy Bad. | Lit Hub Fiction
- Philipp Seuferling considers the deadly relationship between technology and borders. | Public Books
- On attending Lviv’s BookForum, the biggest book festival in Ukraine, amid Russian attacks. | The Guardian
- “Somehow Violet Lang barely seems to have been real; one can picture her passing into legend.” Anthony Lane explores the life and work of a debutant turned poet. | The New Yorker
- Examining the Portland Frog as a surreal symbol of protest: “I got maced in the air vent. Essentially, I coughed a little. Noticed a small hint of peppermint and just continued to be in my frog costume for another hour.” | 404 Media
- Cornell has dropped its discrimination case against a pro-Palestine professor, after being widely condemned by other faculty members. | The Nation
- “Lexicographers can only document change in the language. What people do with the language is out of their hands.” Stefan Fatsis documents the history of a slur. | Defector
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