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News, Notes, Talk

The time Terry Pratchett’s German publisher inserted a soup ad into his novel.

Did you know that German genre publishers used to insert paid product placement into domestic translations of popular international writers? Yes, it’s true. And here’s exhibit A (via this Neil Gaiman thread). Apparently the reason beloved sci-fi writer Terry Pratchett Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Exclusive cover reveal: Ada Limón's The Hurting Kind.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Ada Limón’s latest collection of poetry, The Hurting Kind, which will be published by Milkweed Editions this spring. Here’s how Milkweed describes the book: These poems slip through the seasons, teeming Read more >

By Literary Hub

The most memorable English teachers on TV, ranked.

The other day, I was walking down the street and I ran into my favorite high school English teacher. It was delightful! And it was very strange to realize that I hadn’t seen her in over a decade, since she Read more >

By Katie Yee

Joan Didion's whole backlist is getting a minimalist new redesign.

Today, EW reported that in 2022, Vintage Books will be republishing Joan Didion’s entire backlist—beginning with her latest, Let Me Tell You What I Mean—with a brand new, cohesive redesign. The new covers, which were designed by Linda Huang, are Read more >

By Emily Temple

A British school just banned slang—and it’s irritating linguists.

This week, London’s Ark All Saints Academy produced a list of words and phrases banned from their classes. But it’s not a list of insults or hateful language: it’s a list of slang and filler words, in the hopes students Read more >

By Walker Caplan

The best kind of library is a koala library.

Something very cute has happened: the University of Sydney and Amazon Web Services are partnering to establish a koala library. Okay, it’s a genome library, but even though it’s a repository of data, not a repository of koalas curled up Read more >

By Walker Caplan

"Food is healing." Learn how to make one of Maya Angelou's beloved family recipes.

It’s officially October, which marks the start of National Cookbook Month. If you’re searching for some new sweet or savory treats to make, why not look to Maya Angelou? In addition to being a wizard with her literary pen game, Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

Exclusive cover reveal: Bryan Doerries's The Oedipus Trilogy.

Lit Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for The Oedipus Trilogy, Bryan Doerries’s new translations of Sophocles’s Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone, forthcoming from Vintage Books on October 26th. Doerries, a New York-based writer, director and Read more >

By Literary Hub

At least one person hasn’t read Sally Rooney, and it's Jonathan Franzen.

It appears the bucket hats and tote bags and coffee carts didn’t work on at least one person: in an interview with Merve Emre in Vulture, Jonathan Franzen admitted he hasn’t read Sally Rooney. “People seem to speak well of Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Margaret Atwood, Sandra Cisneros, and more call for the release of three imprisoned Iranian writers.

Upward of fifty high-profile writers and artists have signed a letter addressed to Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi, calling for the release of three Iranian writers: Baktash Abtin, Keyvan Bajan, and Reza Khandan Mahabadi. Abtin is a poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker; Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Who should star in the Crossroads adaptation?

Extremely good news for the Franzen Hive—with apologies to Jonathan Franzen, who would probably really hate the phrase “Franzen Hive”—we’re getting a TV adaptation of his latest novel, Crossroads, which will hit shelves Tuesday. I am lucky enough to have Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

It’s time to start naming a book’s translator on the cover.

On this day, International Translators Day, a group of prominent translators (and writers, and publishers) have added their names to an open letter written by Jennifer Croft (translator of Olga Tokarczuk’s International Booker Prize-winning Flights) and Mark Haddon (author of The Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

You can support these book-based organizations that work with incarcerated folks today.

At this point, you may have heard it said many times: the United States incarcerates more people than other country in the world. And according to The Sentencing Project, the numbers have increased by a staggering 500 percent in the Read more >

By Snigdha Koirala

The Macbeths just keep on coming.

Macbeths, it would seem, are like busses: you wait forever for the right one to arrive and then two round the corner at once. Barely a week on from the release of the first teaser trailer for Joel Coen’s upcoming Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Everything you need to know about the controversy over Obama’s presidential library.

Yesterday saw the groundbreaking of the Obama Presidential Center, former president Barack Obama’s presidential library in Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side. In their speeches, the former president and Michelle Obama both focused on their personal ties to the South Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Bachelorette contestant bios.">

Bachelorette contestant bios.">A ranking of all the literary "fun facts" in the new Bachelorette contestant bios.

If you’re a member of Bachelor Nation, you’ve probably already spent some time perusing the contestant bios for the new season of The Bachelorette, in which Michelle Young, a fifth-grade teacher from Minnesota who seems genuinely lovely, will endeavor to find Bachelorette contestant bios.">Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Ruth Reichl is “grateful” she doesn’t have to be a food critic in today’s media climate.

Ruth Reichl is pretty wonderful. Even if you weren’t familiar with her long and impressive career as one of the nation’s preeminent food writers (as critic, chef, memoirist, and even novelist), you’d probably be charmed by her strangely soothing, oddly Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

13 new books to look forward to this week.

A baker’s dozen worth of books to hold close as sweater-weather arrives… * Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land (Scribner) “Doerr demonstrates a singular gift for bringing these complex, fully realized characters to empathetic life in this brilliantly imagined story, which Read more >

By Katie Yee

Read Herman Melville's embarrassingly short, typo-marred obituary.

130 years ago today, at the ripe old age of 72, Herman Melville—history’s most famous chronicler of seditious scriveners and light-skinned leviathans—suffered a heart attack and passed away at his New York home. Melville’s last novel, The Confidence-Man, had been Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

James Patterson and Scholastic are joining forces to mitigate illiteracy.

In rather heartwarming news, bestselling novelist James Patterson is working with Scholastic Book Clubs to tackle literacy inequity. On Monday, Scholastic announced that Patterson had donated $1.5 million to help launch “The United States of Readers,” a classroom initiative created Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby