[{"id":276323,"date":"2026-08-28T06:30:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T10:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276323"},"modified":"2026-08-28T07:59:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T11:59:22","slug":"lit-hub-daily-august-28-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/lit-hub-daily-august-28-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Lit Hub Daily: August 28, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"caption\"> TODAY: In 1749, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is born.\u00a0 <\/span>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;He wrote sad songs but didn\u2019t want to make anyone sad. He had the kind of shy, exaggerated empathy of someone who\u2019s always afraid of hurting people but never afraid of hurting himself.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/what-it-means-to-love-elliott-smith\/\">On loving Elliott Smith<\/a>. | Lit Hub <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/category\/newsandculture\/music\/\">Music<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Wallis Wilde-Menozzi reflects <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/a-poetry-of-witness-and-invention-wallis-wilde-menozzi-on-translating-antonella-anedda\/\">on translating Antonella Anedda<\/a>, a poet who &#8220;creates space for other ways of telling.&#8221; | Lit Hub <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/category\/craftandcriticism\/on-translation\/\">On Translation<\/a><\/li>\n<li>How object narrators, from the 18th century to now, <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/long-before-toy-story-it-narratives-imagined-the-inner-lives-of-objects\">help humans see the world in different ways<\/a>. | Lit Hub <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/category\/craftandcriticism\/literary-criticism\/\">Criticism<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Chang-Rae Lee\u2019s <i>A Tender Age<\/i>, Jill Lepore\u2019s <i>The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State<\/i>, T\u00e9a Obreht\u2019s <i>Sunrise<\/i>, and Dave Zirin\u2019s <i>The People\u2019s Historian <\/i>all feature among <a href=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/the-best-reviewed-books-of-the-month-5\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/the-best-reviewed-books-of-the-month-5\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1787938854584000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3eyCescteVuTlrq1zBkhFN\">August\u2019s best reviewed books<\/a>. | <a href=\"http:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=http:\/\/bookmarks.reviews&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1787938854584000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0jHCmPdMuh2q400Megg3ay\">Book Marks<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/lithub.com\/eight-simple-rules-for-dating-your-historical-fiction\">How to situate your historical fiction<\/a> in its time and place: &#8220;There\u2019s 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\u2019s natural and unobtrusive.&#8221; | Lit Hub <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/category\/craftandcriticism\/craft-and-advice\/\">Craft<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#8220;It was twilight. A horse approached, and from its speed it was clear that it intended to cross me.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/the-shadeless-border\/\">Read from Jiyar Jahin Fard&#8217;s novel <em>The Shadeless Border<\/em><\/a>, translated by Chiya Parvizpur. | Lit Hub <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/category\/fictionandpoetry\/from-the-novel\/\">Fiction<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Jeremy Varon examines <a href=\"https:\/\/dissentmagazine.org\/online_articles\/new-school-fired-faculty-austerity\/\">what\u2019s happening at The New School<\/a> (and across higher education). | Dissent<\/li>\n<li>\u201cBut while <i>Like Swimmers<\/i> borrows the machinery of detective fiction, one of its primary concerns is the divide between fine art and popular art.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tcj.com\/reviews\/like-swimmers\/\">Marc Sobel on Dash Shaw\u2019s newest graphic novel.<\/a> | The Comics Journal<\/li>\n<li>Elizabeth Metzger looks at <a href=\"https:\/\/lareviewofbooks.org\/article\/franz-wright-axe-blossom-last-poems-fragments-posthumous\/\">Franz Wright\u2019s final poetry collection<\/a>, \u201cwritten from the realms of mental illness, addiction, religious conversion, and a weighty poetic lineage.\u201d | Los Angeles Review of Books<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWhat mattered, I learned from Ms. Parton, was that I led with the soul. What mattered, she modeled, were the stories I could tell. Everything else was mere packaging.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecut.com\/article\/dolly-parton-unapologetic-femininity.html\">Xochitl Gonzalez on Dolly Parton\u2019s unabashed femininity<\/a>. | The Cut<\/li>\n<li>It turns out those ghost researchers haunting academic publishing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.404media.co\/the-ai-ghosts-contaminating-academic-publishing\/\">were produced by AI.<\/a> | 404 Media<\/li>\n<li>Charlotte Wyatt explores <a href=\"https:\/\/orionmagazine.org\/article\/on-living-collections\/\">the possibilities of human-wild animal connection<\/a>. | Orion<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;He wrote sad songs but didn\u2019t want to make anyone sad. He had the kind of shy, exaggerated empathy of someone who\u2019s always afraid of hurting people but never afraid of hurting himself.&#8221; On loving Elliott Smith. | Lit Hub<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":276333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[45236],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lit-hub-daily"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19SP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/gothe.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276260,"date":"2026-08-28T05:09:55","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T09:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276260"},"modified":"2026-08-27T20:43:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:43:44","slug":"eight-simple-rules-for-dating-your-historical-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/eight-simple-rules-for-dating-your-historical-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight Simple Rules for Dating Your Historical Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>This first appeared in Lit Hub\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Craft of Writing<em>\u00a0newsletter\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/sign-up-for-the-craft-of-writing\/\">sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Consider these opening lines. Their source is far from obscure, so there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ll recognize them right away. Take a moment over them anyway:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u201cSo now get up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on the cobbles of the yard. His head turns sideways; his eyes are turned towards the gate, as if someone might arrive to help him out.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">One blow, properly placed, could kill him now.<\/p>\n<p>The excerpt is taken, of course, from the first page of <a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/wolf-hall-a-novel-hilary-mantel\/1faf82c6768cc9ac\/?aid=132!\"><em>Wolf Hall<\/em><\/a>, for which Hilary Mantel won the Booker Prize in 2009. Not exactly a deep cut as historical fiction goes, but for my purposes a near-ideal example.<\/p>\n<p>Of what? Well, in the rules I\u2019m about to set out, I warn of the ways in which we can get historical fiction wrong. And <em>Wolf Hall<\/em>\u2014from its opening lines to its final page\u2014is as complete a demonstration of technical excellence as we could wish for. We\u2019ll discuss some examples in just a moment, but first a bit of procedural housekeeping.<\/p>\n<p>You will object, I\u2019m sure, that literary craft is infinitely nuanced and that rules like the ones below are reductive and arbitrary. Plus, you might argue, they get broken all the time, and by unassailable giants of the genre.<\/p>\n<p>The thing about literary giants, though, is that they tend to know what they\u2019re doing. When they break a rule, they generally understand it thoroughly and weigh their decision carefully. When <em>you<\/em> break one you\u2019re just doing it wrong. Good? Good.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pullquote\">Yes, Susanna Clarke did it, but (a) she did a lot more besides, and (b) you are not Susanna Clarke.<\/p>\n<p>Also, one last thing: In case anyone missed my tiresome play on words, the \u201cdating\u201d in the title refers to the various techniques you can use to situate your novel in time and place. You may be familiar with some or all of these, but you should still pay attention. Most require a light touch and a clear notion of the desired effect. Some, though, should be approached like they just oozed from a meteorite in a puddle of hissing slime.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, team, let\u2019s have fun out there!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rule No. 1: Go Easy on the Period Diction<br \/>\n<\/strong>Language is what books are made of, and all prose and dialogue must be outfitted in some sort of style. If your setting comes stocked with pungently recognizable idiom\u2014with <em>prithees<\/em> and <em>sires<\/em> and <em>by-your-leaves<\/em>\u2014there\u2019s a temptation to help yourself in great armfuls.<\/p>\n<p>But look again at the Mantel excerpt. Her chosen milieu is Tudor England, and she has a scholar\u2019s intimacy with the flavors of Early Modern English then in use. But a modern novel crusted stiff with pre-Shakespearean locutions would no longer be a modern novel; it would be a wearying parlor trick.<\/p>\n<p>Mantel cleaves instead to a felicitous simplicity, to constructions that achieve consonance with the period but stop short of mimicry. She begins as she means to go on. The boy on the ground is Thomas Cromwell, who will one day be Lord Privy Seal and the unsparing architect of the English Reformation. His public utterances will brim with courtly niceties, and with legal and ecclesiastical arcana. Mantel will show us just enough of all that when the time comes.<\/p>\n<p>For now he is just a boy, cowering before his brutish father. His world was not wide before, and now it has shrunk to a few miserable particulars: a blunt taunt, a cobbled yard, a beating. Now as then, the words for such things are simple.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rule No. 2: Spell Like a Normal Person<br \/>\n<\/strong>Say you\u2019ve pitched up in England at some point from the early Georgian era onwards, or in America a little later on. You\u2019ll have made the exciting discovery that your primary sources include actual novels.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s imagine, too, that in a spirit of dauntless thoroughness you\u2019ve sought out the unmodernized editions of Defoe or Fielding or whoever. It\u2019s a worthy philological undertaking, if nothing else. Our modern conventions of orthography, typography and speech-marking took a long time to solidify, and it\u2019s instructive to see that process unfold.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not without its perils, though, particularly when you reach the relatively familiar climes of the nineteenth century. Here you\u2019ll feel mostly at home, and when your eye is caught by such archaisms as Jane Austen\u2019s spellings you might find yourself wondering what harm it could do. You certainly wouldn\u2019t be the first.<\/p>\n<p>But listen, this is not the way. You are not going to fast-track your way to authentic Regency by putting \u201cchuse\u201d for \u201cchoose.\u201d Yes, Susanna Clarke did it, but (a) she did a lot more besides, and (b) you are not Susanna Clarke.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rule No. 3: Don\u2019t Use Your Research to Accessorize<br \/>\n<\/strong>You\u2019re writing a historical novel, which means you\u2019ve been putting in some serious hours at the library. (You have, haven\u2019t you? Because this is in no way optional.)<\/p>\n<p>And having done all that research, you might form the view that none of it should be wasted. Like, that one detail about the turning radius of Shillibeer\u2019s Omnibus\u2014that has to go <em>somewhere<\/em>, surely? The answer, alas, is usually no.<\/p>\n<p>You should read widely about your period and deeply about those particulars that naturally arise in your story. Most of that reading, though, should be kept off the page or confined to the gentlest cross-hatching. That way, the reader will attend gladly to the details you do alight on, having come to trust that they matter.<\/p>\n<p>Treat the rest of your shiny trinkets like in that mirror-twirl trick when you\u2019re getting ready to go out. If it catches your eye immediately, take it off.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rule No. 4: The Past Is Another Country, but Your Characters Live There<br \/>\n<\/strong>Choosing a point of view is a consequential decision for any novelist, but in historical fiction the stakes are heightened. Omniscient narrators are a thing, to be sure, and they were much more of a thing in centuries past, along with chatty and freely moralizing perorations to the Gentle Reader. However, managing such conspicuous anachronisms requires consummate skill (see Eleanor Catton\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/the-luminaries-eleanor-catton\/596297c783c181b0\/?aid=132!\"><em>The Luminaries<\/em><\/a> for how it\u2019s done), so don\u2019t say you weren\u2019t warned.<\/p>\n<p>I most cases, though, you\u2019ll be using either the first person or the near-default close third. This means that in any given scene, you\u2019ll be relating the proceedings from the perspective of a specific individual shaped by highly particular circumstances. That individual should want, care about and <em>notice<\/em> a closely circumscribed subset of things.<\/p>\n<p>Her own clothing? Maybe, if some occasion requires it and she has the means and leisure to change it. The streetscape, the shopfronts, the hansom cabs, the coal smoke, the gaslights, the stink? Unless she\u2019s new here, then not without some particular reason. Just like you, she\u2019s probably preoccupied with something (so tell us that instead), and just like you, most of what she sees every day is all but invisible. Choose carefully.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rule No. 5: Stop Worldbuilding Like It\u2019s Westeros, Dammit<br \/>\n<\/strong>All this pontificating might give you the wrong impression, so I should make it clear that I, too, am a trash human with terrible habits. Exhibit A: Your boy watches way too many video essays on YouTube. These are all far too long, and too many are about fantasy fiction and its weird fixation on the Everlasting Medieval.<\/p>\n<p>I bring this up because I\u2019ve developed a pet theory, which is that the quasi-historicism of fantasy fiction has opened a portal to a parallel genre, infecting historical fiction with Certain Tendencies. Among these are the egregious outbursts of exposition that are tolerated in the cause of \u201cworldbuilding,\u201d as if having an official term somehow makes it okay.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pullquote\">There\u2019s 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\u2019s natural and unobtrusive.<\/p>\n<p>This carry-on usually occurs under flimsy pretexts. \u201cWe had all heard the tales,\u201d someone will begin, and the tales that follow will bespeak an oral tradition of near-miraculous efficiency. We will learn of the ills wrought by this or that king; such-and-such a usurper; one bunch or another of interlopers, of idolaters, of haughty conquerors, of benighted rabble. The glories of some former age may be lamented, and our sympathies directed to parties judged righteous or wronged.<\/p>\n<p>Decades, even centuries, may be encompassed by these marvelously comprehensive surveys. Some readers may even welcome them, on the grounds that there\u2019s just so much to cover and it\u2019s, like, hella convenient. That\u2019s no excuse. This isn\u2019t <em>Elden Ring<\/em>, and there isn\u2019t supposed to be a hotkey for lore. Reveal your world as someone experiences it, or don\u2019t reveal it at all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rule No. 6: Stop Set-Dressing Like It\u2019s <em>Downton Abbey<br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong>Again, I don\u2019t issue this edict from some kind of high horse. I still know every single number in that one musical episode of <em>Buffy<\/em>, so it\u2019s not like I don\u2019t love me some high-fructose TV. I\u2019m not coming for anyone\u2019s comfort reads either. There\u2019s a place in this world for book covers with someone\u2019s lush decolletage and a font from a wedding menu.<\/p>\n<p>Given that you\u2019re six points deep into this particular list, however, I\u2019m going to assume that <em>Bridgerton<\/em> is not the vibe you\u2019re going for. And at the grownup table, sad to say, you don\u2019t get to blow the budget on wardrobe and production design then call it good.<\/p>\n<p>No one\u2019s saying your text has to be barren of ornament. There can be sumptuous frocks and silk wall hangings, but the gaze that gets drawn to them should not be your own. Because again, who is doing the seeing here?<\/p>\n<p>Is it someone awed and out of their element? Someone briskly assessing workmanship or disparaging a social inferior? Someone taking brusque possession while sneering at all this decadence?<\/p>\n<p>Moments like these may occur, but they must arise in the natural course of your story. Otherwise, make do like the rest of us and save your fire takes on eveningwear for posting about the Met Gala.