Joanne Harris, bestselling author of the 1999 novel Chocolat (adapted into a memorable film starring Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp and Judi Dench) and former teacher, suggested at this year’s Hay Festival that boys read less than girls at least in part Read more >
Tom Hanks is arguably one of our more literary actors. The author/typewriter enthusiast and (of course) co-star of You’ve Got Mail is leading Disney’s new live-action film, Pinocchio, based on of Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, Read more >
Welcome back from the long weekend, friends! It can be hard to get back into the swing of things, but at least there are a lot of new books here to greet you. * David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky (Little, Brown) “Unrest, Read more >
All billionaires are bad, but MacKenzie Scott—novelist, Toni Morrison protégée, and ex-wife of Jeff Bezos—is at least doing a better job than most at growing her vast fortune at a slightly less alarming rate than most of the other billionaires in the Read more >
The Art of Losing (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by French novelist Alice Zeniter has won the prestigious Dublin Literary Award, a prize which comes with a handsome glass trophy and the world’s largest purse for a single novel published in English—a Read more >
If you enjoyed watching an 80-year-old Margaret Atwood buzzing around New Zealand on a scooter, you’re gonna love watching an 82-year-old Margaret Atwood wielding the coolest (and most supervillain-y) of handheld weapons: the humble American flamethrower. Yes, last night, during Read more >
I’m sorry, you just shouldn’t write in library books. Do whatever you want with your own books—highlighter, pen, pencil, the blood of the innocent—but being a member of a library is a contract with your fellow readers, and you should Read more >
Life’s got you down? At least there are always books! This week brings new gems from Elif Batuman, Nell Zink, Akwaeke Emezi, Elizabeth Hardwick, and more. * Elif Batuman, Either/Or (Penguin Press) “Batuman has a gift for making the universe Read more >
Well, it’s that time of year again. Time for TIME to dub 100 musicians, actors, artists, activists, politicians as The Most Important. (Actually, to put it in their terms: Artists, Innovators, Titans, Leaders, Icons, Pioneers.) It appears there is —yet again—only one Read more >
In very 1984 news, Belarus has banned the sale of 1984. Belarusian weekly newspaper, Nasha Niva, reported that security forces detained Andrei Yanushkevich, publisher and bookstore owner, and confiscated 200 books, with a focus on 1984. Nasha Niva also reported that they had Read more >
Phew. Thanks to the intrepid work of books valuer Jim Spencer (at an antiques show in the surely-it-must-be-charming Moreton-in-Marsh), we’ll finally have a chance to sit back at the beach and read Christiaan Huygens’ The Celestial World Discover’d: Or, Conjectures Read more >
You probably don’t need to be reminded that book-banning is alive and well in America. But take heart: there are some incredible people doing what they can to combat it. Skylark Bookshop in Columbia, Missouri, has launched a banned books Read more >
Recently, while editing Nicole Miller’s excellent essay on Joy Williams’ cosmic waiting rooms, I learned a bit of trivia: in 1999, Starbuck’s launched a quarterly literary magazine called Joe. Though the fact of the magazine’s existence (and roster of writers) Read more >
This is the eighth year that the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses is celebrating indie publishing with the Firecracker Awards—and the first year that it’s giving award recipients a cash prize! Each winner in the books category will receive Read more >
Heartwarming, hyper-local news reports about kids and books are definitely my beat—and reader, this is the one: KCCI Des Moines is reporting that an elementary school student in Johnston, Iowa—simply named “Eric”—was able to bring six of his favorite sheep Read more >
Lit Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Ross Gay’s new essay collection Inciting Joy, which will be published by Algonquin Books in October. Algonquin describes the book as an “intimate and electrifying collection.” In these gorgeously written and Read more >
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