Lit Hub
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A daily literary website highlighting the best in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and criticism. https://linktr.ee/lithub_
Round out your weekend with some really iconic poetry. buff.ly/c09vEpp
The 32 Most Iconic Poems in the English Language
Today is the anniversary of the publication of Robert Frost’s iconic poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” a fact that spurred the Literary Hub office into a long conversat…
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Trying reading one of these in a single afternoon. We dare you. buff.ly/QP0HCkq
Short But Sweet: Nine Novellas To Read In a Single Afternoon
In anticipation of the publication of my novella, American Moon, I’ve been thinking a lot about the form. Novellas are tiny in the world of books, but they’re good for readers in a self-inflicted t…
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These LGBTQ+ children's books are ready to be read. buff.ly/iXqe66u
Explore a rare collection of LGBTQ+ children’s books dating back to 1969.
The Mechanics’ Institute, one of the oldest cultural institutions on the West Coast, is now home to a thrilling archive of LGBTQ+ children’s literature. The Tarpey-Schwed LGBT Families …
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Want to know what's happening with Billie Eilish’s Bell Jar? Look no further. buff.ly/NPLHoA1
Everything we know (so far) about Billie Eilish’s Bell Jar.
Earlier this year, we got wind that Billie Eilish—that reigning maestra of youthful melancholy—will star in a new film adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Directed by the brilliant Sa…
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It's a good time to donate to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. buff.ly/TAOuSZ4
In lieu of flowers, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is accepting donations.
The queen is dead, long live the queen! Dolly Parton—perhaps the most universally beloved American—died at 80 yesterday. She went peacefully, surrounded by family. Known as a formidable singer-song…
lithub.com
Calling all Patricia Highsmith and Helen Mirren fans. buff.ly/n7JH90e
Helen Mirren is playing Patricia Highsmith?! Watch the trailer for A Talent for Murder.
This morning, fans of both Patricia Highsmith and Dame Helen Mirren have cause to rejoice. The trailer for Anton Corbijn’s new Ripley-adjacent film, A Taste for Murder, is out now. The film s…
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“It was twilight. A horse approached, and from its speed it was clear that it intended to cross me.” Read from Jiyar Jahin Fard’s novel The Shadeless Border, translated by Chiya Parvizpur. lithub.com/the-shadeles...
The Shadeless Border
It was twilight. A horse approached, and from its speed it was clear that it intended to cross me. It wanted to leave Khanaqin as quick as possible and cross to Iran. Before it came close, I did my…
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How to situate your historical fiction in its time and place: “There’s no excuse for wheeling in some talkative NPC just to explain why the townsfolk are acting skittish. As with most technical problems, find a solution that’s natural and unobtrusive.” lithub.com/eight-simple...
Eight Simple Rules for Dating Your Historical Fiction
This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. Consider these opening lines. Their source is far from obscure, so there’s a good chance you’ll recognize them right away.…
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Chang-Rae Lee’s A Tender Age, Jill Lepore’s The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, Téa Obreht’s Sunrise, and Dave Zirin’s The People’s Historian all feature among August’s best reviewed books. bookmarks.reviews/the-best-rev...
The Best Reviewed Books of the Month
Featuring Chang-Rae Lee, Jill Lepore, Téa Obreht, Howard Zinn, and more
bookmarks.reviews
How object narrators, from the 18th century to now, help humans see the world in different ways. lithub.com/long-before-...
Long Before Toy Story, It-Narratives Imagined the Inner Lives of Objects
It’s nighttime in the playroom and the toys have gathered for a conference. For modern audiences, this scene likely evokes the imaginative world of Toy Story, the long-running film franchise about …
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Wallis Wilde-Menozzi reflects on translating Antonella Anedda, a poet who “creates space for other ways of telling.” lithub.com/a-poetry-of-...
A Poetry of Witness and Invention: Wallis Wilde-Menozzi on Translating Antonella Anedda
“In my poetry,” she said, “there has always been an emphasis on concrete detail, put more simply, I think I fell in love with reality….When we are interested in the world, we become disintere…
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“He wrote sad songs but didn’t want to make anyone sad. He had the kind of shy, exaggerated empathy of someone who’s always afraid of hurting people but never afraid of hurting himself.” On loving Elliott Smith. lithub.com/what-it-mean...
What It Means to Love Elliott Smith
One of the last videos taken of Elliott Smith shows him at the Fonda Theatre, in Los Angeles. He’s sitting in a metal stacking chair, wearing faded dark pants and a T‑shirt that says i <3 metal,…
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On Tim Curry's weird, wonderful genius. lithub.com/an-ode-to-th...
An Ode to the Gleeful Terror of Tim Curry’s Pennywise
Tim Curry, who died this week at 80, will probably always be best known for his performance as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and not unreasonably. With his snug corset and un…
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“The sunlight streaming through the arrival hall windows was a dirty gold the afternoon our flight from Paris landed.” Read from Nyla Matuk’s new novel, Leila and Khaled. lithub.com/leila-and-ka...
Leila and Kahled
The sunlight streaming through the arrival hall windows was a dirty gold the afternoon our flight from Paris landed. The airport’s walkways, draped in stock images of healthy, smiling families, sub…
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Stephen Greco recommends books by Kitty Kelley, C. David Heymann, John Waters, and more that explore Elizabeth Taylor’s multifaceted life. lithub.com/six-novels-t...