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rule No. 7: Your Characters Aren\u2019t Tour Guides<br \/>\n<\/strong>Worldbuilding aside, you should be wary of any explanations that arrive at oddly convenient moments. There is the common practice, for instance, whereby some minor character is briefly seconded to a protagonist\u2019s service, only to be dispensed with again once the required payload of information has been delivered.<\/p>\n<p>These are perfunctory roles by definition, so lackeys of one kind or another are often favored. Innkeepers may be pressed into service, or drivers, porters, errand boys or grooms. Discontented domestics are perennial favorites too, as are enterprising sex workers. Anyone will do, really, as long as they stay long enough to say something useful, but not so long that they become a nuisance.<\/p>\n<p>And look, I get it: exposition is hard and perfect verisimilitude is neither possible nor desirable; we all make our small accommodations. There\u2019s no excuse, though, for wheeling in some talkative NPC just to explain why the townsfolk are acting skittish. As with most technical problems, find a solution that\u2019s natural and unobtrusive. That\u2019s pretty much your whole job.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rule No. 8: Historical Fiction Is Still Contemporary Fiction<br \/>\n<\/strong>I\u2019ve saved this rule for last because it\u2019s the one nearest my heart. If I have indulged myself elsewhere in this list, veering now and then towards puckishness or provocation, in this I am entirely sincere.<\/p>\n<p>As historical novelists, like writers of any kind, we should be faithful to our subject and to our reader. Yet subject and setting are not the same, only closely entwined. We do justice if we can to the substrates of our chosen worlds, but we make no claims to true scholarship. We are inventors of moments, of days, of lives, and truthful only after our own fashion.<\/p>\n<p>We are attentive visitors to the past, yes, and we tread its ground carefully, but we are not museum-keepers or archaeologists. We do not unearth cities but remake them; do not raise the dead but summon in their place the newly living.<\/p>\n<p>In doing so, we never conjure the same spectre twice, and it is no fault that we catch our own voices in theirs; that they wear our many skins and tremble with our many kinds of love. We honor their imagined worlds, but we make them for the one we live in.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">_______________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/the-naming-of-the-birds-paraic-o-donnell\/b2ce5b524580d429\/?aid=132!\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"276262\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/eight-simple-rules-for-dating-your-historical-fiction\/attachment\/213816154\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/213816154.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"324,500\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"The Naming of the Birds\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/213816154.jpg\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-276262 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/213816154-194x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/213816154-194x300.jpg 194w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/213816154-39x60.jpg 39w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/213816154-32x50.jpg 32w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/213816154.jpg 324w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/the-naming-of-the-birds-paraic-o-donnell\/b2ce5b524580d429\/?aid=132!\">The Naming of the Birds<\/a>\u00a0<em>by Paraic O&#8217;Donnell is available via Tin House.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This first appeared in Lit Hub\u2019s\u00a0Craft of Writing\u00a0newsletter\u2014sign up here. Consider these opening lines. Their source is far from obscure, so there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ll recognize them right away. Take a moment over them anyway: \u201cSo now get up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7235,"featured_media":276261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43071,43069,6],"tags":[5528,12061,1922,112039,63842,67126,5529,111509,651,27564,2741],"class_list":["post-276260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-craft-and-advice","category-craftandcriticism","category-features","tag-eleanor-catton","tag-hilary-mantel","tag-historical-fiction","tag-how-to-write-historical-fiction","tag-paraic-odonnell","tag-the-craft-of-writing","tag-the-luminaries","tag-the-naming-of-the-birds","tag-tin-house","tag-wolf-hall","tag-writing-advice"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19RO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Untitled-design-2026-08-26T152234.885.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276297,"date":"2026-08-28T05:09:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T09:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276297"},"modified":"2026-08-27T20:44:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:44:20","slug":"augusts-best-reviewed-nonfiction-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/augusts-best-reviewed-nonfiction-2\/","title":{"rendered":"August\u2019s Best Reviewed Nonfiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Claire Stapleton&#8217;s <em>Don&#8217;t Be Evil<\/em>, Kimon de Greef&#8217;s <em>The Ego Trip<\/em>, and Dave Ziren&#8217;s <em>The People&#8217;s Historian<\/em> all feature among the best reviewed nonfiction titles of the month.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Brought to you by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Book Marks<\/a>, Lit Hub\u2019s home for book reviews.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9780063465145\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-136743 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/80a3b3ca6384fbb95d2fecc1c287e674-199x300.gif\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/80a3b3ca6384fbb95d2fecc1c287e674-199x300.gif 199w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/80a3b3ca6384fbb95d2fecc1c287e674-33x50.gif 33w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/80a3b3ca6384fbb95d2fecc1c287e674.gif 429w\" alt=\"Don't be evil\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" data-attachment-id=\"136743\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/bookmark\/dont-be-evil-bad-bosses-fake-promises-and-my-escape-from-big-tech\/dont-be-evil-bad-bosses-fake-promises-and-my-escape-from-big-tech-cover\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/80a3b3ca6384fbb95d2fecc1c287e674.gif\" data-orig-size=\"429,648\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Don&amp;#8217;t Be Evil: Bad Bosses, Fake Promises, and My Escape from Big Tech Cover\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/80a3b3ca6384fbb95d2fecc1c287e674.gif\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>1.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9780063465145\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Don\u2019t Be Evil: Bad Bosses, Fake Promises, and My Escape from Big Tech<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Claire Stapleton<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>(William Morrow and Company)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>4 Rave \u2022 1 Positive \u2022 1 Mixed<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cA blunt account of one woman\u2019s transformation from eager-to-please corporate striver to clear-eyed activist. It well earns its place alongside other recent accounts of the misdeeds of Big Tech like Sarah Wynn-Williams\u2019\u00a0<em>Careless People<\/em>\u00a0and Anna Wiener\u2019s\u00a0<em>Uncanny Valley<\/em>\u00a0\u2026 Books like Stapleton\u2019s will at least arm people determined to reform them with information they\u2019ll need to make that effort.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013Harvey Freedenberg (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bookpage.com\/reviews\/dont-be-evil-claire-stapleton-book-review\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>BookPage<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9780385550246\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-136716 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/66ddbd98cdecf722aa836070a0835414-197x300.gif\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/66ddbd98cdecf722aa836070a0835414-197x300.gif 197w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/66ddbd98cdecf722aa836070a0835414-33x50.gif 33w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/66ddbd98cdecf722aa836070a0835414.gif 426w\" alt=\"\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" data-attachment-id=\"136716\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/bookmark\/the-ego-trip-psychedelic-toads-a-trail-of-deaths-and-the-guru-who-peddled-transcendence\/the-ego-trip-psychedelic-toads-a-trail-of-deaths-and-the-guru-who-peddled-transcendence-cover\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/66ddbd98cdecf722aa836070a0835414.gif\" data-orig-size=\"426,648\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"The Ego Trip: Psychedelic Toads, a Trail of Deaths, and the Guru Who Peddled Transcendence Cover\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/66ddbd98cdecf722aa836070a0835414.gif\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>2.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9780385550246\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Ego Trip: Psychedelic Toads, a Trail of Deaths, and the Guru Who Peddled Transcendence<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Kimon de Greef<br \/>\n(Doubleday)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>4 Rave \u2022 1\u00a0Positive<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cA marvelous trip, exploring centuries of the Seris\u2019 tribulations, the growth of commercial toad milking in a region dominated by narco gangsters, quarrels among rival gurus and competition between the sons of an English countess and a German baroness to develop 5-MeO-DMT into a pharmaceutical.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013Annie Bartlett (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bookpage.com\/reviews\/ego-trip-kimon-de-greef-book-review\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>BookPage<\/em>)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9781324098423\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-136833 size-medium aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/f726495dd54ab0c442e192bdfef1c67d-198x300.gif\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 198px) 100vw, 198px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/f726495dd54ab0c442e192bdfef1c67d-198x300.gif 198w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/f726495dd54ab0c442e192bdfef1c67d-33x50.gif 33w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/f726495dd54ab0c442e192bdfef1c67d.gif 427w\" alt=\"The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" data-attachment-id=\"136833\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/bookmark\/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-artificial-state\/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-artificial-state-cover\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/f726495dd54ab0c442e192bdfef1c67d.gif\" data-orig-size=\"427,648\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State Cover\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/f726495dd54ab0c442e192bdfef1c67d.gif\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>3.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9781324098423\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Jill Lepore<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>(Liveright)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>3 Rave \u2022 2 Positive \u2022 1 Mixed<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cStaggering, sobering, yet essential reading for all who want to understand the arc of this increasingly digital, online, corporate, and out-of-control world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013Carol Haggas (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.booklistonline.com\/products\/9825772\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Booklist<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9781668206751\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-136770 size-medium aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/88e4f390241f74537037ae7087e653fc-198x300.gif\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 198px) 100vw, 198px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/88e4f390241f74537037ae7087e653fc-198x300.gif 198w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/88e4f390241f74537037ae7087e653fc-33x50.gif 33w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/88e4f390241f74537037ae7087e653fc.gif 427w\" alt=\"Days of Miracle and Wonder\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" data-attachment-id=\"136770\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/bookmark\/days-of-miracle-and-wonder-paul-simon-and-the-trials-and-triumphs-of-graceland\/days-of-miracle-and-wonder-paul-simon-and-the-trials-and-triumphs-of-graceland-cover\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/88e4f390241f74537037ae7087e653fc.gif\" data-orig-size=\"427,648\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Days of Miracle and Wonder: Paul Simon and the Trials and Triumphs of Graceland Cover\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/88e4f390241f74537037ae7087e653fc.gif\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>4.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9781668206751\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Days of Miracle and Wonder: Paul Simon and the Trials and Triumphs of Graceland<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Ahley Kahn<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>(Atria)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>4 Rave \u2022 1 Mixed<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat a welcome surprise \u2026 Has only made me appreciate the album\u2019s intricacies and paradoxes all the more \u2026 Kahn lets his historical actors speak for themselves as often as possible, collecting a remarkably wide array of voices for so short a book.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013Mark Braude (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/08\/15\/books\/review\/days-of-miracle-and-wonder-ashley-kahn-graceland.html?eafs_enabled=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The New York Times Book Review<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-136702 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/04aa104d245f772cf1d00083cac3a56b-199x300.gif\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/04aa104d245f772cf1d00083cac3a56b-199x300.gif 199w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/04aa104d245f772cf1d00083cac3a56b-33x50.gif 33w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/04aa104d245f772cf1d00083cac3a56b.gif 429w\" alt=\"The People's Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn Cover\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" data-attachment-id=\"136702\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/bookmark\/the-peoples-historian-the-outsized-life-of-howard-zinn\/the-peoples-historian-the-outsized-life-of-howard-zinn-cover\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/04aa104d245f772cf1d00083cac3a56b.gif\" data-orig-size=\"429,648\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"The People&amp;#8217;s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn Cover\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/04aa104d245f772cf1d00083cac3a56b.gif\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>5.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9780593473658\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The People\u2019s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Dave Zirin<br \/>\n(Dutton)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>2 Rave \u2022 3 Positive \u2022 2 Mixed<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cRousing \u2026 It\u2019s a wonderful portrait of a historian who reshaped America\u2019s understanding of its potential for change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.publishersweekly.com\/9780593473658\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>\u2013Publishers Weekly<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Claire Stapleton&#8217;s Don&#8217;t Be Evil, Kimon de Greef&#8217;s The Ego Trip, and Dave Ziren&#8217;s The People&#8217;s Historian all feature among the best reviewed nonfiction titles of the month. Brought to you by\u00a0Book Marks, Lit Hub\u2019s home for book reviews. *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":873,"featured_media":276310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43069,6,43070,43135],"tags":[15654,13821,111626,1460,71535,111595,111654,111847],"class_list":["post-276297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-craftandcriticism","category-features","category-literary-criticism","category-readinglists","tag-book-marks","tag-book-reviews","tag-days-of-miracle-and-wonder-paul-simon-and-the-trials-and-triumphs-of-graceland","tag-nonfiction","tag-the-best-reviewed-books-of-the-month","tag-the-ego-trip-psychedelic-toads","tag-the-peoples-historian-the-outsized-life-of-howard-zinn","tag-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-artificial-state"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19Sp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/egotrip.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/873"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276295,"date":"2026-08-28T05:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T09:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276295"},"modified":"2026-08-27T20:45:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:45:39","slug":"augusts-best-reviewed-fiction-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/augusts-best-reviewed-fiction-2\/","title":{"rendered":"August\u2019s Best Reviewed Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chang-Rae Lee&#8217;s <em>A Tender Age<\/em>, T\u00e9a Obreht&#8217;s <em>Sunrise<\/em>, and Paul Yoon&#8217;s <em>Etna<\/em> all feature among the best reviewed fiction titles of the month.