The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Manic Pixie Dream Portrait: On 500 Days of Summer and Dorian Gray.

There’s a line in 500 Days of Summer that every book lover has undoubtedly clocked. It’s towards the end. Way after they discover they both love The Smiths in the elevator, after the copy room kiss, after karaoke, after running through Read more >

By Katie Yee

We’re getting a new Douglas Stuart book, Young Mungo, in April 2022.

Fresh off Shuggie Bain’s Booker win, Douglas Stuart has announced his new novel, Young Mungo, is forthcoming from Grove (US), Knopf Canada, and Picador (UK), in April 2022. Aside from having an incredibly sticky title, Young Mungo is promised to Read more >

By Walker Caplan

8 storytelling tips all writers could learn from the legendary Zola Twitter thread turned hit movie.

In the Time Before Zola, Twitter users couldn’t link continuous threads. This feature wasn’t introduced until late 2017, which somehow seems like a lifetime ago. So, when 19-year-old Aziah “Zola” Wells took to the platform in October 2015, she couldn’t Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

10 new books you'll want to read right now.

Another Tuesday, another pile of books we can’t wait to get our hands on. What’re you waiting for?! Drop everything, and head on over to your local indie. On your (book)mark, get set, read! * Katie Kitamura, Intimacies (Riverhead) “…cooly Read more >

By Katie Yee

Prince Harry will give an "accurate and wholly truthful" account of his life in a new memoir.

Some book news for the royal watchers out there: Prince Harry is publishing a memoir with Penguin Random House in late 2022. According to the press release, the book will be “the definitive account of the experiences, adventures, losses, and Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Nicholas Kristof is considering a run for Oregon governor.

A writer is running for office—and happily, in this case it’s not J.D. Vance. The Willamette Week reported yesterday that Nicholas Kristof, Pulitzer-winning columnist for The New York Times, known for his reporting on the Tiananmen Square protests, his reporting Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Ishmael Reed was NOT happy about Jill Biden’s choice of inaugural poet.

Since January 20th of this year, there’s been no shortage of artists and critics voicing their (mostly glowing) opinions about inaugural poet and rising star Amanda Gorman. Finally joining the conversation is enduring satirist Ishmael Reed, best known for his Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Emily St. John Mandel's moon colony novel, written entirely during COVID, comes out in April.

Exciting book news for your Monday! Emily St. John Mandel—of The Glass Hotel and Station Eleven, which could be said to be one of the great pre-COVID pandemic novels—has written a new novel, to be published by Knopf on April Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Amber Tamblyn is editing an anthology that will feature essays by Jia Tolentino and Samantha Irby.

You may know Amber Tamblyn as Joan of Arcadia or Tibby Rollins of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but throughout her career, the actor has also cemented her place as an established author. Thus far, she’s published six books, Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

Hear from the authors shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing.

The AKO Caine Prize for African Writing is a literature prize awarded to an African writer of a short story published in English. The prize was launched in 2000 to encourage and highlight the richness and diversity of African writing by Read more >

By Literary Hub

The American Booksellers Association promoted an anti-trans book, apologized, and then deleted it.

The American Booksellers Association has made their Twitter account private after promoting a scientifically inaccurate anti-trans book, apologizing, and then deleting the apology. The controversy started when the ABA, as part of their July “white box” promotional mailing, sent 750 Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Check out the very first reviews of The Catcher in the Rye.

“I was surrounded by phonies…They were coming in the goddam window.” 70 years ago today, The Catcher in the Rye first hit bookshelves across the US, and people still have some pretty strong opinions about J. D. Salinger’s groundbreaking debut. Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Here are the best reviewed books of the week.

Sunjeev Sahota’s China Room, Matt Bell’s Appleseed, Anuk Arudpragasam’s A Passage North, Kristen Radtke’s Seek You, and The Letters of Shirley Jackson all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s “Rotten Read more >

By Book Marks

FX’s Kindred adaptation has found its star.

We’ve known since March that FX has given a pilot order to Kindred, a series adaptation of Octavia Butler’s 1979 novel of the same name. Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins—Pulitzer Prize finalist, MacArthur fellow, and consulting producer on HBO’s Watchmen—wrote the pilot, Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Colin Kaepernick is releasing a deeply personal children's book.

Colin Kaepernick—the activist quarterback blackballed by the NFL for kneeling during the national anthem at the start of games in protest of police brutality and racial inequality—is releasing a children’s book inspired by a pivotal moment in his childhood. I Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Dictionary.com just added over 300 words to its website, including "zaddy," "yeet," and "youse."

The English language is an ever-changing, sometimes confounding entity. The good folks at Dictionary.com are all too aware of this fact and have recently added over 300 new words and updated definitions to the website. The latest update follows this Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

The Sympathizer adaptation will star Robert Downey Jr. as all the villains.

Back in April, A24 and Rhombus Media optioned the rights to Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer, Nguyen’s Pulitzer-winning debut novel about a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who serves as a communist double agent after the fall of Saigon. The novel Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Shawshank Redemption is actually about the power of libraries.

Late to the party yet again, I recently saw Shawshank Redemption for the very first time. For those of you who have been living under an adjacent rock, it’s a movie based on Stephen King’s novella, starring Morgan Freeman and Read more >

By Katie Yee

I want to wear all the clothes from The Catcher in the Rye.

In honor of the 70th publication anniversary of The Catcher in the Rye, I was planning to write the definitive essay on the novel’s place in the canon, but then I remembered that no discourse in the world bores me Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Donald Trump plagiarized a glowing blurb from HarperCollins.

Donald Trump, in response to the numerous exposés on his presidency hitting shelves this year, has taken to doing angry rebuttal interviews and praising books by his political allies. But I guess it runs in the family: as Internet sleuths Read more >

By Walker Caplan