Six Novels That Try to Keep Up With Elizabeth Taylor
I first saw Elizabeth Taylor in The VIPs, when I was a moony and impressionable teenager. There were nuances I surely missed, but the movie’s larger premise came through loud and clear: life …
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“The past belongs to no one, and as such, it also belongs to everyone.” Elizabeth Letts on finding inspiration in her husband’s Moroccan family. lithub.com/stories-from...
Stories From Memory: On Finding Inspiration in My Husband’s Moroccan Family
In my living room a framed photograph hangs on the wall. A man clad in balloon pants and torn white shirt tosses a wooden pitchfork full of straw into the air with athletic grace. He’s thresh…
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“Rare indeed to find a real reporter who is also a real thinker. And the bastard’s funny, too.” Check below for 5 book reviews you need to read this week. bookmarks.reviews/5-reviews-yo...
5 Reviews You Need to Read This Week
Our smorgasbord of sumptuous reviews this week includes Megan Nolan on Jon Ronson’s The Castle, Kasia Boddy on William Kennedy’s Albany Trilogy, Jonathan Dee on Kurt Andersen’s The Breakup, Johanna…
bookmarks.reviews
Why don’t people write letters anymore? Maybe because they feel “dangerously permanent.” lithub.com/the-letter-d...
The Letter Doula: How to Help a Life Arrive on the Page
For years, I believed people avoided letter writing because they lacked time. But after teaching leadership, communication, and storytelling to thousands of students, I’ve come to believe something…
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Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for nonfiction. lithub.com/the-independ...
The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Nonfiction
Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for nonfiction, based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide, generously provided by the American Booksellers Associatio…
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We think you should probably read one of these novellas from cover to cover. lithub.com/short-but-sw...
Short But Sweet: Nine Novellas To Read In a Single Afternoon
In anticipation of the publication of my novella, American Moon, I’ve been thinking a lot about the form. Novellas are tiny in the world of books, but they’re good for readers in a self-inflicted t…
lithub.com
Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for fiction. lithub.com/the-independ...
The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Fiction
Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for fiction, based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide, generously provided by the American Booksellers Association. …
lithub.com
What do you do when your writing isn't supposed to be funny, but everyone's laughing? Kristen Arnett answers this and other questions. lithub.com/help-my-writ...
Help, My Writing Group Thinks My Latest Story Was Really Funny: It Wasn’t Meant to Be
Hello again, gentle readers! Welcome back to another delightful installment of everyone’s favorite bimonthly drunken advice column, Am I the Literary Asshole? It’s a column designed to bring hope, …
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“The last time I saw my mother, she walked me to the door to say goodbye.” Read from Andrea Bajani’s novel The Anniversary, translated by Geoffrey Brock. lithub.com/the-annivers...
The Anniversary
The last time I saw my mother, she walked me to the door to say goodbye. Then, before closing it again, she waited until I disappeared down the funnel of the stairwell. My mother was never one for …
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“For nearly that whole time, popular fictions have been trying to make American history more palatable. Girlhood fictions…perform that flavor-enhancing role in particularly powerful ways.” Sarah Mesle examines myths of white girlhood through Anne of Green Gables. lithub.com/what-anne-of...
What Anne of Green Gables Reveals About White Girlhood
“How dare you!” Anne Shirley seethes. Anne stands in her one-room country schoolhouse wearing a gingham dress. She grips in her girlish hands the pale wooden frame of her writing slate—or rather, w…
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Drew Buxton recommends novels about obsessive athletes by Julie Otskuka, Ashton Politanoff, Quan Barry, and more. lithub.com/7-novels-abo...
7 Novels About Obsessive Athletes
Accomplishment in sports, unlike in most other areas of life, is concrete, definitive. There are winners and losers; there are rankings. This all-or-nothing dynamic lends itself to obsession. The n…
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“Translation is a mutation of language, but not direct replication; something happens in the process that shifts the direction of the ideas.” Jessica Sequeira on translating Vlady Kociancich’s The Eighth Wonder. lithub.com/translation-...
Translation as a Journey: Jessica Sequeira on Vlady Kociancich’s The Eighth Wonder
Along with her novels, Vlady Kociancich worked on a translation of Joseph Conrad’s The End of the Tether, which according to her obituary by Daniel Gigena in La Nación, “había sido muy elogiada” (w…
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How America's used audio to mythologize itself, from radio to podcasts, in the past and present. Read more below. buff.ly/PSaQWjE
Self-Mythologizing on the Radio: A Brief History of Audio Patriotism
It feels fitting, in the country’s semiquincentennial, to reflect on the ways in which we have mythologized ourselves over the past 250 years. As you might imagine, the Golden Age of Radio, in whic…
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Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has issued a call for donations in the place of flowers. lithub.com/in-lieu-of-f...
In lieu of flowers, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is accepting donations.
The queen is dead, long live the queen! Dolly Parton—perhaps the most universally beloved American—died at 80 yesterday. She went peacefully, surrounded by family. Known as a formidable singer-song…
lithub.com
Catherine Lacey looks at Montserrat Roig’s Goodbye Ramona, a classic of antifascist Catalan literature. lithub.com/catherine-la...
Catherine Lacey on an Antifascist Classic of Catalan Literature
Montserrat Roig’s 1972 classic of Catalan literature, Goodbye, Ramona, both opens and closes in a vivid scene of the Spanish Civil War, but if you don’t remember the exact contours of that extremel…
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American bureaucracy takes time-theft to a whole new level (by literally stealing years of your life). lithub.com/how-american...
How American Bureaucracy (Literally) Steals Years From Your Life
Washington currently estimates that Americans spend 12 billion hours a year filling out government forms, meaning the average person spends six 8-hour workdays filing their taxes, signing up for Me…
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