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Brought to you by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Book Marks<\/a>, Lit Hub\u2019s home for book reviews.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9798217048441\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-136725 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/2d8cf09756fbf71bf09f32a9eec962a0-199x300.gif\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/2d8cf09756fbf71bf09f32a9eec962a0-199x300.gif 199w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/2d8cf09756fbf71bf09f32a9eec962a0-33x50.gif 33w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/2d8cf09756fbf71bf09f32a9eec962a0.gif 429w\" alt=\"A Tender Age\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" data-attachment-id=\"136725\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/bookmark\/a-tender-age\/a-tender-age-cover\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/2d8cf09756fbf71bf09f32a9eec962a0.gif\" data-orig-size=\"429,648\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"A Tender Age Cover\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/2d8cf09756fbf71bf09f32a9eec962a0.gif\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>1.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9798217048441\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>A Tender Age<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Chang Rae-Lee<br \/>\n(Riverhead)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>11 Rave \u2022 1 Mixed \u2022 1 Pan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cLuminous \u2026 In his masterful almost-ending, Lee shrouds what exactly happened on that life-altering precipice, brilliantly inviting room for interrogation and interpretation..\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013Terry Hong (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.shelf-awareness.com\/issue.html?issue=5250#m71646\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Shelf Awareness<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9781984855534\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-136722 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/d2b47ad29c2bd415c832def1bdb3fbf5-197x300.gif\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/d2b47ad29c2bd415c832def1bdb3fbf5-197x300.gif 197w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/d2b47ad29c2bd415c832def1bdb3fbf5-33x50.gif 33w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/d2b47ad29c2bd415c832def1bdb3fbf5.gif 426w\" alt=\"Sunrise\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" data-attachment-id=\"136722\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/bookmark\/sunrise\/sunrise-cover\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/d2b47ad29c2bd415c832def1bdb3fbf5.gif\" data-orig-size=\"426,648\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Sunrise Cover\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/08\/d2b47ad29c2bd415c832def1bdb3fbf5.gif\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>2.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9781984855534\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Sunrise<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by T\u00e9a Obreht<br \/>\n(Random House)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>10 Rave \u2022 1 Pan<br \/>\nRead an interview with T\u00e9a Obreht\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/tea-obreht-on-writing-a-layered-intertextual-tale-of-the-american-west\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cObreht is riveting in each time frame as she exults in emulating and subverting tales of the Old West while exposing the poisonous complexities of gender, taboo love, myth, history, and our desecration of the wild in a breathtaking, shocking, and reverberating survival story.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013Donna Seaman (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.booklistonline.com\/products\/9823249\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Booklist<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9781668020821\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-136689 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/f1534a236c575d626508ef0ee43afc51-194x300.gif\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/f1534a236c575d626508ef0ee43afc51-194x300.gif 194w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/f1534a236c575d626508ef0ee43afc51-32x50.gif 32w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/f1534a236c575d626508ef0ee43afc51.gif 420w\" alt=\"Etna\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" data-attachment-id=\"136689\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/bookmark\/etna\/etna-cover\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/f1534a236c575d626508ef0ee43afc51.gif\" data-orig-size=\"420,648\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Etna Cover\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/f1534a236c575d626508ef0ee43afc51.gif\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>3.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9781668020821\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Etna<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Paul Yoon<br \/>\n(Scribner)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>8 Rave \u2022 1 Positive \u2022 1 Mixed<br \/>\nRead an excerpt from\u00a0<em>Etna<\/em>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/etna\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor all its compactness,\u00a0<em>Etna<\/em>\u00a0has the shape of an epic \u2026 Stands out among Yoon\u2019s work \u2026 This is, at times, a wrenching novel, strewn with broken bodies, but its atrocities never overwhelm its faith in creaturely communion, and in grief and longing that clarify, rather than obscure, one\u2019s desires and selfhood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013Rachel Vorona Cote (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/books\/2026\/07\/animal-narrator-fiction-paul-yoon-etna-book-review\/688105\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Atlantic<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9781644454008\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-136692 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/476339c28d619ab33e925bfea626626e-200x300.gif\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/476339c28d619ab33e925bfea626626e-200x300.gif 200w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/476339c28d619ab33e925bfea626626e-33x50.gif 33w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/476339c28d619ab33e925bfea626626e.gif 432w\" alt=\"Triage Cover\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" data-attachment-id=\"136692\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/bookmark\/triage\/triage-cover\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/476339c28d619ab33e925bfea626626e.gif\" data-orig-size=\"432,648\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Triage Cover\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/476339c28d619ab33e925bfea626626e.gif\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>4.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9781644454008\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Triage<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Claudia Rankine<br \/>\n(Graywolf)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>4 Rave \u2022 6 Positive \u2022 1 Mixed<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cColorfully, referentially, and intellectually dynamic \u2026 A glossy-paged, art exhibition catalog-worthy book \u2026 Though the narrative\u2019s ending verges on negative abstraction, Rankine clearly demands that we confront our failure to prioritize Gazans and reckon the massive resultant losses, personal, ethical, and human alike.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013Walton Muyumba (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/2026\/07\/29\/arts\/claudia-rankine-triage\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Boston Globe<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/reviews\/the-amateur\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-136694 size-medium aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/2c2e6009b2e08fe3cba4e5031d90ff34-206x300.gif\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 206px) 100vw, 206px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/2c2e6009b2e08fe3cba4e5031d90ff34-206x300.gif 206w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/2c2e6009b2e08fe3cba4e5031d90ff34-34x50.gif 34w, https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/2c2e6009b2e08fe3cba4e5031d90ff34.gif 446w\" alt=\"The Amateur\" width=\"206\" height=\"300\" data-attachment-id=\"136694\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/bookmark\/the-amateur\/the-amateur-cover\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/2c2e6009b2e08fe3cba4e5031d90ff34.gif\" data-orig-size=\"446,648\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"The Amateur Cover\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/s26162.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/2c2e6009b2e08fe3cba4e5031d90ff34.gif\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>5.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/40\/9780385551298\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Amateur<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Chris Bohjalian<br \/>\n(Doubleday)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>7 Rave<br \/>\nRead an essay by Chris Bohjalian\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/crimereads.com\/how-chris-bohjalian-spent-his-summer-vacation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cBohjalian\u2019s wonderful book is a morality tale, a snapshot of a strange, careless time in a particular slice of America, a psychological exploration of guilt and its repercussions, a portrait of a girl going off the rails\u2014and then, because of an exciting plot twist, a courtroom drama.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u2013Sarah Lyall (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/07\/30\/books\/review\/new-thriller-novels.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The New York Times Book Review<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chang-Rae Lee&#8217;s A Tender Age, T\u00e9a Obreht&#8217;s Sunrise, and Paul Yoon&#8217;s Etna all feature among the best reviewed fiction titles of the month. Brought to you by\u00a0Book Marks, Lit Hub\u2019s home for book reviews. * 1.\u00a0A Tender Age\u00a0by Chang Rae-Lee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":873,"featured_media":276311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43069,6,43070,43135],"tags":[15654,13821,30034,18340,301,26504,9519,71535],"class_list":["post-276295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-craftandcriticism","category-features","category-literary-criticism","category-readinglists","tag-book-marks","tag-book-reviews","tag-chang-rae-lee","tag-chris-bohjalian","tag-claudia-rankine","tag-paul-yoon","tag-tea-obreht","tag-the-best-reviewed-books-of-the-month"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19Sn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/sunrise.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/873"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276190,"date":"2026-08-28T05:09:06","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T09:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276190"},"modified":"2026-08-27T20:51:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:51:39","slug":"long-before-toy-story-it-narratives-imagined-the-inner-lives-of-objects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/long-before-toy-story-it-narratives-imagined-the-inner-lives-of-objects\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Before <em>Toy Story<\/em>, It-Narratives Imagined the Inner Lives of Objects"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s nighttime in the playroom and the toys have gathered for a conference. For modern audiences, this scene likely evokes the imaginative world of <em>Toy Story<\/em>, the long-running film franchise about the secret lives of children\u2019s toys, which launched to great acclaim in 1995 and recently released its fifth installment. But Woody the cowboy doll and Buzz Lightyear the action figure are not among the group assembled here. Instead, the toys gathered in young Maggy Howard\u2019s room are simple objects crafted from rubber, tin, and wood. One is a fresh arrival from Europe. Another has survived gunfire on the Civil War battlefield. All have something to say. As the night unfolds, so do their tales, which comprise a set of narratives published in 1866 under the title \u201cWhat the Playthings Said to Each Other on Midsummer Night.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although critics hailed the original <em>Toy Story<\/em> for its <a href=\"https:\/\/timesmachine.nytimes.com\/timesmachine\/1995\/11\/22\/055905.html?pageNumber=53\">\u201cincredibly clever\u201d<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/3833800\/toy-story-movie-review\/\">\u201cinventive\u201d<\/a> concept, the film\u2019s central conceit has roots in a literary genre that first became popular in eighteenth-century Britain: the it-narrative. Also known as object tales or novels of circulation, it-narratives relate the adventures of inanimate objects (and, less commonly, animals) as they travel across settings and between different owners. Typically narrated in first person, it-narratives test familiar borders of subject and object, inviting readers to imagine what human society might look like from the perspective of small and easily overlooked things, ranging from corkscrews to pins to literal flies on the wall.<\/p>\n<p>While today we think of <em>Toy Story <\/em>as children\u2019s media, the it-narrative originated as a decidedly adult genre. Because object narrators tend to be things that circulate across layers of society, the it-narrative offered a ready platform for social satire. What\u2019s more, as tales that turn on the circulation and exchange of commodities, it-narratives were particularly apt vehicles for critiquing Britain\u2019s burgeoning consumer culture. In stories such as Joseph Addison\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.de\/books?id=Ypc9AAAAYAAJ&amp;pg=PA331&amp;hl=de&amp;source=gbs_toc_r&amp;cad=2#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\">\u201cAdventures of a Shilling\u201d<\/a> (1710) and Charles Johnstone\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/babel.hathitrust.org\/cgi\/pt?id=uc2.ark:\/13960\/t1kh0g314&amp;seq=9\"><em>Chrysal; or, the Adventures of a Guinea<\/em><\/a> (1760), authors used the fictional adventures of object narrators to expose instances of greed and self-interest drawn from life. The adventures of Addison\u2019s titular shilling include being hoarded, offered as a bribe, and sent as an insulting accompaniment to a letter disinheriting a son. Johnstone\u2019s guinea, meanwhile, bears witness not only to the machinations of hack authors and exploitative merchants, but also to the sufferings of a destitute poet shut out from the literary marketplace, who receives the guinea as a pity gift and immediately uses it to buy food.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pullquote\">More than a few early it-narratives verged on pornography. The capacity of most object narrators to travel in intimate proximity to human bodies prompted authors to relate sensational, fly-on-the-wall details about people\u2019s private lives.<\/p>\n<p>If the ability to circulate enabled object narrators to prompt class critique, it also allowed for more straightforward modes of entertainment. With its episodic structure, the it-narrative echoed the form of picaresque novels such as <em>The History of Tom Jones <\/em>(1749) and popular adventure fiction such as <em>Robinson Crusoe <\/em>(1719). It-narratives including Helenus Scott\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/babel.hathitrust.org\/cgi\/pt?id=inu.30000115396271&amp;seq=13\"><em>The Adventures of a Rupee<\/em><\/a> (1782) served up adventure alongside satire, with Scott\u2019s novel doubling as an orientalist travel narrative; the rupee\u2019s travels, which take place across India, China, and England, include an extended visit to a seraglio. Likewise, in <em>Chrysal<\/em>, which was perhaps the most popular it-narrative of its day, the guinea\u2019s peregrinations across Europe and the Americas not only reflected the increasingly globalized nature of Britain\u2019s mercantile society but also allowed Johnstone to engage in anthropological fantasy. The novel features several chapters set among an invented group of Indigenous Americans, whose \u201cfemales\u201d and their private habits come in for voyeuristic scrutiny.<\/p>\n<p>As such details suggest, more than a few early it-narratives verged on pornography. The capacity of most object narrators to travel in intimate proximity to human bodies prompted authors to relate sensational, fly-on-the-wall details about people\u2019s private lives. <em>Chrysal<\/em>, for instance, features a detailed episode in which an aristocrat picks up a sex worker on the street. A similar desire to titillate motivates a subset of tales narrated by articles of clothing, including <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/adventuresablac00advegoog\">coats<\/a>, silk petticoats, waistcoats, and wigs, as well as the anonymously-authored <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.de\/books?id=mfpeAAAAcAAJ&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;hl=de&amp;source=gbs_ge_summary_r&amp;cad=0#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\"><em>History of a French Louse<\/em><\/a> (1779). Born on the head of a courtesan, the <em>History<\/em>\u2019s insect narrator rides shotgun on a series of libidinous adventures that include an assignation with American ambassador to France Benjamin Franklin, whose decaying teeth, the <em>History<\/em>\u2019s louse reports from his close-up vantage point, \u201cmight have been taken for cloves.