The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Nicolas Cage as Dracula! Yes, the trailer for Renfield has arrived.

Listen up, my children of the night! There is a new Dracula adaptation in our midst, starring Nicolas Cage. It’s called Renfield, and perhaps you have heard of it, since it has been in development for some time. But if Read more >

By Olivia Rutigliano

18 new paperbacks coming out this January.

Behold: the first paperbacks of the year. * Jean Chen Ho, Fiona and Jane (Penguin, January 3) “A wonderful debut … [Fiona and Jane] is a book that is built on memory, a book that speaks to the importance and Read more >

By Katie Yee

Here are the winners of the second annual Silvers-Dudley Prizes for literary and arts journalism.

Today, the Robert B. Silvers Foundation announced the winners of their second annual Silvers-Dudley Prizes, which recognize “outstanding achievement in literary criticism, arts writing, and journalism.” The prizes, which carry a total value of $135,000, will award between $15,000 and Read more >

By Emily Temple

What to read next based on your New Year's resolutions.

Happy New Year, readers. Recently, I’ve been seeing this trend on Instagram of people proclaiming what is in in 2023, and what is decidedly out. Here are mine. What’s out: Biker shorts. Electric scooters on the sidewalk. Maybe Twitter? Leaving Read more >

By Katie Yee

The story of the husband-murdering author of “How to Murder Your Husband” is coming to Lifetime.

For today’s entry in Stories That Simply Feel Right: The tale of Nancy Crampton Brophy—self-published romance novelist and author of the (in retrospect, ill-advised) essay “How to Murder Your Husband,” who was recently convicted of, yes, murdering her husband—is coming Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Elon Musk misunderstands fictional dystopias (and his role in our real dystopia).

Famous meme-lord and loser-of-billions Elon Musk is once again using the $44 billion message board he bought to share his erudition. Last night Musk Tweeted what looks like an old meme whipped up by an edgy 15-year-old who just lost Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

A new indie bookstore named for Octavia Butler is opening in the author's hometown.

Here’s a piece of good literary news to start the year: a new independent bookstore named after the legendary Octavia E. Butler is opening in Pasadena, California, where the late Sci-Fi icon was born and raised. I took the leap Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Here are the books that just entered the public domain.

In 2019, for the first time in over two decades, a new crop of literary work entered the public domain: everything first published in the United States in 1923 became available for reusing, recycling, and remixing. Since then, we’ve had a Read more >

By Emily Temple

Cover reveal: Safiya Sinclair's summer memoir How to Say Babylon

Lit Hub is pleased to share the cover for Safiya Sinclair’s forthcoming memoir, How to Say Babylon, which Simon and Schuster will publish this summer. Sinclair is the author of the poetry collection Cannibal, winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award, the Read more >

By Literary Hub

Are we really going to start disinfecting our used books?

I get that we live in harrowing times, and that global pandemics can leave us feeling powerless and entirely without agency, but taking the time to laboriously disinfect your used books is *not* going to change that—and it might even Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

12 new books to kick off your 2023 reading.

Another year, another batch of new books to look forward to. If any of your resolutions involve reading more, we’ve got you covered. * Deepti Kapoor, Age of Vice (Riverhead) “Riveting … Kapoor paints a mesmerizing picture of violence and Read more >

By Katie Yee

Donna Tartt on the books that were important to her while writing The Secret History.

Donna Tartt’s cozy/murderous winter classic The Secret History, which turned 30 this year, is Today’s December Read With Jenna Pick—and the famously publicity-agnostic Tartt answered a few questions about the book and her experiences over the last 30 years for Read more >

By Emily Temple

Let the opinions commence: You can now read the whole White Noise screenplay.

For those of you anticipating—or dreading—Noah Baumbach’s new adaptation of White Noise, which officially releases on Netflix on December 30th, fun news! You can get a jumpstart and read the screenplay in its entirety, courtesy of Deadline. Tragically, the screenplay does not Read more >

By Eliza Smith

Charles Dickens partied HARD after finishing A Christmas Carol in just six weeks.

Happy Birthday to one of the greatest Christmas stories ever told, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, which was published on this date in 1843. Dickens—who, like all writers, needed money at the time—wrote the now-classic parable of avarice and redemption Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Thomas Pynchon’s archives have a home (Oedipa Maas and Zipi Pisk can finally relax)

I have questions. Now that Thomas Pynchon’s archives have a home—at Los Angeles’s Huntington Library—will we finally be given access to how he comes up with the names for his characters? Look, whatever you think of Pynchon as a novelist—and Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Evelyn Waugh's mansion just sold for £3m, but the "superfans" living there refuse to leave.

This week, the eight-bedroom, six-bathroom Cotswold mansion where Evelyn Waugh wrote Brideshead Revisited sold to an unnamed bidder in an online auction for £3.16m, after its previous owner, Jason Blain, defaulted on a loan against the property. That’s despite the fact that Read more >

By Emily Temple