The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Australian novelist John Hughes plagiarized from the obscure novel The Great Gatsby.

So we beat on, writers against our deadlines, born back ceaselessly into the pages of extremely well-known novels. Yes, I will take any excuse to mangle the closing line of The Great Gatsby, but at least I credit my source Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Harry Styles gets naked in the steamy first trailer for My Policeman.

Emotionally naked that is. Get your minds out of the gutter. Earlier this morning Amazon dropped the first teaser trailer for My Policeman, the hotly-anticipated new Harry Styles drama based on the 2012 romance novel by Bethan Roberts. Described as Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

An exclusive first look at the new Netflix true crime documentary, Girl in the Picture

A young mother’s mysterious death and her son’s subsequent kidnapping blow open a decades-long mystery about the woman’s true identity, and the murderous federal fugitive at the center of it all. Lit Hub and CrimeReads have an exclusive first look Read more >

By Dwyer Murphy

Things I Hate: Please don’t buy your dad a lifetime supply of 12-minute “micro books.”

What not to get your dad (or me, who is a dad) for Father’s Day: a $30 lifetime subscription to the 12min Micro Book Library. I can think of (almost) nothing more tortuous than confronting an infinite amount of “books” Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

James Patterson has apologized for saying white male writers experience "racism."

On Tuesday, James Patterson apologized for claiming in an interview that older white men face “racism” in the writing field. “I apologize for saying white male writers having trouble finding work is a form of racism. I absolutely do not Read more >

By Corinne Segal

There's a trailer for Netflix's new Jane Austen adaptation . . . and the internet haaaaates it.

There’s a brand new Jane Austen trailer in town (must be Tuesday). This time, it’s an adaptation of Persuasion, Austen’s final novel, starring Dakota Johnson and slated to appear on Netflix on July 15. Vogue calls it a “stylish, subversive Read more >

By Emily Temple

Join Lit Hub & the Royal Society of Literature in celebrating Dalloway Day.

Virginia Woolf wrote about material culture in the shadows of conflict, destruction and colonialism, presenting high-society in a London struggling to put itself back together again, but is Mrs Dalloway really just a novel about parties and pretty things? And what Read more >

By Literary Hub

Here are the people publishing fascist, Nazi, white nationalist garbage with Amazon’s help.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is reporting that Hatewatch has identified the principals behind Antelope Hill, a far right publisher founded in 2020 that specializes in white nationalist, fascist, Nazi publications. With a catalog ranging from newly translated Nazi-era texts Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

One of the country's oldest Black-owned bookstores is closing.

Los Angeles’ Eso Won Books has announced that they will be shutting their doors at the end of the year. Since the 1980s, this independent bookstore has dedicated itself to celebrating the voices of Black writers. They are known for Read more >

By Katie Yee

This is the most niche book recommendation I've ever made.

About four months ago, I had a baby. Certainly this will not be the first time you hear that the experience of becoming a parent can come with a profound erosion of self, particularly if you’re the mother. But the Read more >

By Emily Temple

The author of “How to Murder Your Husband” has been sentenced to life for murdering her husband.

It was, I suppose, inevitable. Nancy Crampton Brophy, a self-published romance novelist and the author of an essay entitled “How to Murder Your Husband,” who has lately been on trial for . . . murdering her husband, has been convicted Read more >

By Emily Temple

20 new books coming into the world today.

Honestly, even if the rest of your week is terrible, at least today brings us new books from Lisa Taddeo, Ibram X. Kendi, Ada Calhoun, and more. What else could you want? * Lisa Taddeo, Ghost Lover (Avid Reader Press) Read more >

By Katie Yee

Watch the insane book trailer for Ottessa Moshfegh's Lapvona.

Today, Penguin Press released a book trailer (yes, they still exist!) for Ottessa Moshfegh’s much anticipated upcoming novel, Lapvona, which follows a deformed boy living in a depraved and corrupt medieval village. On the other hand, the trailer, directed by Read more >

By Emily Temple

Stay humble, keep a decaying book in your yard.

That would be the advice of acclaimed American poet Mary Reufle, who—as tweeted by poet and director of Bennington College’s MFA program Mark Wunderlich yesterday—keeps this creepy decaying book in her yard to remind herself that all literature is vanity, and Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

The sad-sack, fascist Proud Boys have sunk to a new low: storming a library story time.

America’s sad little homegrown fascist brigade, the Proud Boys (like the Brownshirts, but with less no sex!), have taken their victimhood/insecurity-driven agenda to new depths of idiocy (Proud? See image above.) This past Saturday a group of around ten men Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

A 10-year-old in Louisiana is starting a Little Queer Library—and she needs donations.

America has its newest and coolest young librarian: 10-year-old Cora Newton of Lafayette, Louisiana, who decided she wanted to create a Little Queer Library after witnessing recent conversations in her area about banning LGBTQ books. Claire Taylor reported for the Read more >

By Corinne Segal