TODAY: In 1899, Canadian folklorist Helen Creighton is born.
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“The more closely one scrutinizes The Lord of the Rings, the more extraordinarily metafictional it appears.” Nick Groom wonders, is Tolkien’s mediaevalist fantasy really a work of modernism? | Lit Hub Criticism
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26 new books to kick off your September. | The Hub
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“A handmade book, a sensual object.” Kathleen B. Jones on the beauty of physical encounters with rare books. | Lit Hub
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Elaine Equi considers how reading and writing poetry puts us in touch with something bigger than ourselves. | Lit Hub Poetry
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James Hanaham talks to Kwaneta Harris, a writer who’s been in solitary confinement for over seven years, about incarceration, representation in literature, carceral censorship, and more. | Lit Hub In Conversation
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Edith Grossman, translator of Cervantes and García Márquez, among others, has died at 87. | The New York Times
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A letter from Ernest Hemingway to his lawyer, detailing his injuries from two plane crashes in as many days, has sold at auction for $237,055. | NPR
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“Amid the misfires alpha male nationalism engendered, some of the poems radiate a power that has grown over time.” Esther Allen revisits Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton’s Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle. | Poetry
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Can artificial intelligence allow us to speak to other species? Elizabeth Kolbert explores the possibilities. | The New Yorker
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“It is in part the directness and mercilessness of her texts that have made her controversial.” Gunnhild Øyehaug on Sharon Olds. | The Paris Review
Also on Lit Hub: Nine essential books about the American frontier • New poetry from Mary Jo Bang • Read from Sheena Patel’s debut novel, I’m a Fan