It’s the birthday of German author Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), best known for his anti-Semitic work Mein Kampf (My Struggle) and as the embodiment of all evil.

Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and received some fairly eviscerating reviews and a big thumbs down in 1940 from George Orwell. Benito Mussolini claimed he found it too boring to get through. After World War II, the Allied Forces gave the copyright to the state of Bavaria, who said, “We will not be reprinting *that* particular book, thank you very much,” and banned all reprints. But the copyright expired in 2015, and the work entered the public domain. German publisher Andreas Wirsching, director of the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich (IfZ), brought out an academic edition in 2016, with critical notes by scholars. The reissuing of Mein Kampf has been controversial, and some have worried that the brisk sales—85,000 copies in its first year—reflect a return in Germany to the inflammatory values of the work. However, Wirsching, who brought the book out partly to pre-empt less responsible editions, points out that the book is largely being bought by historians, libraries, and schools. Furthermore, 85,000 copies does not reflect a true non-fiction bestseller.

The IfZ edition has a plain white cover, with no annoying little mustache in evidence, and no swastika. (Nazi symbols are banned in Germany.)

To clear the palate: it’s also the birthday of American novelist Steve Erickson (b. 1950), whose fiction falls somewhere in surrealist avant-pop sci-fi fantasy postmodernist land. Praised by the likes of Thomas Pynchon, Neil Gaiman, Haruki Murakami, and others, Erickson—not to be confused with Canadian author Steven Erikson—has received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature (2010) and a host of other awards. He’s published ten novels, the most recent of which is Shadowbahn (2017), in which the Twin Towers reappear 20 years after 9/11 in the Badlands of South Dakota.

Have a brilliant Friday, read something truly worth reading, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.