\u201d It-narratives may have been fiction, but the anonymity afforded by object narrators frequently encouraged authors to dish on real celebrities.<\/p>\n<p>By the mid-nineteenth century, the it-narrative began to interest authors invested less in provoking excitement than in guiding the moral development of their readers. As literary scholar Leah Price <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.de\/books?id=RZLNkjeHP_kC&amp;lpg=PP1&amp;hl=de&amp;pg=PA108#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\">has observed<\/a>, the it-narrative\u2019s premise held special appeal for Christian missionaries, whose evangelical activities likewise hinged on social circulation. A new crop of it-narratives published by religious organizations in both the United States and Britain soon emerged. Often featuring object narrators with a moral valence\u2014Bibles and prayer books were popular\u2014these stories targeted audiences with limited means to select their own reading material, including children.<\/p>\n<p>Like the toys in <em>Toy Story<\/em>, who reward \u201cgood\u201d owners (imaginative children) and punish or seek to escape \u201cbad\u201d ones (violent children, greedy adults), object narrators in nineteenth-century religious and moral fiction do not simply observe human activity; they judge it. For some authors of nineteenth-century children\u2019s literature, it-narratives thus offered a framework for encouraging young readers to self-police their own behavior. Well before Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/elfontheshelf.com\/\"><em>The Elf on the Shelf<\/em><\/a> (2005), a picture book packaged with a toy elf that children are instructed to imagine watching their every move, it-narratives sought to transform children\u2019s things into auxiliaries for parental surveillance.<\/p>\n<p>In children\u2019s it-narratives such as <a href=\"https:\/\/babel.hathitrust.org\/cgi\/pt?id=nyp.33433112004027&amp;seq=7\"><em>The History of a Pocket Prayer Book<\/em><\/a> (1839) and <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.de\/books?id=V6FJGwAACAAJ&amp;source=gbs_ViewAPI&amp;redir_esc=y\"><em>The Adventures of a Work-Bag<\/em><\/a> (1826), authors forego the sharp edge of satire for the blunt instrument of didacticism. Both the prayer book and the work bag openly praise behaviors they view as diligent, such reading a prayer every night or being \u201cdedicated to [one\u2019s] needle.\u201d But they are also quick to criticize habits and behaviors they deem inappropriate. The work bag, for instance, lives in constant fear of falling into the hands \u201cof some rude slatternly girl, who will toss me up and down to my great detriment.\u201d Although the it-narrative as a genre was predicated on an object\u2019s extensive circulation, authors guided their young readers, who were largely white and middle-class, to act in ways that shored up social hierarchies and related ideas of proper comportment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pullquote\">Just as <em>Toy Story<\/em> asks audiences to take seriously the world of childhood play, stories like \u201cWhat the Playthings Said\u201d envision a world in which children and their things make an impact.<\/p>\n<p>Nineteenth-century children themselves, however, had their own take on such tales. Much as the wealth of island stories written by children of this period indexes the widespread popularity of <em>Robinson Crusoe<\/em>, the presence of it-narratives in archives of children\u2019s writing suggests that the genre appealed to young readers despite its adult use for moralizing purposes.<\/p>\n<p>One such collection of it-narratives survives in the form of the <a href=\"https:\/\/findingaids.smith.edu\/repositories\/2\/archival_objects\/593299\">tiny manuscript books<\/a> authored by children associated with the prominent New England Hale family. Developed by children, for children, these handmade books\u2014which measure less than 10 centimeters in height\u2014were created for circulation via amateur libraries organized by several generations of the Hales, their cousins, and various friends from 1839-69.<\/p>\n<p>In stories centered on objects ranging from a button to a tin soldier, young authors recognize the it-narrative\u2019s potential not only for amusement but for showcasing the power of the small and marginal. Tales including \u201cThe Adventures of a Rod\u201d (1844) mark a return to the genre\u2019s anarchic origins: the story chronicles the travails of a roadside shrub, which suffers violent attacks by schoolboys, but later enacts revenge upon becoming a disciplinary switch in the boys\u2019 classroom. Others emphasize the role of objects in networks of human relations. In \u201cWhat the Playthings Said to Each Other on Midsummer Night,\u201d a rubber soldier gifted by a young boy to his Civil War-bound brother deflects a deadly bullet and saves the older sibling\u2019s life. Just as <em>Toy Story<\/em> asks audiences to take seriously the world of childhood play, stories like \u201cWhat the Playthings Said\u201d envision a world in which children and their things make an impact.<\/p>\n<p>Toys, of course, are not the only small things that children carry these days. The antagonist of the new <em>Toy Story <\/em>film is a tablet, whose addictive presence distracts the toys\u2019 young owner from unstructured, creative play. Yet while screens and smartphones may seem worlds apart from the Hales and their handmade books, we in some ways inhabit a technological present inherited from the it-narrative, a genre whose watchful object narrators look ahead to the media imagination that gave us virtual assistants such as Alexa and Siri. As it-narratives of the past remind us, seemingly inanimate objects may have more power to shape us than we like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s 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 the secret lives of children\u2019s toys, which launched to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31823,"featured_media":276192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43069,6,43093,43070],"tags":[4904,112009,112006,5478,112007,112008,108483],"class_list":["post-276190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-craftandcriticism","category-features","category-film-and-tv","category-literary-criticism","tag-childrens-books","tag-history-of-a-french-louse","tag-it-narratives","tag-literary-history","tag-madeline-zehnder","tag-the-elf-on-the-shelf","tag-toy-story"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19QG","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Untitled-design-2026-08-25T151850.745.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31823"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276255,"date":"2026-08-27T06:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T10:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276255"},"modified":"2026-08-26T17:00:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T21:00:49","slug":"lit-hub-daily-august-27-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/lit-hub-daily-august-27-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Lit Hub Daily: August 27, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"caption\"> TODAY: In 1950, Italian poet Cesare Pavese dies. <\/span>\n<ul>\n<li>What do you do when your writing group thinks your story&#8217;s hilarious (<a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/help-my-writing-group-think-my-latest-story-was-really-funny-it-wasnt-meant-to-be\">when it&#8217;s not supposed to be<\/a>)? | Lit Hub <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/category\/craftandcriticism\/craft-and-advice\/\">Advice<\/a><\/li>\n<li>If you have a free afternoon, <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/short-but-sweet-nine-novellas-to-read-in-a-single-afternoon\/\">try reading one of these novellas<\/a> from cover to cover. | Lit Hub <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/category\/readinglists\/\">Reading Lists<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Why don&#8217;t people write letters anymore? Maybe because <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/the-letter-doula-how-to-help-a-life-arrive-on-the-page\/\">they feel &#8220;dangerously permanent.&#8221;<\/a> | Lit Hub <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/category\/craftandcriticism\/craft-and-advice\/\">Craft<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Rare indeed to find a real reporter who is also a real thinker. And the bastard\u2019s funny, too.&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/5-reviews-you-need-to-read-this-week-8-27-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\/5-reviews-you-need-to-read-this-week-8-27-2026\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1787860120631000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3W9choIfjwj_rRahcdnMTI\">5 book reviews you need to read this week<\/a>. | <a href=\"http:\/\/bookmarks.reviews\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=http:\/\/bookmarks.reviews&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1787860120631000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0KaH5MGuc6OVfLQwGe9jin\">Book Marks<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\u201cThe past belongs to no one, and as such, it also belongs to everyone.\u201d <span class=\"byline\">Elizabeth Letts o<\/span>n <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/stories-from-memory-on-finding-inspiration-in-my-husbands-moroccan-family\/\">finding inspiration in her husband\u2019s Moroccan family<\/a>. | Lit Hub <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/category\/craftandcriticism\/craft-and-advice\/\">Craft<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Here are this week\u2019s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/the-independent-press-top-40-bestsellers-fiction-32\">fiction<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/the-independent-press-top-40-bestsellers-nonfiction-32\">nonfiction<\/a>. | Lit Hub <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/category\/newsandculture\/bookstores-and-libraries\/\">Bookstores<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Stephen Greco recommends books by\u00a0Kitty Kelley, C. David Heymann, John Waters, and more <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/six-novels-that-try-to-keep-up-with-elizabeth-taylor\/\">that explore Elizabeth Taylor&#8217;s multifaceted life<\/a>. | Lit Hub <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/category\/readinglists\/\">Reading Lists<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The sunlight streaming through the arrival hall windows was a dirty gold the afternoon our flight from Paris landed.&#8221; Read from <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/leila-and-kahled\/\">Nyla Matuk&#8217;s new novel, <em>Leila and Khaled<\/em><\/a>. | Lit Hub <a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/category\/fictionandpoetry\/from-the-novel\/\">Fiction<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\u201cThey have literally any kind of book you could think of.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.404media.co\/inside-the-warehouse-where-amazon-scans-and-destroys-books-for-ai-training\/\">Emanuel Maiberg talks to an employee at the warehouse where Amazon scans and destroys books for AI training<\/a>. | 404 Media<\/li>\n<li>Livia Gershon on <a href=\"https:\/\/daily.jstor.org\/not-all-boredom-is-the-same\/\">getting to the bottom of boredom<\/a>. | JSTOR Daily<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/reactormag.com\/the-importance-of-reading-and-teaching-cyberpunk-in-the-age-of-ai\/\">Why we need cyberpunk fiction<\/a> in the age of AI. | Reactor<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vulture.com\/article\/tommy-orange-thomas-king-pretendians.html\">Tommy Orange profiles Thomas King<\/a> and reflects on learning that a writer he looks up to isn\u2019t actually Indigenous. | Vulture<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2026\/aug\/26\/rachel-cusk-natalie-portman-novel-biogossip-literature\">On the rise of \u201cbiogossip\u201d books,<\/a> \u201cnovels that stoke intense speculation over the person they\u2019re <i>really about<\/i>.\u201d | The Guardian<\/li>\n<li>How mystery writer Peter Grainger <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/08\/26\/books\/peter-grainger-crime-writer-dc-smith.html\">self-published his way into the spotlight.<\/a> | The New York Times<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do you do when your writing group thinks your story&#8217;s hilarious (when it&#8217;s not supposed to be)? | Lit Hub Advice If you have a free afternoon, try reading one of these novellas from cover to cover. | Lit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":276265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[45236],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lit-hub-daily"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19RJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CesarePavese.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":276248,"date":"2026-08-27T05:10:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T09:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=276248"},"modified":"2026-08-27T07:43:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T11:43:00","slug":"help-my-writing-group-think-my-latest-story-was-really-funny-it-wasnt-meant-to-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/help-my-writing-group-think-my-latest-story-was-really-funny-it-wasnt-meant-to-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Help, My Writing Group Thinks My Latest Story Was Really Funny: It Wasn\u2019t Meant to Be"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hello again, gentle readers!<\/p>\n<p>Welcome back to another delightful installment of everyone\u2019s favorite bimonthly drunken advice column, <em>Am I the Literary Asshole?<\/em> It\u2019s a column designed to bring hope, faith, and a love of happy hour libations to all God\u2019s favored children (that\u2019s us, in case you were wondering). I\u2019m your host, Kristen Arnett, and I\u2019m happy to say that I made it out to Austin for my teaching gig at the Michener Center! The temperatures here are higher than Florida, if you can believe it. My humidity levels are at an all-time low, which means this swamp rat has started drinking copious amounts of water to deal with the heat. I know, I couldn\u2019t believe it, either. Water! Apparently all the most hydrated kids are doing it.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of water, why don\u2019t we help ourselves to a couple of the ranch variety and crack those open, then get straight to sipping? Some nice questions on the docket today. Let\u2019s jump right in, folks:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1)\u00a0 Maybe you\u2019ve gotten asked this before and I missed it, but on the off chance you haven\u2019t how can I tell if an editor has sent me good edits or bad and unhelpful ones? I\u2019ve had a piece accepted by a publication, and while I\u2019m excited to have my work out in the world, the person who\u2019s been editing me has a lot of things they\u2019d like changed before it\u2019s ready for pub. Yesterday they sent over a google doc filled with all kind of comments and even big sections that have been marked for deletion.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh, this is a great question! And definitely not one I\u2019ve answered before, so thanks for submitting it.<\/p>\n<p>I know very little about the work in question here (don\u2019t know what it\u2019s about, where you are in your career, how many times you\u2019ve published before, if you\u2019ve worked with other editors on projects in various levels of completion, etc). What I can tell you, however, is that there are ways to distinguish between a good edit and a bad edit, even if we\u2019re talking about writing that might need a little more finessing and time put into it than others.<\/p>\n<p>A good editor is someone who offers feedback and suggestions that enhance the work that you\u2019ve already crafted. They see your vision. They understand what you\u2019re trying to make and want to help your particular voice shine through. They ask helpful questions.<\/p>\n<p>Does that mean making some deep cuts? Occasionally, sure. Deleting extraneous sections that veer away from your chosen topic can tighten the piece and make your points more salient and clear. These large-scale edits happen to everyone at one time or another. When we\u2019re excited and making something we can get lost in the weeds. A good editor holds the map in their capable hands. They keep us fixed on the right path.<\/p>\n<p>Now, is it true there are bad editors? Yes, or at the very least, they\u2019re a bad fit for you and your work. A bad fit editor takes what you\u2019ve made and tries to turn it into something they would write. Instead of helping you build your own thing, they take over the design and try to make it square with their own tastes and ideas. But again, truly, this isn\u2019t often the case. And you can ask follow up question to either confirm or deny this. Do you feel that they understand what you\u2019re trying to build? Can they articulate what the piece means to you and what is most important to the text? If they cannot, that could be a red flag.<\/p>\n<p>But I\u2019d urge you to take a hard look at these edits you\u2019ve received and ask yourself, very sincerely, if they\u2019re really all that bad. Lots of notes doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ve been given a bad edit. It could indicate that you\u2019ve submitted something that needs a lot more work than originally anticipated. Be honest with yourself. Be receptive to well-meaning feedback and criticism. In a world of steadily diminishing artistic practices, we are so goddamn lucky to have editors. Everyone\u2019s work needs an edit, myself very much included. Go forward in good faith. And unless someone shows you otherwise, trust that this editor has your best interests at heart.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s head back to the ranch for another of their famous waters. Next caller:<\/p>\n<p><strong>2) Hey Dad! I\u2019ve been working on a novel for several years now. As time has passed and I\u2019ve continued drafting, I\u2019ve come to the realization that this is actually two different books. Do I just throw the whole thing out?