The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Amanda Gorman and PRH have established a $10,000 prize for public high school poets.

Exciting news for high school writers: Amanda Gorman and Penguin Random House have teamed up to launch the Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry. The award will recognize a senior from a public high school for an original poem, and the Read more >

By Walker Caplan

"I'll take my characters to bed." Walter Dean Myers on his writing process and routines.

On this day in 1937, the prolific author Walter Dean Myers was born Walter Milton Myers in Martinsburg, West Virginia. The three-time National Book Award finalist was known for his realistic, groundbreaking, affecting portrayals of the Black urban experience, which Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

Exclusive cover reveal: Kim Fu's Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century.

Lit Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Kim Fu’s debut short story collection, Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, which will be published by Tin House next year. The publisher describes the book like this: In the Read more >

By Literary Hub

ATTN: DAVID BROOKS'S SANDWICH-FEARING FRIEND!

Today is David Brooks’s 60th birthday. Congratulations! It’s also been four years since his 2017 op-ed “How We Are Ruining America,” where he made the case that differing social norms, more than structural barriers, segregate Americans by class. In said Read more >

By Walker Caplan

The man behind the fake Cormac McCarthy Twitter account has been unmasked.

Last week, a Twitter account claiming to be Cormac McCarthy went viral, delighted thousands of readers, was verified by Twitter, was confirmed fake by McCarthy’s publisher and agent, and finally, was suspended. Now, the New York Daily News has revealed Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Dolly Parton is officially writing a novel, with a little help from James Patterson.

Dolly Parton is already the fairy godmother of readers around the world: her Imagination Library sends over one million free books per month (that’s one book every two seconds!) to children ages 0-5 in the United States, Canada, the U.K., Read more >

By Walker Caplan

A new study shows that girls write fewer female characters as they get older.

Recently, corners of the literary world have been grappling with a surprising gender gap: for the past few years, many of the most high-profile novels have been written by women. But conversations about literature as a field of women-writing-women are Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Booksellers from 6 indies rave about their favorite reads.

Spending time in a bookstore is always its own kind of magic. What awaits you at your local indie is nothing short of wizardry! Books allow you to jump into different worlds and occupy other timelines. They let you walk Read more >

By Book Marks

1984, as summarized by Madison Cawthorn.

The year is 1984, and the Ocean-America is ruled by the “Party” and the mysterious leader Big Brother, who everyone thinks is really great because she wears red lipstick and makes good Instagram videos even though it’s not like she’s Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

These are the best short stories to read around a campfire.

Little-known fact: today, August 10, is National S’mores Day! Oh, how I miss sitting around the campfire. There is no better place for sharing a well-told story. If you’re out in the woods (and still somehow reading this?), please enjoy Read more >

By Katie Yee

After a month of major controversies, the American Booksellers Association has responded.

This July, the American Booksellers Association was enmeshed in two sizable controversies. Firstly, the ABA mixed up two books by Black authors with the title Blackout, displaying information about the romance anthology Blackout next to the cover of Blackout by Read more >

By Walker Caplan

A new poll shows that most readers organize their bookshelves . . . completely randomly.

Much has been made of the trend of organizing one’s books by color: some find it cute, some find it a disturbing, theatrical perversion of the insular process of reading. But despite the controversy of color-coordinated shelves, they’re not that Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Take a look at Tove Jansson’s illustrations for a Swedish edition of The Hobbit.

The public knows Tove Jansson, Finnish writer and illustrator, primarily as the creator of Moomins—but in her later life, she purposefully distanced herself herself from the Moomin universe. When she ended her daily Moomin comic strip, Jansson wrote to a Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Every book Audrey Hope reads in the Gossip Girl reboot (so far).

If you’re a Millennial like me who can’t resist trashy teen dramas as a coping mechanism, you’re gleefully hate-watching the Gossip Girl reboot on HBO Max. I’m sorry to say that thus far, the new show hasn’t captured the same Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

20 new books to look out for this week.

So you’re making your way downtown, walking fast, faces pass, and you’re homebound. But what’s this? A bookstore in your path?! Yes, you dear reader, are powerless to resist. You follow its siren call. Here are 20 big new books Read more >

By Katie Yee

Jack Kerouac is getting into podcasts.

If you think the sweet release of death will deliver you from your obligation to start a podcast, think again. Jack Kerouac—who, if he were alive, would absolutely have gone on Joe Rogan by now—will soon return to us in Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Behold this creepy and adorable 1911 book of captioned cat photos.

Over the weekend, the Public Domain Review pointed me towards a book that I think we can all agree was ahead of its time: the 1911 children’s book Kittens and Cats: A First Reader by Eulalie Osgood Grover, with photographs Read more >

By Emily Temple

Read Tove Jansson’s short story composed of bizarre fan letters.

Tove Jansson, Finnish novelist best known for creating the Moomin universe (and born today in 1914), believed in responding to letters. When Dorothy Parker never responded to her brother Lars’s poetry which he mailed her, Jansson wrote: “If I was Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Adrian Tomine’s The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist is becoming a TV series.

Exciting adaptation news: as Variety reported on Thursday, Adrian Tomine’s graphic memoir The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist is being adapted by A24 and Square Peg for television as an animated series. Tomine himself will adapt the book for the Read more >

By Literary Hub

The best book lovers on TV, ranked.

So it’s National Book Lovers Day. What? You forgot? You didn’t prepare?! You mean you didn’t get your favorite book lover a gift?!? Well, at least we know what it should be. (A book. In case that wasn’t clear.) To Read more >

By Katie Yee