“Why take a cast of a dead person’s face when so many people cannot bear to look at the dead body at all?” Hayley Campbell considers the many lives of death masks throughout history. | Lit Hub History
Locked in the attic (again): Gwendolyn Kiste on the gothic horror of a post-Roe America. | Lit Hub Politics
“Where power seeks to obstruct and exploit language, Robin D. G. Kelley creates room for the unlanguagable.” Aja Monet on Kelley and the ongoing struggle for Black liberation. | Lit Hub Politics
From air quality sensors to facial recognition, John Lorinc looks at the benefits and pitfalls of “smart cities.” | Lit Hub Tech
Jeff Abbott on resurrecting a beloved character. | CrimeReads
Somali poet Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame—better known as Hadraawi—has died at 79. | The Guardian
Lincoln Michel examines the claim that “scandalous” books of years past would never be published today. | Counter Craft
“I read the book as a critique of machismo. Machismo is self-romanticizing, after all, whereas everything about Tripticks reads like a subversion or parody of self-romance.” Danielle Dutton on Ann Quin’s Tripticks. | The New Yorker
A group in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, is trying to pre-emptively ban hundreds of books from its library. | NBC News
Naseem Jamnia lists five science fiction and fantasy books that take place in queernormative worlds. | Tor.com
A Texas school district may require parental permission to check out library books. | Houston Chronicle
Also on Lit Hub: Where are all the black boxers in fiction? • Why writers should work in used bookstores • Read from Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel, Babysitter
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