The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Check out this typeface inspired by Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío.

I’ve noticed that poets on the internet typically inspire either rhapsodic Twitter-praise (often from other poets), or extreme annoyance. So it’s nice to see someone react to one in a slightly more concrete way (even if the poet in question Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Kogonada will direct an adaptation of R.O. Kwon's The Incendiaries.

Now here’s a piece of literary adaptation news to get fired-up about. Kogonada—the critically-acclaimed, delightfully mysterious South Korean-American filmmaker and video essayist whose works include Columbus, After Yang, and Pachinko—is set to direct a limited series adaptation of R. O. Kwon’s Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Hong Kong activists convicted for writing “seditious” children’s books.

While it’s hard enough to keep up with government censorship here in the Land of the Free, things in Hong Kong aren’t looking great either. According to Agence France-Presse, a Hong Kong court today convicted five pro-democracy trade unionists of Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Here’s the shortlist for the 2022 Booker Prize.

Neil MacGregor, the chair of the judging panel for this year’s Booker Prize, announced its shortlist today. MacGregor said that in each of the six books on the shortlist, “the author has used language not just to tell us what Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Your guide to free virtual literary events happening in September.

If you miss the feeling of going back to school, consider these free virtual literary events like a kind of literary lecture hall. * In Conversation: Jonathan Escoffery and Nicole Dennis-Benn September 7 @ 7pm EST To celebrate the release Read more >

By Katie Yee

18 new books to get excited about this week.

Yeah, it sucks to return to work after a three-day weekend, but on the bright side: there’re only four grueling days ahead, and at least 22 new books coming out today to look forward to. * Maggie O’Farrell, The Marriage Read more >

By Katie Yee

Is climate-change making it too hot for many of the nation’s libraries?

In one more example of how climate change adversely affects those on the margins, record-breaking temperatures in the Pacific Northwest this summer lead to “130 full- or partial-day closures due to heat” in the Seattle Public Library system. According to Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Here are the winners of the 2022 Hugo Awards.

The winners of the 2022 Hugo Awards—one of science fiction and fantasy’s most prestigious awards, decided by the popular vote of WorldCon members—were presented on Sunday night at the 80th WorldCon in Chicago, in a ceremony hosted by Charlie Jane Read more >

By Emily Temple

Area man named Bob Jablonski returns library book called Hitler 77 years overdue.

A New Jersey man named Bob Jablonski has finally returned Hitler to the local library. No, this is not The Onion. Bob Jablonski checked out the 1936 biography of Adolph Hitler in 1947, for a school book report, and presumably Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Classic literature, rewritten for kids.

There’s an article on Politico today about Brave Books, a publisher of (longest “ugh” in recorded history) conservative books for children. The article concludes that the books aren’t necessarily “bad” (okay no, they definitely are), they just aren’t going to Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Here’s definitive proof that John Hughes was a fan of John Cheever.

Well…not proof. But very ornate conjecture. Remember the penultimate sequence of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? For those who don’t: after an impossibly full day of truancy (could he really have attended a Cubs game and toured the Art Institute and Read more >

By Raf Richardson-Carillo

Literary villains who were actually just suffering from burnout.

In case you haven’t read mainstream periodical, Substack, lifestyle website, or know-it-all’s Twitter feed in the past two years: we’re all suffering from burnout. In fact, in a way, the real villain was burnout all along. Armed with this knowledge, Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

20 new paperbacks hitting shelves this September.

Even though I’ve been out of school for years, there’s just something about September that inspires a renewed studiousness in me. That first whiff of fall air brings back all my fond memories of Lisa Frank folders and scented erasers, Read more >

By Katie Yee

Nora Roberts donated $50,000 to save the Patmos Library.

Nora Roberts has donated $50,000 to the Patmos Library in Jamestown, Michigan, which has been at risk of shutting down after residents defunded it over librarians’ refusal to remove LGBTQ books. After the town voted to remove a millage—the share Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Who is the real “Queen of Crime”? Agatha Christie’s estate sends a stern letter to Val McDermid.

As a wild colonial I may not have a firm grasp on the rules of succession, but when a reigning monarch dies, doesn’t the title get passed down? Well, apparently if the title in question is totally made-up, subjective, and Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

The judge in two Virginia book-banning cases has dismissed the lawsuits.

The judge in two obscenity cases in Virginia that targeted two books—Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe and A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas—has dismissed the cases, saying that the books are not obscene under Read more >

By Corinne Segal