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is a tough one. You\u2019ve spent a lot of time with this project; you\u2019re the one who knows it best. I can\u2019t answer if this is actually two different books because I haven\u2019t spent any time with this work, and I don\u2019t know your writing, or how you talk to yourself about it. It\u2019s absolutely possible that the writing has divided itself into two separate camps. Maybe this is a project that took on too much life and needed to be focused on one idea or the other. But again, there\u2019s no way for me to know any of this because I haven\u2019t read any of it.<\/p>\n<p>However, I have to wonder if you might sit with this for a moment and consider what\u2019s caused you to make this assessment. Is it because you truly feel like it\u2019s two separate projects? Or are you nervous because it feels big and that scares you? Have you worked on one part longer and it\u2019s starting to drag you down? Is one part newer to you, and subsequently fresher feeling, and you want to work on it instead because it feels more exciting?<\/p>\n<p>Listen, novels take on lives of their own. That\u2019s how we know they\u2019re actually doing something important and significant. It should be kinda scary to write a novel, because it means it\u2019s large and takes up space and time and care and a big chunk of our lives. It\u2019s completely possible you\u2019ve discovered that you\u2019ve been writing toward the wrong end. And yes, that means you need to pick up the single thread and discard the other. Only you can be the one to really know the answer. You gut will tell you the truth.<\/p>\n<p>But! <i>Listen to your gut<\/i>. Does it really feel like two different books? Or are you worried that you must choose a single path to make the project happen?<\/p>\n<p>If it\u2019s the latter, try to stick with it. To sit with it. At least for a little while. Wrangle it a bit, my friend. It can be easier to tell ourselves that we don\u2019t have the chops to do something. Much harder to try. Get excited about being scared. No good art is made in a space where risks aren\u2019t involved.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, last drink? Let\u2019s toast and then have an actual water after we do this last question; for real, I\u2019m incredibly dehydrated:<\/p>\n<p><strong>3) I have a workshop cohort (many of them longtime writing friends from a program) and we share work quarterly. My last submission was a speculative story that leaned more horror, which is a new style for me. When we met up to discuss, there was a lot of talk about how funny the story was. I did not mean for it to be humorous. Like, not at all. The whole thing made me sick. Which then made me embarrassed. I don\u2019t think anyone was trying to be mean (or an a**hole, per your column), but where do we go from here?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Buddy, I\u2019m sorry they hurt your feelings!<\/p>\n<p>The important note here is that you don\u2019t think anyone did this on purpose. We can work with that. Because you don\u2019t have to leave your writing group over it. And you don\u2019t have to stop writing what interests you and what makes you excited about art, either!<\/p>\n<p>What I am going to encourage you to do is have an honest conversation with everyone involved. Notice I said \u201chonest\u201d here, not accusatory. What I want you to do is let everyone know that you\u2019re trying something new out, stylistically, and would love it if future feedback could take that into account. I don\u2019t know exactly how your group runs things\u2014each writing collective is different\u2014but perhaps you could even offer up your own questions at the start of each review. Things that you feel would actually be helpful to know in lieu of a broad sweep of critique.<\/p>\n<p>Mostly I\u2019d like you to take heart. Not everyone thinks the same things are scary. Not everyone laughs at the same things, either! And it\u2019s completely possible that the people in this particular group aren\u2019t your readers when it comes to speculative or horror. But please, before you write them and this endeavor off completely, have this hard conversation. I think you\u2019ll be (pleasantly) surprised how well things turn out.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s our show, folks! Join me next time when I\u2019ll be answering more of your pressing questions (send those <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/forms\/d\/1jHmmgpPyWwy1D_ZUmaW6Z0IvWZKOLdLIU01Sa_EzZGY\/edit\">anonymous ones HERE<\/a>) and hopefully I manage to cool down while I continue to hydrate.<\/p>\n<p><em>Beat the heat,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Dad<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">__________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Are you worried you\u2019re the literary asshole? Ask Kristen via email at <a href=\"mailto:AskKristen@lithub.com\">AskKristen@lithub.com<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/forms\/d\/1jHmmgpPyWwy1D_ZUmaW6Z0IvWZKOLdLIU01Sa_EzZGY\/edit\">anonymously here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/forms\/d\/1jHmmgpPyWwy1D_ZUmaW6Z0IvWZKOLdLIU01Sa_EzZGY\/edit\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"232342\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/am-i-the-literary-asshle-judging-your-bad-bookish-behavior\/am-l-the-literary-asshole-1\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AM-l-THE-LITERARY-ASSHOLE.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"548,546\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Jonny Diamond&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;AM l THE LITERARY ASSHOLE? - 1&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"AM l THE LITERARY ASSHOLE? &amp;#8211; 1\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AM-l-THE-LITERARY-ASSHOLE.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-232342\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AM-l-THE-LITERARY-ASSHOLE.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"165\" height=\"164\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AM-l-THE-LITERARY-ASSHOLE.jpg 548w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AM-l-THE-LITERARY-ASSHOLE-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AM-l-THE-LITERARY-ASSHOLE-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AM-l-THE-LITERARY-ASSHOLE-60x60.jpg 60w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AM-l-THE-LITERARY-ASSHOLE-109x109.jpg 109w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AM-l-THE-LITERARY-ASSHOLE-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AM-l-THE-LITERARY-ASSHOLE-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 165px) 100vw, 165px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello again, gentle readers! Welcome back to another delightful installment of everyone\u2019s favorite bimonthly drunken advice column, Am I the Literary Asshole? It\u2019s a column designed to bring hope, faith, and a love of happy hour libations to all God\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1764,"featured_media":276250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43071,43069,6],"tags":[92580,16348,350,7508,28771,113,16005,1341,36535],"class_list":["post-276248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-craft-and-advice","category-craftandcriticism","category-features","tag-am-i-the-literary-asshole","tag-drafts","tag-editing","tag-editors","tag-kristen-arnett","tag-novels","tag-submissions","tag-writing","tag-writing-groups"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19RC","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/people-laughing.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1764"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":275973,"date":"2026-08-27T05:10:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T09:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=275973"},"modified":"2026-08-27T07:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T11:44:14","slug":"what-it-means-to-love-elliott-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/what-it-means-to-love-elliott-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"What It Means to Love Elliott Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the last videos taken of Elliott Smith shows him at the Fonda Theatre, in Los Angeles. He\u2019s sitting in a metal stacking chair, wearing faded dark pants and a T\u2011shirt that says <em>i &lt;3 metal<\/em>, a little slumped over his guitar. A leather cuff is strapped to his wrist. His hair is falling in his face, because it always is.<\/p>\n<p>The concert opens unevenly. His voice is weak and drowsy, like he might be on something, or coming off it. About forty\u2011five minutes in, after he finishes up \u201cPretty (Ugly Before),\u201d someone shouts from the audience, and Elliott doesn\u2019t quite catch the words. \u201cGet a what?\u201d he asks. \u201cA back-bone?\u201d He fiddles with his hair as the comment starts to sink in. \u201cGet a backbone?\u201d he repeats. \u201cWhat the fuck?&#8230; I could tell you a dream I had last night; otherwise, I can\u2019t be more fuckin\u2019 for real.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He seems upset, in disbelief, and then, fingering the neck of his guitar, starts to turn the phrase over in his head, assimilating it. The anger in his voice dissolves. He apologizes. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to pick on you,\u201d he says. \u201cMaybe I didn\u2019t understand what you were saying.\u201d Who knows what the heckler is really thinking? Maybe they\u2019re just having a rough night.<\/p>\n<span class=\"caption\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"276035\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/what-it-means-to-love-elliott-smith\/024_nobody_9780593475669_ins_r1\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/024_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1188,1804\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"024_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/024_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-674x1024.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-276035 \" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/024_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-674x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1216\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/024_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-674x1024.jpg 674w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/024_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-198x300.jpg 198w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/024_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-768x1166.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/024_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-40x60.jpg 40w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/024_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-33x50.jpg 33w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/024_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1.jpg 1188w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/> Elliott in Paris, December 1996. \u201cI think it was more my romantic idea,\u201d Joanna says. \u201cWhen we went there, it wasn\u2019t so easy.\u201d Photographs by Joanna Bolme.<\/span>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m very healthy now,\u201d he says, to whistles and cheers. \u201cSo don\u2019t get bummed out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s been gentle with the audience\u2014\u201cI want to play new things,\u201d he announced earlier, turning down a request for \u201cThe Biggest Lie,\u201d \u201cand they might seem dark, but they\u2019re not from now, necessarily&#8230;I\u2019m fine, really\u201d\u2014and, heckler aside, the audience has been gentle with him.<\/p>\n<p>Then he starts playing \u201cPlainclothes Man\u201d:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">you\u2019re everybody\u2019s second<br \/>\nhome always trying to get me<br \/>\nalone an easy way to lose it all<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a song about addiction, probably heroin, but like most of Elliott\u2019s songs about addiction, it\u2019s not really about the drugs. It\u2019s about change and need. When he wrote it, in the mid\u2011nineties, he was on his way out of his band, entering the solo career that would define him. It was one of the first songs showcasing Elliott\u2019s mature voice, not only as a songwriter\u2014easy rhymes, sly use of common turns of phrase, a vocabulary that feels unfussy\u2014but also literally, in his vocal style. The pubescent croak of <i>Roman Candle <\/i>is gone, the chesty metal voice of <i>Dead Air <\/i>replaced by something soft and assured, authoritative.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pullquote\">He wrote sad songs but didn\u2019t want to make anyone sad. He had the kind of shy, exaggerated empathy of someone who\u2019s always afraid of hurting people but never afraid of hurting himself.<\/p>\n<p>Onstage in Los Angeles, Elliott is singing about someone half caught in a moment when he seems to be on the verge of transformation himself. His concert that night marks the beginning of a fragile comeback tour and a promising sobriety. His voice is stronger than it was at the start of the show, but it\u2019s breaking up with emotion. He wrings everything out of the vowels, out of his breath, until his voice is a wavering sob. It\u2019s a rebuttal to the heckler, or proof that the heckler is right, or both. Elliott was always good at being both.<\/p>\n<p>He strokes the last chord, singing about continual decline, and frowns. \u201cThat one was too sad to stop on,\u201d he says. He can\u2019t end on a sad song.<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been twenty\u2011three years since the recording of that concert\u2014one of the more famous videos of Elliott because there\u2019s so much in it, and so much around it. It was made in January 2003; by late October, he was gone. The video is a conflicting document of his recovery, for people who like to argue about that. Mostly it\u2019s a snapshot of his artistry and his empathy, which were fully intertwined. He knew how people felt, or tried to. He wrote sad songs but didn\u2019t want to make anyone sad. He had the kind of shy, exaggerated empathy of someone who\u2019s always afraid of hurting people but never afraid of hurting himself.<\/p>\n<span class=\"caption\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"276036\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/what-it-means-to-love-elliott-smith\/023_nobody_9780593475669_ins_r1-1\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/023_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1-scaled.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"2560,1860\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"023_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1 (1)\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/023_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1-1240x901.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-276036 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/023_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1-1240x901.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1240\" height=\"901\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/023_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1-1240x901.jpg 1240w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/023_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1-300x218.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/023_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1-768x558.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/023_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1-60x44.jpg 60w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/023_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1-1536x1116.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/023_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1-2048x1488.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/023_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1-50x36.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1240px) 100vw, 1240px\" \/> Elliott working on \u201cAngeles\u201d in early 1996, on tour with the Softies in Louisiana. \u201cAnytime we had days off, he would just be working on songs,\u201d Rose Melberg says. \u201cI remember feeling dumbfounded by its beauty.\u201d Photograph by Jen Sbragia.<\/span>\n<p>Twenty\u2011three years after his death, Elliott still isn\u2019t particularly well known, or well understood, but he is terribly loved. The task of understanding and preserving his legacy has become a collective project. There are YouTube accounts like I Remember Elliott; his old fan site Sweet Adeline, defiantly mired in Web 1.0; oral\u2011history blogs like <i>so flawed and drunk and perfect still<\/i>; Smiling at Confusion, a site for posting guitar tabs, guidance on fingerings and chords. Fans share bootleg recordings and unreleased songs, reflections on his lyrics or entreaties for help understanding them, and they speculate darkly on his death. Below videos you\u2019ll find hundreds of comments, people gushing over Elliott\u2019s fingerpicking, arguing about whether he\u2019s on something at this concert or just tired but clean, thanking him for accompanying them through depression or addiction, for making them feel less alone.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCome here when I\u2019m close to the edge, almost always these days.\u201d \u201cA few summers ago a good friend of my dad\u2019s killed himself and I used to come downstairs at night when I couldn\u2019t sleep and listen to this. I love you, Elliott.