Lit Hub Daily: July 29, 2026

THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET

TODAY: In 1900, writer, and bibliographer, and noted collector of erotic literature Henry Spencer Ashbee dies.

• How is a fascination with Sylvia Plath like a fascination with true crime? Sarai Walker explores obsession, ownership, and Plath worship. | Lit Hub Biography
• “Even as a toddler, I’m awed by the mountains.” Emilee Hackney traces family history alongside the rise and fall of the Appalachian coal industry. | Lit Hub History
• How psychedelics went from being countercultural targets of the war on drugs to the next big thing in industrialized wellness. | Lit Hub Health
• Imogen Willetts traces the history and rebellion of a good night out. | Lit Hub History
• People in the middle ages had some interesting ideas about healthy eating. | Lit Hub Food
• The impact of colonization westward expansion on California’s abalone, sea otters, and other marine wildlife. | Lit Hub Nature
• “They are running again. Deep into the seam of the Wisconsin woods, through the gaps in the spruces and pines. Along the golden jog of the creek.” Read from Thao Thai’s new novel, The Seekers of Deer Creek. | Lit Hub Fiction
• “The rot in the whole system of governance, from top to bottom, is clearly visible and has begun to stink like a decomposing corpse.” Arundhati Roy writes a dispatch from Delhi’s student-led protests. | Equator
• Elon Musk is threatening to unleash his own “historically accurate” (lol) version of The Odyssey, created by his AI platform Grok Imagine. | The Conversation
• “The paradox of psychoanalysis is that it asks us to regard symptoms not only as ailments and dysfunctions but, in a positive sense, as warped and furtive forms of freedom.” On Kafka, Freud, and rebellion. | Pas Tout
• Why Ann Scott’s recently translated Superstars is a reminder of pre-internet night life in a moment when “these days, raving is held to great expectations.” | The Nation
• How Jean Marc Ah-Sen recovered from divorce, one old cartoon at a time. | The Comics Journal
• What are big booksellers doing to deal with AI-generated books? | The New York Times

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