TODAY: In 1955, J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King, the final volume of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, is published.
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Ed Simon considers the cultural legacy of angels: “My suspicion is that there is a lot more leeway for those who believe in ghosts and specters, sprites and faeries, even demons, than there is to say that you believe in something as sentimental as angels.” | Lit Hub Religion
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“Satire dances on a knife’s edge between comedic commentary and complete disaster.” Eli Grober on the art of satire. | Lit Hub Craft
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“I began to see all of us who fail, destroy, and damage despite our best intentions.” Lessons from an art conservator’s biggest failure. | Lit Hub Memoir
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Teju Cole’s Tremor, Sly Stone’s Thank You, and Marie Ndiaye’s Vengeance is Mine all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
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“We cannot succeed if we cannot imagine (and articulate) vivid alternatives to apocalypse.” Karen Russell looks for hope amid climate catastrophe. | Esquire
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Kristen Roupenian considers A Haunting on the Hill, Elizabeth Hand’s “authorized follow-up” to The Haunting of Hill House, and the strange work of resurrecting a dead writer. | The New Yorker
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“I have always been bothered by memoir writers who are obviously making stuff up, but I am now also bothered by the possibility that we are all making it up, all the time.” Sallie Tisdale on memoir and memory. | Harper’s
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Michael Ledger-Lomas considers the field of literary biography and the search for wisdom in George Eliot. | The Point
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“Her professional focus is on bringing complex, ambiguous stories to the page.” Lauren Cappelle profiles Marie NDiaye. | The New York Times
Also on Lit Hub: On life during and after art school, from Lila Ash’s graphic memoir, Decodependence • A poem by Marisa Crawford • Read “The Endlings” by Tania James, from the last issue of Freeman’s
