The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Post-controversy, Chris Cuomo’s book has been scrapped by its publisher.

Possibly the last Cuomo book update Lit Hub will ever blog: on Tuesday, HarperCollins announced that they are pulling Chris Cuomo’s book from publication following his termination from his position as an anchor at CNN. Cuomo was previously suspended for Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Of course venture capitalists are super into Andy Weir.

Where do you turn when you’ve run out of ways to make money from the planet you live on? Ad astra you dipshit! C’mon, bro. So it’s no surprise that Andy Weir and his user manuals for space colonialism come Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Remember the time Mario Vargas Llosa punched Gabriel García Márquez?

Today in 1982, Gabriel García Márquez received the Nobel Prize for “his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent’s life and conflicts.” Twenty-eight years Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Here are five contemporary epistolary novels you should read.

A great novel doesn’t have to follow conventional form. In the hands of a skilled writer, a story that departs from the traditional narrative structure can be compelling, engaging, and insightful. Today is National Letter Writing Day, which got me Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

A novelist is suing Amazon for selling “centuries-old” copies of his book for over $1000.

Science fiction thriller writer John C. Boland is suing Amazon for letting copies of over eight of his books be sold on their website for exorbitant prices—and with false publication dates attached. As the New York Times reported in a Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Take a look, it's (still) in a book: Reading Rainbow is coming back.

Good news for parents desperate for someone, anyone, to give them some tiny sliver of help raising their children! No, no one has announced plans to address the nationwide shortage of daycare workers, but at least Reading Rainbow is coming back! The original Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Sandra Newman is writing a feminist retelling of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

As The Guardian reported this morning, George Orwell’s estate has approved Sandra Newman’s Julia, a retelling of Nineteen Eighty-Four from the perspective of Julia, the woman with whom Winston Smith has an illicit affair before they are captured and re-educated Read more >

By Walker Caplan

19 new books to find at your local bookstore.

Consider this your weekly reminder to drop in at your local indie. Maybe think of this list as your scavenger hunt. How many can you find? How many will you get?! * Tabitha Lasley, Sea State (Ecco) “What sets Lasley Read more >

By Katie Yee

Even George R.R. Martin was surprised by HBO’s plan to make four Game of Thrones prequels.

Five Game of Thrones prequel shows are currently in development at HBO: House of the Dragon, the story of a Targaryen civil war; Dunk and Egg, an adaptation of the novella series; and at least three animated series set in Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Patrick Radden Keefe will donate £10,000 in prize money—because it came from McKinsey.

Here’s an example of someone actually living their principles! Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, a book exposing the Sackler family’s role in creating the opioid crisis, has chosen to donate Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Reginald Dwayne Betts is converting Malcolm X's former prison cell into a "Freedom Library."

Sometimes, the darkest places can make way for transformative light. Poet, author, and Yale doctorate student Reginald Dwayne Betts is planning to transform the former prison cell of Malcolm X into a library for incarcerated people. Betts, a 2018 Guggenheim Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

And the Oddest Book Title of the Year goes to . . .

Roy Schwartz’s Is Superman Circumcised?, a look at Superman’s Jewish influences, has won U.K.-based Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, beating out The Life Cycle of Russian Things: From Fish Guts to Fabergé for the honor. Is Superman Read more >

By Walker Caplan

A documentary about Anthony Broadwater’s exoneration, called Unlucky, is in the works.

Yesterday, a footnote to an op-ed in the LA Times revealed that Red Badge Films is now producing a documentary about Anthony Broadwater’s conviction and then exoneration of Alice Sebold’s rape, called Unlucky. Red Badge Films is helmed by Tim Read more >

By Walker Caplan

TikTok isn’t just for tearjerkers—it's also for obscure 1930s literary puzzles, apparently.

This year, writers and publishers learned about the power of #BookTok—a literature-loving corner of TikTok where readers post videos inspired by the books they love. Viral trends involving certain books launched backlist titles to the top of the fiction charts; Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Serena Williams has written a children's book.

Serena Williams—the 23-time Grand Slam champion, 4-time Olympic medalist, fashion designer, philanthropist, movie producer, activist, and Simpsons guest star—will soon be adding “children’s author” to her list of professional titles. Williams announced on Instagram yesterday that her first children’s book, The Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Exclusive cover reveal: Sarah Thankam Mathews' All This Could Be Different.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Sarah Thankam Mathews’ debut novel All This Could Be Different, which will be published by Viking—who acquired it in an 8-way auction—in summer 2022. The publisher describes the book as “an Read more >

By Literary Hub

How HBO's Love Life addresses the whiteness of the publishing industry.

HBO’s Love Life returned for a second season in October, with the beloved William Jackson Harper taking center stage as Marcus Watkins—a book editor! This was thrilling to me because 1) I run the Book Marks Instagram, for which I spend Read more >

By Katie Yee

George Saunders is testing how big a writing class can get.

In January, George Saunders’s craft book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, translated a class Saunders teaches in Syracuse University’s Creative Writing MFA program to the page; it aimed to demystify the mechanics of great writings to a Read more >

By Walker Caplan

You can now buy Mary Shelley’s old address—though you’ll have to bring your own goth.

News for Frankenstein fans, or just fans of the monster: according to Mansion Global, a two-bedroom Bloomsbury apartment at the address of Mary Shelley’s former home is on the market for $1.36 million. If you saved $1.17 million from not Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Bernardine Evaristo has been named president of the Royal Society of Literature.

Bernardine Evaristo, Booker-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other, has been named the next president of the Royal Society of Literature. Evaristo will take over from Marina Warner at the end of this year, becoming the second female president—and the first Read more >

By Walker Caplan