[{"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":"

Claire Stapleton’s Don’t Be Evil<\/em>, Kimon de Greef’s The Ego Trip<\/em>, and Dave Ziren’s The People’s Historian<\/em> all feature among the best reviewed nonfiction titles of the month.<\/p>\n

Brought to you by\u00a0Book Marks<\/a>, Lit Hub\u2019s home for book reviews.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\"Don't<\/a><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Don\u2019t Be Evil: Bad Bosses, Fake Promises, and My Escape from Big Tech<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Claire Stapleton<\/strong>
\n(William Morrow and Company)<\/strong><\/p>\n

4 Rave \u2022 1 Positive \u2022 1 Mixed<\/strong><\/p>\n

\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\u00a0Careless People<\/em>\u00a0and Anna Wiener\u2019s\u00a0Uncanny 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

\u2013Harvey Freedenberg (BookPage<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

2.\u00a0The Ego Trip: Psychedelic Toads, a Trail of Deaths, and the Guru Who Peddled Transcendence<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Kimon de Greef
\n(Doubleday)<\/strong><\/p>\n

4 Rave \u2022 1\u00a0Positive<\/strong><\/p>\n

\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

\u2013Annie Bartlett (BookPage<\/em>)<\/a><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

3.\u00a0The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Jill Lepore<\/strong>
\n(Liveright)<\/strong><\/p>\n

3 Rave \u2022 2 Positive \u2022 1 Mixed<\/strong><\/p>\n

\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

\u2013Carol Haggas (Booklist<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"Days<\/a><\/p>\n

4.\u00a0Days of Miracle and Wonder: Paul Simon and the Trials and Triumphs of Graceland<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Ahley Kahn<\/strong>
\n(Atria)<\/strong><\/p>\n

4 Rave \u2022 1 Mixed<\/strong><\/p>\n

\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

\u2013Mark Braude (The New York Times Book Review<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0The People\u2019s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Dave Zirin
\n(Dutton)<\/strong><\/p>\n

2 Rave \u2022 3 Positive \u2022 2 Mixed<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cRousing \u2026 It\u2019s a wonderful portrait of a historian who reshaped America\u2019s understanding of its potential for change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Publishers Weekly<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claire Stapleton’s Don’t Be Evil, Kimon de Greef’s The Ego Trip, and Dave Ziren’s The People’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":"

Chang-Rae Lee’s A Tender Age<\/em>, T\u00e9a Obreht’s Sunrise<\/em>, and Paul Yoon’s Etna<\/em> all feature among the best reviewed fiction titles of the month.<\/p>\n

Brought to you by\u00a0Book Marks<\/a>, Lit Hub\u2019s home for book reviews.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0A Tender Age<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Chang Rae-Lee
\n(Riverhead)<\/strong><\/p>\n

11 Rave \u2022 1 Mixed \u2022 1 Pan<\/strong><\/p>\n

\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

\u2013Terry Hong (Shelf Awareness<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"Sunrise\"<\/a><\/p>\n

2.\u00a0Sunrise<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by T\u00e9a Obreht
\n(Random House)<\/strong><\/p>\n

10 Rave \u2022 1 Pan
\nRead an interview with T\u00e9a Obreht\u00a0here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\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

\u2013Donna Seaman (Booklist<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"Etna\"<\/a><\/p>\n

3.\u00a0Etna<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Paul Yoon
\n(Scribner)<\/strong><\/p>\n

8 Rave \u2022 1 Positive \u2022 1 Mixed
\nRead an excerpt from\u00a0Etna<\/em>\u00a0here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFor all its compactness,\u00a0Etna<\/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

\u2013Rachel Vorona Cote (The Atlantic<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"Triage<\/a><\/p>\n

4.\u00a0Triage<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Claudia Rankine
\n(Graywolf)<\/strong><\/p>\n

4 Rave \u2022 6 Positive \u2022 1 Mixed<\/strong><\/p>\n

\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

\u2013Walton Muyumba (The Boston Globe<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

5.\u00a0The Amateur<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by Chris Bohjalian
\n(Doubleday)<\/strong><\/p>\n

7 Rave
\nRead an essay by Chris Bohjalian\u00a0here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\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

\u2013Sarah Lyall (The New York Times Book Review<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chang-Rae Lee’s A Tender Age, T\u00e9a Obreht’s Sunrise, and Paul Yoon’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 Toy Story<\/em>, It-Narratives Imagined the Inner Lives of Objects"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/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

Although critics hailed the original Toy Story<\/em> for its \u201cincredibly clever\u201d<\/a> and \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

While today we think of 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 \u201cAdventures of a Shilling\u201d<\/a> (1710) and Charles Johnstone\u2019s 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

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

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 The History of Tom Jones <\/em>(1749) and popular adventure fiction such as Robinson Crusoe <\/em>(1719). It-narratives including Helenus Scott\u2019s 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 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

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. 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 coats<\/a>, silk petticoats, waistcoats, and wigs, as well as the anonymously-authored History of a French Louse<\/em><\/a> (1779). Born on the head of a courtesan, the 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 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

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 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

Like the toys in 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 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

In children\u2019s it-narratives such as The History of a Pocket Prayer Book<\/em><\/a> (1839) and 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

Just as 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

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 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

One such collection of it-narratives survives in the form of the 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

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 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

Toys, of course, are not the only small things that children carry these days. The antagonist of the new 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":"

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":" TODAY: In 1950, Italian poet Cesare Pavese dies. <\/span>\n