Month: August 2022

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Judge Tosses Virginia Obscenity Cases, Declares State Law Unconstitutional

In a resounding victory for the freedom to read, a Virginia state judge on August 30 swiftly dismissed two closely-watched cases that sought to bar the public display and sale of two books alleged to be obscene under an obscure state law. Furthermore, in dismissing the cases the court struck down the Virginia law upon which the cases were brought, finding it unconstitutional. Read more

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Tess Gunty’s ‘The Rabbit Hutch’ Wins Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize

The Rabbit Hutch focuses on the residents of an affordable housing complex in the fictional rust-belt town of Vacca Vale, Indiana. Issues including poverty, gentrification and an inadequate care system are seen through the lens of Blandine, an “ethereally beautiful and formidably intelligent” young woman who is offered a chance to escape her surroundings. Read more

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‘A Very Old Man’ by Italo Svevo

A Very Old Man collects five linked stories, parts of an unfinished novel that the great Triestine Italo Svevo wrote at the end of his life, after the international success of Zeno’s Conscience in 1923. Here Svevo revisits with new vigor and agility themes that fascinated him from the start—aging, deceit, and self-deception, as well as the fragility, fecklessness, and plain foolishness of the bourgeois paterfamilias—even as memories of the recent, terrible slaughter of World War I and the contemporary rise of Italian fascism also cast a shadow over the book’s pages. Read more

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Reading While Incarcerated Saved Me. So Why Are Prisons Banning Books?

In Texas, books by Alice Walker, Pablo Neruda and even the former senator Bob Dole have been banned. Throughout the country, prison officials have rejected or tried to ban books about biology (too much nudity in the anatomical drawings), the Holocaust (some of the victims were pictured nude), sketching, dragons and even the moon (it could “present risks of escape,” according to one New York prison). At one point, Colorado prison officials blocked a prisoner from reading two of President Barack Obama’s memoirs because they were “potentially detrimental to national security,” although they later reversed that decision. Read more

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Denzel Washington Honors August Wilson’s Legacy at House Opening

The August Wilson House is not a museum. Instead, the restored space is a community center that will offer artist residencies, gathering spaces, fellowships and other programming for up-and-coming artists and scholars. There is also an outdoor stage behind the home, which is currently showcasing the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company’s production of Wilson’s play “Jitney” through Sept. 18. Read more

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