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s been saving me during this Covid insanity and the profound loneliness that\u2019s come with it. Then again he\u2019s been saving me for over twenty years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLove you, Elliott. Wherever you are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Elliott lived in a liminal time: late enough for easy recordings and portable video cameras, early enough that what we have is spare. So much of it has degraded\u2014tapes rotted to spooky fuzz, videos with shaggy images and too\u2011white faces. It makes us feel his fragility. We enthuse over warm, clear concerts where you can see Elliott bouncing his leg, hear his shy \u201cThanks\u201d after songs, like he\u2019s sitting next to you; we enthuse over performances where you can hear the grit of a bad recording in his voice, over battered tapes that sound like something from the advent of the gramophone. We enthuse over anything that feels like presence, because the absence is too hard to confront.<\/p>\n<p>On r\/elliottsmith, people post pictures of themselves in Elliott Smith shirts purchased on Etsy and TeePublic, designs for their Elliott\u2011inspired tattoos, images of <i>Figure 8<\/i>\u2019s cover painted on their bedroom walls, up-dates on the status of the original mural on Sunset Boulevard. They share memes on depression and leave heartfelt comments about listening miserably to Elliott, remarks that immediately get downvoted by Redditors who are there to talk about his technical prowess and musical genius, not to share a platform with a bunch of emo teenagers or people who act like them. \u201cDaylight Saving Time ending just means I get an extra hour to cry in bed to Elliott Smith,\u201d someone posts. \u201cIs this what this sub has become?\u201d another user complains underneath.<\/p>\n<p>We are contentious and affectionate as any family reunion.<\/p>\n<p>Once I posted a recording of Elliott playing a tricky, Moorish-sounding improvisation before diving into \u201cLA\u201d at the Black Cat in February 2000, a little motif I wasn\u2019t sure anyone had ever noticed before, and within minutes someone was asking desperately if I had the tabs. <i>Of course I don\u2019t have the tabs, <\/i>I thought. <i>No one has the tabs. <\/i>This is the kind of dazed enthusiasm Elliott Smith generates.<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>When Elliott fans argue, we\u2019re putatively arguing with each other, but we\u2019re also arguing with competing versions of Elliott. There are people who see him as unflappably morose, the \u201csadcore\u201d singer the press wanted him to be. There are people who see his lyrics as a codex to his relationships and life experiences, almost everything charting one\u2011to-one, map to territory. As Elliott explained once, almost apologetically, \u201cThere are pieces of me in other people and I don\u2019t really always know how much of a song is really me and how much is other people.\u201d Listening to \u201cChristian Brothers,\u201d the second track of his self\u2011titled album, for the first time, I wondered the same thing: There was the inexorable climb of the guitar melody, pressing toward a fight; the high hiss of Elliott\u2019s voice in the chorus; the soft threat of his curses. \u201cChristian Brothers\u201d is a song about confronting a father figure, but the song instantly became about my own relationship with my father. It was like looking in a mirror that Elliott offered up and seeing a familiar face.<\/p>\n<span class=\"caption\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"276037\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/what-it-means-to-love-elliott-smith\/030_nobody_9780593475669_ins_r1\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/030_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1604,1096\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"030_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/030_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1240x847.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-276037 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/030_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1240x847.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1240\" height=\"847\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/030_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1240x847.jpg 1240w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/030_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-300x205.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/030_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-768x525.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/030_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-60x41.jpg 60w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/030_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1536x1050.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/030_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-50x34.jpg 50w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/030_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1.jpg 1604w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1240px) 100vw, 1240px\" \/> Elliott and Sam Coomes at Abbey Road, October 1998. Elliot described Sam as his only contemporary. Photograph by Joanna Bolme.<\/span>\n<p>There are the guitar jockeys and the music theorists, and then there are the people who are here to post pictures of Elliott with pink hair or a silly blond wig with bangs or a mustache made out of tape or a picture of his tattoo of Ferdinand the Bull, just so we don\u2019t forget goofy, sweet Elliott, the person who couldn\u2019t hurt anyone, even if he did. The Elliott who wrote the soft, painfully resigned \u201cTwilight\u201d (\u201cand if I went with you \/ I\u2019d disappoint you too\u201d) is also the Elliott who would confidently play Rachmaninoff from memory, blitzing up and down the piano; the Elliott who loved the Kinks but also <i>Xena: Warrior Princess<\/i>; the Elliott who kept cracking himself up trying to whistle \u201cJealous Guy\u201d; who spent hours pretending to be a French hairdresser as he cut his oldest sister\u2019s hair and wrote his college thesis on poststructuralist feminist jurisprudence.<\/p>\n<p>As I worked on his biography, Elliott\u2019s friends and family told me about a lanky teenage boy who took his little sister on picnics and taught her what <i>apartheid <\/i>means; an anxious college student who couldn\u2019t sleep until he had listened to Elvis Costello\u2019s <i>Trust <\/i>all the way through; a musician who would catch your eye in the studio and then pretend to walk downstairs until the top of his head vanished under the control room window. He was musically omnivorous, in love with George Harrison but also Marvin Gaye, the Saints, Nico, Lead Belly, Paul Westerberg, and Chet Baker. He was wry, thoughtful, infuriating, impossibly bad at keeping in touch. He could be a contrarian for the joy of it. He hated the Eagles but once got in a debate with a girlfriend, trying to convince her that the chord progression in \u201cHotel California\u201d was interesting enough to be salvageable. Sometimes he was angry that he hadn\u2019t written \u201cRocket Man.\u201d \u201cLiterally angry,\u201d his friend Garrick Duckler told me.<\/p>\n<p>They talked, too, about Elliott\u2019s vulnerability to the world. He could be swamped by his feelings, like a kid wearing a shirt several sizes too big. He walked out of movies because he couldn\u2019t bear to see children hurt, even in a fictional context, and tucked hundred\u2011dollar bills into the shoes of people sleeping on the street. He drank in books, whether he was at home with Stendhal or on the tour bus with a textbook on quantum physics propped on his knees\u2014Garrick says that Elliott always talked about books \u201clike he had just had a long, exhausting conversation with them\u201d\u2014and he connected profoundly with Dostoyevsky, whose characters flicker so helplessly between rage and despair, guilt and panic and ecstatic love.<\/p>\n<p>But mostly there is, in the public memory, a dark Elliott. He was called \u201cMr. Misery\u201d by <i>The Guardian<\/i>, asked by <i>Revolver <\/i>if he wanted to be \u201cwillfully miserable,\u201d given a \u201cmope rating\u201d of five rain clouds by <i>CMJ New Music Monthly<\/i>. \u201cOh, Elliott,\u201d <i>Pitchfork <\/i>asked. \u201cAre things really that bad?\u201d After he died, <i>SPIN <\/i>magazine congratulated itself, in an editor\u2019s note, for producing a \u201cdetailed, empathetic look at the last years of Elliott Smith\u2019s life.\u201d The article begins by comparing Elliott to \u201can indigent blind man who had wandered up the steps to the stage.\u201d In <i>Hazlitt <\/i>several years ago, a writer coronated Elliott \u201cthe McCartney of Methadone,\u201d a \u201cKaty Perry\u201d of the \u201ccatchy jumper\u2019s anthem,\u201d writing archly about \u201cmelodies as irresistible as car commercial jingles about dreaming of a disappeared lover from a pool of drool in a dive bar.\u201d<\/p>\n<span class=\"caption\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"276038\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/what-it-means-to-love-elliott-smith\/021_nobody_9780593475669_ins_r1\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/021_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1536,2048\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"021_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/021_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-768x1024.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-276038 \" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/021_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"801\" height=\"1068\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/021_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/021_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/021_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-45x60.jpg 45w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/021_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/021_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-38x50.jpg 38w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/021_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 801px) 100vw, 801px\" \/> Elliott and Joanna Bolme at Satyricon in 1995. \u201cI love that she loved him,\u201d Neil says. \u201cThat she saw him and understood right away what his beauty was.\u201d Courtesy of Bruce Greif.<\/span>\n<p>When an artist dies, who gets to be remembered for their art, and who gets caught in the amber of their death? Longevity helps; if Picasso hadn\u2019t outlived his Blue Period and <i>Guernica <\/i>by a long stretch of years, he might be dinted today as indulgently moody. At eighty\u2011two Leonard Cohen was still making decadently sad albums\u2014his last, <i>You Want It Darker<\/i>, only months before his death\u2014but because he wore a suit and spent time as a monk, he\u2019s remembered less as a poet laureate of melancholy, more as a poet, full stop. Elliott has been swallowed up by a darkness that fully consumed him only at the end. It\u2019s never seemed\u2014to use a childish word\u2014fair. \u201cThere\u2019s kind of an inordinate amount of focus on whether I\u2019m personally happy or not,\u201d Elliott said once. \u201cIf you have a bad dream, does that mean that you\u2019re not a happy person? I mean, that\u2019s the same place that songs come from.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"pullquote\">Elliott has been swallowed up by a darkness that fully consumed him only at the end. It\u2019s never seemed\u2014to use a childish word\u2014fair.<\/p>\n<p>He is often understood, rightly and wrongly, as a kind of unfiltered confessional poet. That\u2019s partly a misunderstanding born of his productivity. There was a period in the nineties when his output\u2014dozens and dozens of perfect songs\u2014was so prodigious that it thwarts human understanding. The musician Neil Gust, Elliott\u2019s close friend for years, remembers being staggered by it. It reminded him of what Allen Ginsberg had said about Bob Dylan\u2014how Dylan had become one with his breath, \u201ca column of air.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s where Elliott got,\u201d Neil says. \u201cHe got to a place where it just lined up. He just couldn\u2019t not nail it.\u201d And yet Elliott\u2019s art was also considered. Like Elizabeth Bishop, he polished his words over years; like Chekhov, he examined his characters from a thoughtful, compassionate distance, turning them over in his hands. He wrote songs \u201cas full of mystery and suggestion as an overheard conversation,\u201d as one critic observed. In the years since his death, demos and early drafts sung in concert have shown how deliberately Elliott pared his lyrics back and tinkered with phrases, sometimes changing lines even after an album was finished. Luke Wood, his A&amp;R rep at DreamWorks, watched him write out four or five sets of the same lyrics, revising the pronouns. His longtime producer, Rob Schnapf, remembers Elliott taking a finished song off <i>XO <\/i>because he was unhappy with the word <i>the<\/i>. \u201cThat\u2019s not even a word!\u201d Rob says, laughing.<\/p>\n<p>Elliott was also mispegged as a folk singer during his lifetime, to his own bafflement; his music has a pop architecture that runs deep, and an architecture that goes deeper than that is purely, idiosyncratically Elliott. When I spoke to the virtuoso jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, who released a tribute album last year, he stressed that Elliott was \u201cdeeply original\u201d as a harmonist, with songs full of movement that recall not Dylan, but the Zombies, Faur\u00e9, and Wayne Shorter. \u201cThe final effect is an emotional one,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s an emotional landscape that\u2019s not just primary colors, but full of pastels and wonderful blurred hues.\u201d The producer David McConnell, who worked on Elliott\u2019s final album, compares the typical song to racing around a track, hitting the same predictable markers over and over\u2014verse, chorus, verse, chorus. What Elliott was doing was more like cross\u2011country: continual discovery, the landscape always changing underfoot. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t predictable,\u201d David told me. \u201cHe would even fool himself, you know, and that\u2019s what he wanted to do. He wanted to fool everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Elliott has no true written archive. Correspondence carried out through EarthLink and Hotmail addresses has, with a few exceptions, vanished into the ether. He rarely kept papers. In interviews, he often skirted the truth. One of the fullest troves of documents consists of 150 pieces of paper tucked into plastic sleeves, often just napkins he jotted lines on at a bar. The rest I\u2019ve scavenged from friends, former lovers, producers, and scattered set lists, made available for the first time. My narrative is also informed by hundreds of bootlegs and access to unreleased recordings granted by his estate.<\/p>\n<span class=\"caption\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"276039\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/what-it-means-to-love-elliott-smith\/004_nobody_9780593475669_ins_r1\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/004_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1.jpeg\" data-orig-size=\"640,432\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"004_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/004_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1.jpeg\" class=\"wp-image-276039 \" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/004_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"801\" height=\"541\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/004_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/004_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-300x203.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/004_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-60x41.jpeg 60w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/004_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-50x34.jpeg 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 801px) 100vw, 801px\" \/> Gary, Elliott, and Rachel ca. 1979. Courtesy of the Smith family.<\/span>\n<p>These scraps are precious, vital; they are also insufficient. A biography of Elliott Smith must instead be written from oral history, from memory, interviews with 140 people who knew him at all stages of his life\u2014a mosaic that slowly illuminates the contours of a human face. Elliott revealed different facets of himself in every encounter. \u201cPeople are really kaleidoscopic,\u201d he remarked once, using a word he loved, and I\u2019ve tried to capture that quality in him. As his friend James Clark told me, \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone really understands him completely, which is how he\u2019d want it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I have been moved throughout this process by everyone who has put their trust in me. To some extent, that trust was hard\u2011won\u2014it took about a year of outreach, sometimes two or three, before most people would talk with me\u2014but it was also given on faith that a stranger who did not know Elliott could somehow be equipped to write about him. As Elliott\u2019s friend Scott McPherson told me, \u201cI thought you would be a good caretaker for this story.\u201d \u201cI think we all feel that way,\u201d Larry Crane, the estate\u2019s archivist, said.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve tried to give Elliott the biography he might have wanted, with the understanding that he probably wouldn\u2019t have wanted a biography at all. To that effect, I\u2019ve written a book that focuses on Elliott\u2019s music and the music that mattered to him, the songs and artists that made him feel the way so many of us feel about Elliott. And I\u2019ve written a book that understands his story in the context of everyone he cared about, including, for the first time, his family and nearly all of his romantic partners. I think he would have wanted that, the spotlight on the people he loved. Sometimes that meant being honest about hearts he had broken, including his own.