Why your writing soundtrack matters: “The factor that seems to unite everyone is a sense of repetition—no matter the style, writers will play the same songs over and over again to reach a kind of creative trance.” | Lit Hub Craft
Lawrence Wright’s Redemption, Walter Mosley’s Hanging & Burning, Lisa Hanawalt’s I Can’t Stop Thinking About Horses and Sex, and Blake J. Harris’s Emperor of Nothing: The Making of Larry David all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. | Book Marks
“In the performance at the Gate, she sang not only to her live audience but also to those who would hear the recording in the future.” It’s 1961, and you’re seeing Nina Simone live at the Village Gate. | Lit Hub Music
“You’ve gone to bed with the baby again, as I step / gingerly through the house, searching for quiet projects / I can take to completion and leave for you like origami.” Read “At the Dinner Table at Night,” a poem by Allen Guy Wilcox from the collection The Red Goose. | Lit Hub Poetry
What happened to Scientific American? Emmet Fraizer investigates the uncertain future (and messy recent past) of the beloved science publication. | The Nation
“Perhaps AI, then, is merely affirming what has always been the case: it’s easy enough to counterfeit writing that looks like writing but very hard to mint precise, memorable sentences.” On what AI exposes about human writing. | The Walrus