TODAY: In 1870, Charles Dickens dies at 58.
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“I felt that the real barrier between us was that between the cradle Catholic and the convert.” Why Graham Greene and Anthony Burgess went from literary friends to enemies. | Lit Hub Biography
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Between the river and the sea: Randall Sullivan on surviving a near-death experience on the Columbia River. | Lit Hub Nature
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Aisha Abdel Gawad on coming of age as a Muslim American in an age of digital surveillance: “I’m no longer trying to prove myself as good or moderate. Now I’m just mad and weary.” | Lit Hub Politics
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Diary of a radical activist: moving through the trees at night (to save the forests). | Lit Hub Nature
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Jane Ciabattari recounts a weekend of literary camaraderie at the 2023 Bay Area Book Festival. | Lit Hub
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Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos, Deborah Levy’s August Blue, and Frieda Hughes’s George: A Magpie Memoir all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
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What would the world look like if something we’ve become used to were no longer around? The first episode of a new podcast from Omar El Akkad looks at sand. | Without
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Joyce Maynard on why you should travel with things you love (in her case, a sequin dress, handmade cowboy boots, and a vintage jacket.) | WSJ
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Jennifer Kahn profiles mycologist, author, and “holistic scientist” Merlin Sheldrake. | The New York Times Magazine
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There’s still time for you to understand the Anne Carson discourse. | The Hub
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“Everything felt blurred, moving much faster all around me than I could parse. I was still screaming her name, begging her to answer, to be okay, but my voice just disappeared into the strangling silence.” Read an excerpt from Blake Butler’s Molly. | The Paris Review
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Considering what Canada’s content mandates, intended to protect the country’s culture from “the encroaching power of its southern neighbour by mandating a certain percentage of homegrown TV and radio,” mean for artists. | The Walrus
Also on Lit Hub: What math can teach us about the stage • Samantha Leach on the questions left in the wake of a friend’s death • Read from Happy Stories, Mostly (tr. Tiffany Tsao).