<\/p>\n<span class=\"caption\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"276040\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/what-it-means-to-love-elliott-smith\/005_nobody_9780593475669_ins_r1\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/005_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1.png\" data-orig-size=\"1142,1736\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"005_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/005_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-674x1024.png\" class=\"wp-image-276040 \" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/005_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-674x1024.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1215\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/005_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-674x1024.png 674w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/005_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-197x300.png 197w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/005_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-768x1167.png 768w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/005_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-39x60.png 39w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/005_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-33x50.png 33w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/005_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1.png 1142w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/> Elliott with the guitar his father gave him, ca. 1981. \u201cWhen I was about twelve or thirteen, my dad gave me an inflatable raft and a nylon-\u00adstring guitar for my birthday,\u201d he said. \u201cI liked the raft a lot better at first.\u201d Courtesy of the Smith family.<\/span>\n<p>Elliott\u2019s lyrics acknowledge that some things are hard and never get better. The brightness in his songs, the crack where the light gets in, as Leonard Cohen puts it, is in the recognition he shines on difficulty, the phrase that\u2019s like a fishing line that hooks your heart: \u201cusing all your strength to keep the world at an arm\u2019s length\u201d; \u201cpeople you\u2019ve been before \/ that you don\u2019t want around anymore.\u201d His songs trace our own contradictions and inner arguments, the warring impulses that tip us over into people we never wanted to be or reel us back from the edge. The joy of his songs, the counterargument to their pain, lies within the melodies. \u201cI wrote a lot of sweet, happy melodies this time,\u201d Elliott said wryly of <i>XO<\/i>. \u201cThe songs aren\u2019t really happy. But you can pretend they\u2019re happy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the Fonda in 2003, where he promised not to end on a sad song, he was more earnest. \u201cSome songs are sad, but they make you happy anyway,\u201d he says, looking delicate, knees turned in, fiddling with the opening chords to \u201cStrung Out Again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The softness of his voice, the comfort of his hum in \u201cRoman Candle,\u201d the unearthly beauty of \u201cWaltz #1,\u201d the moment in \u201cPitseleh\u201d when he reminds you that \u201cno one deserves\u201d the pain they\u2019re put through, followed by a flood of piano that sweeps you up in compassion and human understanding\u2014that\u2019s not just pretend happiness; that\u2019s happiness.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">______________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"275974\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/what-it-means-to-love-elliott-smith\/attachment\/9780593475669\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593475669-scaled.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1696,2560\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"9780593475669\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593475669-678x1024.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-275974\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593475669-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593475669-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593475669-678x1024.jpg 678w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593475669-768x1160.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593475669-40x60.jpg 40w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593475669-1017x1536.jpg 1017w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593475669-1356x2048.jpg 1356w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593475669-33x50.jpg 33w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/9780593475669-scaled.jpg 1696w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>From<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9780593475669\">Nobody Broke Your Heart: An Intimate Biography of Elliott Smith<\/a><em> by Jamie Fisher, to be published on August 25th, 2026 by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright \u00a9 2026 by Jamie Fisher. Featured image: Elliott at the 9:30 Club in DC, May 2000 in DC, May 2000. Photograph by Meagan Perkins<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the last videos taken of Elliott Smith shows him at the Fonda Theatre, in Los Angeles. He\u2019s sitting in a metal stacking chair, wearing faded dark pants and a T\u2011shirt that says i <3 metal, a little slumped<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31743,"featured_media":276041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43102,11,43094,43092],"tags":[14748,111886,13166,11682,111887,39238,16228,37117],"class_list":["post-275973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biography","category-fullwidth-slider","category-music","category-newsandculture","tag-dutton","tag-elliott-smith","tag-jamie-fisher","tag-musicians","tag-nobody-broke-your-heart-an-intimate-biography-of-elliott-smith","tag-penguin-publishing-group","tag-penguin-random-house","tag-singer-songwriters","story-type-musicians"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19Nb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/037_NOBODY_9780593475669_ins_r1-1.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31743"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":275940,"date":"2026-08-27T05:08:59","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T09:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=275940"},"modified":"2026-08-24T20:32:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T00:32:19","slug":"the-letter-doula-how-to-help-a-life-arrive-on-the-page","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/the-letter-doula-how-to-help-a-life-arrive-on-the-page\/","title":{"rendered":"The Letter Doula: How to Help a Life Arrive on the Page"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For years, I believed people avoided letter writing because they lacked time. But after teaching leadership, communication, and storytelling to thousands of students, I\u2019ve come to believe something else entirely: People do not avoid writing because they\u2019re busy, or even because they have nothing to say. They avoid writing because they know, deep down, that the letter may be saved, may be re-read, even\u00a0 answered. A text can disappear into a scroll. An email can be deleted in a swipe. But a letter\u2014especially a handwritten one\u2014feels dangerously permanent. It asks us to choose what deserves to outlive us.<\/p>\n<p>I have become less a writer and more a letter doula: someone who helps usher difficult truths, buried gratitude, overdue apologies, impossible love, and unfinished grief safely into the world. When my students struggle to write speeches, they often believe the problem is craft. They ask questions about structure, transitions, hooks, and conclusions. But usually the real problem sits somewhere deeper. We live in an age of performance writing. We curate ourselves constantly. Even our vulnerability now arrives edited, filtered, captioned, and optimized for engagement. We have become remarkably skilled at sounding like people who feel deeply while revealing almost nothing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pullquote\">A text can disappear into a scroll. An email can be deleted in a swipe. But a letter\u2014especially a handwritten one\u2014feels dangerously permanent.<\/p>\n<p>Letters resist that instinct. A real letter does not survive on branding. A real letter eventually asks of the writer: What do you actually mean? And perhaps more frighteningly: Will you say it plainly?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>*<br \/>\nPrompt #1: Write Toward One Person, Not the World<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Can you right now, pause and think of one person whose face changes when they see you enter a room. One person. Now finish this sentence privately:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>What I have never fully told you is\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Do not worry about elegance. Do not aim for profundity. The human nervous system recognizes sincerity faster than polish. Some of the most unforgettable lines in history are structurally simple. \u201cI miss you.\u201d \u201cI forgive you.\u201d \u201cI was wrong.\u201d \u201cThank you for loving me when I was difficult to love.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Years ago, I began writing letters not because I had literary ambitions, but because certain experiences refused to stay quiet inside me. Some letters were written to people I adored. Others were written to people who hurt me. A few were written to people who would never read them at all. And that is when I discovered something important about writing in general: Writing is not always communication. Sometimes writing is clarification, or excavation of what we actually feel or believe.<\/p>\n<p>A letter creates immediate emotional stakes. Unlike a journal entry, a letter presumes relationship. Even if unsent, it imagines witness. Someone is on the other side of the page.<\/p>\n<p>The irony is that people often wait to write until they feel emotionally resolved. But resolution is overrated. Some of the most powerful writing emerges mid-confusion. You do not need closure to begin. You need willingness. I have seen students write extraordinary things immediately after admitting they \u201cdidn\u2019t know what to say.\u201d That phrase itself is often the doorway. Uncertainty sounds human. And readers trust humanity far more than certainty.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>*<br \/>\nPrompt #2: Begin Before You Understand<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Take out a blank page and write this sentence at the top:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I do not entirely understand why this matters to me, but\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Then keep your pen moving for seven uninterrupted minutes.<\/p>\n<p>No deleting, rereading, correcting grammar, or performing intelligence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pullquote\">A real letter does not survive on branding. A real letter eventually asks of the writer: What do you actually mean? And perhaps more frighteningly: Will you say it plainly?<\/p>\n<p>Just movement.<\/p>\n<p>Most people stop writing at the exact moment they are about to say something real. Keep going thirty seconds past that point. That is usually where the truth begins.<\/p>\n<p>I worry sometimes that we are becoming emotionally fluent in reaction but emotionally illiterate in reflection. We react instantly now. We comment instantly. We post instantly. But meaningful writing often requires incubation. A letter asks us to sit beside our own thoughts long enough to hear them fully formed. That kind of patience can feel uncomfortable at first. Silence usually does. But silence is where original thought lives.<\/p>\n<p>Letter writing matters because it trains us to notice what deserves articulation before it is too late. That may be the central task of all meaningful writing. To rescue what would otherwise go unsaid.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>*<br \/>\nFinal Prompt: The Unwritten Letter<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Somewhere in your life there is a letter you already know you should write. You have rehearsed pieces of it in the shower. While driving. At 2 a.m. While watching someone sleep. At a funeral. At an airport gate.<\/p>\n<p>You already know the recipient, the purpose, even the opening line. Write the letter you have been postponing. Not tomorrow. Not when you feel eloquent. Not when you feel healed. Not when you finally \u201chave the words.\u201d The words arrive through writing.<\/p>\n<p>And if you are very lucky, years from now someone may hold your pages in their hands and feel less alone because you finally chose to say the thing you meant. That is not merely correspondence. That is literature at its most human.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">_______________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"275941\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/the-letter-doula-how-to-help-a-life-arrive-on-the-page\/alifeinletters\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ALifeinLetters.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"535,800\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"ALifeinLetters\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ALifeinLetters.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-275941\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ALifeinLetters-201x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"201\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ALifeinLetters-201x300.jpg 201w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ALifeinLetters-40x60.jpg 40w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ALifeinLetters-33x50.jpg 33w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/ALifeinLetters.jpg 535w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9798891389229\">A Life in Letters: Notes and Prompts for a Return to Pen and Paper<\/a> <em>by Ronda Beaman is available from Amplify Publishing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For years, I believed people avoided letter writing because they lacked time. But after teaching leadership, communication, and storytelling to thousands of students, I\u2019ve come to believe something else entirely: People do not avoid writing because they\u2019re busy, or even<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31722,"featured_media":275972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43071,43069,6],"tags":[111878,111876,5368,1993,111877],"class_list":["post-275940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-craft-and-advice","category-craftandcriticism","category-features","tag-a-life-in-letters-notes-and-prompts-for-a-return-to-pen-and-paper","tag-amplify-publishing","tag-letter-writing","tag-letters","tag-ronda-beaman","story-type-letters"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19ME","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/writing-pencil-old-letter-paper-font-1373053-pxhere.com-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31722"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":275868,"date":"2026-08-27T05:08:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T09:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=275868"},"modified":"2026-08-23T21:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T01:54:10","slug":"short-but-sweet-nine-novellas-to-read-in-a-single-afternoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/short-but-sweet-nine-novellas-to-read-in-a-single-afternoon\/","title":{"rendered":"Short But Sweet: Nine Novellas To Read In a Single Afternoon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In anticipation of the publication of my novella, <a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9781646037537\"><i>American Moon<\/i><\/a>, I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about the form. Novellas are tiny in the world of books, but they\u2019re good for readers in a self-inflicted time-squeezed age. We all know that attention spans have shriveled in this era of social media and instant gratification. So, when could be a better time for the novella\u2014a literary genre that found its most popular footing during the Italian Renaissance (14th century)\u2014to reemerge with gusto?<\/p>\n<p>As a former broadcast journalist, tight storytelling has been in my writing wheelhouse. Brevity with weight was my sweet spot. And so, through this experience, I have found writing novellas far better suited to my own narrative approach. For me, the traditional novel, many times, is often just too much of a load to carry. And sometimes, the novel, certainly that big 400-page tome, can be overwhelming, daunting, and time-sucking for today\u2019s reader.<\/p>\n<p>Enter the novella. What reader wouldn\u2019t want to set aside just a couple of hours on a rainy afternoon to sink themselves into a good story with time leftover to get to the gym, to do laundry, to make dinner?<\/p>\n<p>There have always been short books, some traditionally noted as novellas (20,000-40,000 words), yet not marketed as such. Publishing houses have traditionally seen the novella as an outsider, a stepchild to the <i>real<\/i> book\u2014the novel. But that appears to be changing. And as an author with two novellas currently out in the world\u2014<i>The Islander<\/i> (Outpost19) and <i>Sandman<\/i> (Collective Ink Fiction)\u2014and another on the way, I couldn\u2019t be more thrilled, and readers should be, too.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s time to embrace the kind of story that can hold its own literary weight while respecting that you still have a full life to attend to. I urge you to pick up one or more of these modern-day novellas, fall into your favorite chair, and believe in the power of brevity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">*<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"275872\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/short-but-sweet-nine-novellas-to-read-in-a-single-afternoon\/echoland-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/echoland.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"600,927\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"echoland\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/echoland.