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News, Notes, Talk

Read Douglas Adams's advice to writers who hate writing.

Let’s be honest: all writers sort of hate writing. At least some of the time! (It’s hard.) That includes Douglas Adams, author of beloved cult classic and frequent late ’90s Bat Mitzvah theme The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, who once Read more >

By Emily Temple

Here are the best reviewed books of the week.

Nona Fernández’s The Twilight Zone, Alec MacGillis’ Fulfillment, Jo Ann Beard’s Festival Days, and Glenn Frankel’s Shooting Midnight Cowboyall feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”   Read more >

By Book Marks

It is once again time to kill for future Texas governor Matthew McConaughey.

If the last year has taught us anything, it’s that Austin’s (Lincoln-drivin’, Wild Turkey-suppin’, Longhorns-boostin’, emergency-broadcastin’, naked bongo-playin’, UT professorin’) favorite son, Matthew David McConaughey, is actually a far busier man than his famously laid-back public persona would suggest. Consider Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

On the time Balzac ruined his own opening night with a ill-conceived publicity scheme.

Honoré de Balzac, known for his sweeping portrayals of the individuals that make up a nation, is survived by his famous multi-volume project La Comédie humaine. But you may not know that he was also a playwright—and the reason you Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Listen to this playlist of every song Haruki Murakami has ever written about.

Haruki Murakami fans are living high on the hog: they’ve got themed shirts, music events, video games, radio shows, and an archival library. And here’s one more thing to add to the mix: dedicated fan Masamaro Fujiki has made a Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Who the hell fills their bathroom with books?

If you’ve ever spent any serious time on Zillow (and if you’re between the ages of 30 and 45 you probably have?) you’ll know that people make some pretty wild and terrible decisions with their homes. It’s no surprise, then, Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Who should star in the TV adaptation of Octavia Butler's Kindred?

You may have noticed that here at Literary Hub, we’re pretty big fans of Octavia Butler—and especially of Kindred, arguably her most famous novel. So we were very excited by the recent news that that 42-year-old book is finally getting an adaptation: FX Read more >

By Emily Temple

I can't stop scrolling through this blog of etymological maps.

Here’s a delightful Friday diversion: Mapologies, a blog that charts regional linguistic differences (did you know that there were more than five different words for “flip-flop” in Spanish-speaking South America?), etymologies (like the word origin of “blue” in countries across Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Here are a few of John Updike’s kindest, most cutting literary pans.

John Updike, with one notable exception, was an incredibly kind reviewer. Patricia Lockwood, in her London Review of Books survey of Updike’s work, observed Updike’s criticism “was not just game and generous but able, as his fiction is not, to Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Ottessa Moshfegh wrote a new novel during the pandemic.

Good news for Ottessa Moshfegh fans, general book fans, productivity enthusiasts, and perhaps the world at large: Ottessa Moshfegh has finished a new novel over the course of the pandemic. This news received a soft rollout today in Vox’s feature Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Watch the frightening trailer for a new horror adaptation of “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

If you feel trapped or crazy or unwell, and want a movie to heighten rather than alleviate those feelings, you’ll be thrilled by this news: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s well-known short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” has been made into a horror Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Copywriters beware! A copywriting AI has just raised nearly $3 million in funding.

Yesterday morning, TechCrunch announced that the copywriting tool CopyAI has raised $2.9 million in a seed round led by Craft Ventures. This is a big deal: CopyAI is one of several companies using the language prediction model GPT-3, which uses Read more >

By Walker Caplan

This website turns all our collective Wikipedia editing into ambient music in real time.

How do you picture the Internet? What color is the Internet? What does the Internet sound like? Strangely, I’ve heard these questions asked several times over the last few months, on podcasts and at book talks; perhaps because we’ve spent Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Here are 10 great Irish novels not set in Ireland.

St. Patrick’s Day is upon us, a chairde, and what better way to mark the occasion than by curling up with a novel penned by an author from the Emerald Isle. The trouble is, there are far too many wonderful Read more >

By Book Marks

Here are AAPI-led organizations where you can donate today.

The news of last night’s shootings at three Atlanta-area massage parlors, in which a white gunman killed eight people—including six people of Asian descent—is a tragic, sobering reminder that anti-Asian hatred and violence remains a deadly threat in the US. Read more >

By Literary Hub

Ibram X. Kendi is resurrecting the country's first abolitionist newspaper for 2021.

As the saying goes, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Considering his literary output, I’m willing to bet that National Book Award winner Ibram X. Kendi would wholeheartedly agree with this statement. And now, the Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

Listen to a new song inspired by Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer.

Since its publication in 2015, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer has become one of the most widely celebrated debuts in recent memory—winning the Pulitzer Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Read more >

By Emily Temple

Tom Hiddleston, the dark prince of literary adaptations, is back on his bullshit.

As far as I can tell, Tom Hiddleston attaches himself to only two kinds of project: Marvel tentpole properties and somber literary adaptations. Consider the evidence: in the past decade, Hiddleston has starred as Marvel Cinematic Universe fan favorite Loki Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Oprah's next book club pick is Marilynne Robinson's (four) Gilead novels.

Look: maybe our puny mortal book clubs are only allowed to select one book at a time, but that’s one of the many ways in which Oprah differs from us: she can, if she chooses, anoint four books at once Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Here are 10 free campaign slogans for Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance’s 2022 senate run.

News broke yesterday that Peter Thiel, founder of Pay-Pal and the not-at-all sinister-sounding security and surveillance concern Palantir, is backing Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance for a 2022 run at the Ohio senate seat left vacant by Rob Porter. Today, Read more >

By Jonny Diamond