TODAY: In 1930, Shel Silverstein is born.

• Jonathan Lethem talks to Jane Ciabattari about writing, revising, and seeing the world through a Marxist lens. | Lit Hub In Conversation
• On the time Bruce Lee trained with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: “Both were focused on fundamentals, preparation, and what worked.” | Lit Hub Sports
• “Although Pynchon is eighty-eight years old, his intellect, at least on the evidence of this book, remains undiminished.” 5 book reviews you need to read this week. | Book Marks
• Lyndal Roper explains what the German Peasants’ War reveals about class and power in 16th-century Europe, from her Cundill Prize-shortlisted Summer of Fire and Blood. | Lit Hub History
• Steven Haddock and Sönke Johnsen meditate on the illusive beauty of iridescent sea creatures. | Lit Hub Nature
• “Yesterday I went to my aunt’s funeral. She was my father’s older sister.” Read “The Funeral” from Mahreen Sohail’s new story collection, Small Scale Sinners. | Lit Hub Fiction
• “At first, it seemed important to me that the language we used reflect the horror of what was happening. But I was defeated in trying to secure the most basic changes.” Ismail Ibrahim recounts the experience of being the only Arab American staffer at a prestigious liberal magazine, post-October 7. | Bidoun
• Naomi Levine considers Stendhal’s relatively unknown Love, which captivated Marcel Proust, Simone Weil, W. G. Sebald, and others with its theory of romantic obsession. | Public Books
• “That’s Thomas Bernhard’s genius: a spiral is the perfect style for writing self-hatred.” Greta Rainbow on the Bernhardaissance. | Dirt
• “But the anti-trans hysteria that has swept through the United States over the past few years would never have found so much purchase without the participation of elite liberal political and media institutions.” How the media (and politicians) has failed trans people. | The Nation
• Zadie Smith’s long-standing advice for essay composition. | The New Yorker
• “The warmth of the sun was a joy for most of human history; we’re programmed to smile when the sun comes out from behind a cloud and warms our shoulder blades.” On the fragile relief of shade. | Broadcast