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-275872\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/echoland-194x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/echoland-194x300.jpg 194w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/echoland-39x60.jpg 39w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/echoland-32x50.jpg 32w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/echoland.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9781644450765\"><i>Echoland<\/i><\/a> by Per Petterson (160 pages)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This coming-of-age story centers on a boy\u2019s summer trip to Denmark with his broken and grieving family, a small book focusing on just a few days but covering big emotions. The protagonist, a boy named Arvid, wrestles with suspicions about his family dynamic and the impossible task of dealing with a sorrow that is left unspoken. The story delivers tender and tragic daggers to the heart through a series of unsettling encounters that expose the awkwardness of puberty.\u00a0I particularly love Petterson\u2019s ability to turn the landscape into a character that, for all intents and purposes, interacts with a young boy\u2019s trauma.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"275874\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/short-but-sweet-nine-novellas-to-read-in-a-single-afternoon\/foster\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/foster.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"600,938\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"foster\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/foster.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-275874\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/foster-192x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"192\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/foster-192x300.jpg 192w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/foster-38x60.jpg 38w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/foster-32x50.jpg 32w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/foster.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 192px) 100vw, 192px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9780802160140\"><i>Foster<\/i><\/a> by Claire Keagan (90 pages)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I always believed that Keegan\u2019s mastery comes through what she leaves out of her story\u2014the unsaid, the unrevealed, the inner life. <i>Foster<\/i>\u2014so short it is sometimes referred to as a short story but has also been published as a standalone novella\u2014is narrated by a young Irish girl, achingly quiet and shy. Her troubled and impoverished family sends her to another family\u2019s farm so the girl\u2019s overwhelmed mother can give birth to yet another child. Family secrets come along with her to her temporary home, as the family struggles with unimaginable grief. Heartbreak is unexpressed, kindness is offered through subtle action, and love emerges at the edges of family pain.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"275875\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/short-but-sweet-nine-novellas-to-read-in-a-single-afternoon\/the-english-understand-wool\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-english-understand-wool.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"600,912\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"the english understand wool\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-english-understand-wool.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-275875\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-english-understand-wool-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-english-understand-wool-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-english-understand-wool-39x60.jpg 39w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-english-understand-wool-33x50.jpg 33w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-english-understand-wool.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9780811230070\"><i>The English Understand Wool<\/i><\/a> by Helen DeWitt (65 pages)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>DeWitt\u2019s narrator is a teenage girl whose demanding mother insists on proper upper-class behavior, befitting a young, wealthy Englishwoman. One of those \u201cbehaviors\u201d is how to live a fashionable life, the English version, which her mother believes only the English truly understand, certainly when it comes to wearing wool. But while this dynamic plays out, it is revealed that the young woman is trying to write a memoir, one that her publisher insists needs to be far more personal. <i>The English Understand Wool<\/i> is skillful, funny, and exposes, through twists and turns, the quirks and peculiarities of the privileged, of celebrity, and the publishing world.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"275876\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/short-but-sweet-nine-novellas-to-read-in-a-single-afternoon\/so-long-a-letter\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/so-long-a-letter.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"485,773\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"so long a letter\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/so-long-a-letter.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-275876\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/so-long-a-letter-188x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"188\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/so-long-a-letter-188x300.jpg 188w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/so-long-a-letter-38x60.jpg 38w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/so-long-a-letter-31x50.jpg 31w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/so-long-a-letter.jpg 485w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 188px) 100vw, 188px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><i>So Long a Letter<\/i> by Mariama B\u00e2 (90 pages)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Published in 1979, this novella is the oldest of the books noted here, but time has certainly not diminished its power. The book is a semi-autobiographical story from a Senegalese author, written as a letter from the main character, Ramatoulaye, to her best friend, following the death of the narrator\u2019s husband. The letter reveals a betrayal involving a secret marriage and confronts the struggles of a single Muslim mother of several children. The story wrestles with the undercurrents of Islamic culture, religion, colonialism, and deep societal pressures.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"275877\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/short-but-sweet-nine-novellas-to-read-in-a-single-afternoon\/a-long-winter-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-long-winter.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"600,839\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"a long winter\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-long-winter.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-275877\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-long-winter-215x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"215\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-long-winter-215x300.jpg 215w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-long-winter-43x60.jpg 43w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-long-winter-36x50.jpg 36w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-long-winter.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 215px) 100vw, 215px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9781668212714\"><i>A Long Winter<\/i><\/a> by Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn (135 pages)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not unlike <i>Foster<\/i>, T\u00f3ib\u00edn\u2019s book was originally a short story, first published in 2005. In 2025, it was offered as a standalone novella as it delivers the literary weight of a full-length, traditional novel. The story is set in the foothills of the Spanish Pyrenees and revolves around a missing alcoholic mother, a woman who, it\u2019s believed, walks away from her home in a massive snowstorm to return to the village where she grew up. A desperate search is undertaken to find and save the mother or to discover her frozen body. The writing is evocative and economical. It\u2019s a heart-rending story of tragedy and regret.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"275878\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/short-but-sweet-nine-novellas-to-read-in-a-single-afternoon\/we-the-animals-5\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/we-the-animals.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"600,905\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"we the animals\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/we-the-animals.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-275878\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/we-the-animals-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/we-the-animals-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/we-the-animals-40x60.jpg 40w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/we-the-animals-33x50.jpg 33w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/we-the-animals.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9780547844190\"><i>We the Animals<\/i><\/a> by Justin Torres (128 pages)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is a fierce coming-of-age story. It centers on the lives of three rowdy brothers and their struggle for identity as they deal with family chaos and the heartbreak of boyhood. Torres\u2019 story is told through the eyes of the youngest brother living with his siblings and his Brooklyn-born mother and father in upstate New York. The mother works a graveyard shift and is overwhelmed with parental responsibility. The father, a security guard, has an unpredictable and sometimes ferocious temper, so volatile and disturbing that the older brother cooks up a plan to kill his father and attempts to convince his reluctant younger siblings to go along with the plot. Torres\u2019 prose is at times lyrical, at times sparse, and splendidly poetic.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"275879\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/short-but-sweet-nine-novellas-to-read-in-a-single-afternoon\/perfection-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/perfection.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"600,887\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"perfection\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/perfection.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-275879\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/perfection-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/perfection-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/perfection-41x60.jpg 41w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/perfection-34x50.jpg 34w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/perfection.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9781681378725\"><i>Perfection<\/i><\/a><i> <\/i>by Vincenzo Latronico (136 pages)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The search and desire for the perfect life may be an admirable pursuit. But when does the pursuit become all-consuming? The young couple in Latronico\u2019s story is on a quest to discover their ultimate \u201chappy place\u201d in a world shaped by the illusion of happiness, fueled through image son social media and the technologies that dominate modern existence. The couple, from somewhere in Southern Europe but living in Berlin, is increasingly isolated from the people and places they have adopted as they fight a seemingly never-ending battle to turn the image of a perfect life into their reality. <i>Perfection<\/i>, a modern-day Greek tragedy in so many ways, was longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize. Read it, and you\u2019ll see why.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"275880\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/short-but-sweet-nine-novellas-to-read-in-a-single-afternoon\/a-shining\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-shining.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"600,914\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"a shining\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-shining.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-275880\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-shining-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-shining-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-shining-39x60.jpg 39w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-shining-33x50.jpg 33w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a-shining.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9781945492778\"><i>A Shining<\/i><\/a><i> <\/i>by John Fosse (112 pages)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The story begins like a horror tale: a broken-down car in the deep woods, the driver moving on foot through heavy snow to find help, trudging past abandoned rural homes as night begins to quickly fall. Fosse, a Norwegian writer and the recipient of the 2023 Nobel Prize in literature, writes with sensitivity for both the physical and the spiritual worlds. He delivers an unsettling story as the protagonist hears voices in the dark, encounters strange images of his parents, and believes he sees the vision of a lone man walking barefoot in the cold dark. <i>A Shining<\/i> reads at times like a fable, at times a spiritual parable, and at times a radiant mystery in just over 100 pages.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"275881\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/short-but-sweet-nine-novellas-to-read-in-a-single-afternoon\/still-life-with-meredith\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/still-life-with-meredith.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"250,400\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"still life with meredith\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/still-life-with-meredith.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-275881\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/still-life-with-meredith-188x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"188\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/still-life-with-meredith-188x300.jpg 188w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/still-life-with-meredith-38x60.jpg 38w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/still-life-with-meredith-31x50.jpg 31w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/still-life-with-meredith.jpg 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 188px) 100vw, 188px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9781944853693\"><i>Still Life with Meredith<\/i><\/a><i> <\/i>by Ann Lewinson (104 pages)\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is far from a shy book. Lewinson mixes sex, biting humor, outrageous behavior, and, of all things, a scattering of dead birds, giving the reader one hell of a literary ride. There is a palpable energy that moves through her prose, a power current of peril and danger not only in the story itself but in the use of language. One reviewer likens <i>Still Life with Meredith<\/i> to a \u201cfunhouse mirror.\u201d Not everything in the narrative is what it appears to be. It\u2019s a book packed with the unexpected and far deeper in its message than its 104 pages might suggest.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">_______________________________<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"275869\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/short-but-sweet-nine-novellas-to-read-in-a-single-afternoon\/american-moon\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/american-moon.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"600,842\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"american moon\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/american-moon.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-275869\" src=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/american-moon-214x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"214\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/american-moon-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/american-moon-43x60.jpg 43w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/american-moon-36x50.jpg 36w, https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/american-moon.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 214px) 100vw, 214px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/132\/9781646037537\">American Moon<\/a> <em>by David W. Berner is available from Regal House Publishing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In anticipation of the publication of my novella, American Moon, I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about the form. Novellas are tiny in the world of books, but they\u2019re good for readers in a self-inflicted time-squeezed age. We all know that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31711,"featured_media":275927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43069,6,43070,43135],"tags":[107132,91330,111820,111828,111823,1624,111821,111822,84460,15435,111826,22319,38664,9716,21109,20102,338,66709,111824,111827,73654,111825,39490],"class_list":["post-275868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-craftandcriticism","category-features","category-literary-criticism","category-readinglists","tag-a-long-winter","tag-a-shining","tag-american-moon","tag-ann-lewinson","tag-claire-keagan","tag-colm-toibin","tag-david-w-berner","tag-echoland","tag-foster","tag-helen-dewitt","tag-john-fosse","tag-justin-torres","tag-mariama-ba","tag-novellas","tag-per-petterson","tag-perfection","tag-reading-list","tag-regal-house-publishing","tag-so-long-a-letter","tag-still-life-with-meredith","tag-the-english-understand-wool","tag-vincenzo-latronico","tag-we-the-animals","story-type-novellas"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-19Lu","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/books.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31711"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]