The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Is winter finally coming for A Song of Ice and Fire fans?

George R.R. Martin has been famously stuck on his follow-up to A Song of Ice and Fire for…ever. The Winds of Winter was meant to be the sixth in a seven book series. But Martin has been working on the Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Dante! Secret societies! America’s Next Top Model! 20 new books out today.

July 4th has passed, and, as we enter the post-holiday rush, it’s worth remembering that, as always, there are new books to look forwards to, despite the difficult chaos of the world. Below, you’ll find twenty new options to consider Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

This week's news in Venn diagrams.

Happy July 4th eve! Even if you’re not feeling so rah-rah on the American experiment these days, there’s still a lot to celebrate tomorrow. In addition to the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the fourth is also when New Read more >

By James Folta

Here's everything that made us happy this week.

This week, our happiness came in a binary. We took pleasure indoors and outdoors. Some of us got jollies in nature, beholding birds and helming summer picnics. While the vampires among us took solace inside, where we listened to moody Read more >

By Brittany Allen

10 Canadian poetry books to expand your mind.

Canadian poetry—not actually written in maple syrup! Not entirely about beavers! (Although I have certainly written about beavers.) Canada is a complicated place, living in the shadow of the U.S., proudly multicultural but aware of its assimilationist history, reckoning with Read more >

By Dawn Macdonald

Claire Jia! Maris Kreizman! Neeli Cherkovski! 21 new books out today.

I hope you’re all safe and well, Dear Readers, as safe and well as anyone can be in this unsettling moment in a seemingly unending frieze of unsettling moments. No matter what happens, art remains important, both art that helps Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

The Supreme Court just approved anti-LGBT book bans.

On the last day of its term, America’s highest court gave legal backing to bigoted attempts to ban books and to erase queer people from public life. In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Court ruled that Montgomery County in Maryland must Read more >

By James Folta

This week’s news in Venn diagrams.

Big highs and big lows this week. I started the week feeling great after Zohran’s big, exciting win in the NYC mayoral primary, and I’m ending the week feeling awful in the wake of the Supreme Court crushing everything. And Read more >

By James Folta

Here's what's making us happy this week.

A mixed bag over here. The Eastern Seaboard was way too hot, but New Yorkers got a blast of fresh air on election day, when the progressive candidate Zohran Mamdani swept the mayoral primary. All of us have neighbors who Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Two San Francisco bookstores are taking Harry Potter off the shelves.

This week, a scrappy San Francisco bookstore announced that they’ll be removing a certain seven book fantasy series set at a dangerous boarding school from their shelves indefinitely. The decision is motivated by the author’s hateful politics. Booksellers at Booksmith, Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Here are the winners of the CLMP’s 2025 Firecracker Awards.

The Community of Literary Magazines & Presses (CLMP) has announced the winners for its eleventh annual Firecracker Awards, which celebrate “the best independently published books of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry and the best literary magazines in the categories of Read more >

By Literary Hub

Joan Didion and Eve Babitz! Rachel Kushner! 25 books out in paperback this July.

July is here! And, amongst other things, that means another month of excellent paperbacks to consider, which I hope will provide a few brief antidotes to the toxicity of the political landscape. Below, you’ll find twenty-five intriguing options in fiction Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

Why are we so obsessed with stories about a group of friends in the big city?

The “friends in the city” yarn has a long lineage, spanning every time-bound medium I can think of. Its classic structure follows three to five pals out of a fiercely bonded adolescence into floppier, fractured adult life. Between the covers, Read more >

By Brittany Allen

A new prize from three publishers will champion poetry in translation.

Fitzcarraldo Editions, Giramondo Publishing, and New Directions are teaming up to launch The Poetry in Translation Prize, a new biennial award for a poetry collection translated into English. The inaugural round of submissions opens on July 15th, and any living Read more >

By James Folta

AI will make you a dumber writer, says science.

If you suspect that ChatGPT power users may be getting dumber—looking at you, Cuomo and RFK Jr.—the data seems to indicate that you’re right. A new study by scholars from MIT and Wellesley, titled “Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Read more >

By James Folta

This is how over 40% of NYC bookstores became unionized.

The books world has been full of labor action in the last few years, most recently with Quirk Books voting to form a union with the NewsGuild and Abrams Books winning their vote to form a union with the UAW. Read more >

By James Folta

Belle Starr! Agatha Christie! A reality-TV Lord of the Flies! 22 new books out today.

June is nearing its end, and though I come bearing no good news about the fate of the world—it remains as destructively chaotic as last week, if not more so—I do come bearing some good tidings: that new books are here. Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

This week's news in Venn diagrams.

Happy belated Juneteenth! The destruction of slavery is one of the greatest achievements in our nation’s history, and I hope you took some time to reflect on it yesterday. From my perch in New York City, it’s been a hot Read more >

By James Folta

Here's what's making us happy this week.

It was another rough one out there. Lots of bad news, no two ways around it. Sensations sustained us. We got by on the grace of soft old poodle fur, and bright bites. We took heart in rooting for the Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Here’s the shortlist for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction.

Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, which awards $25,000 each year to the author of a book who best represents the legendary writer’s literary, moral, and aesthetic Read more >

By Literary Hub