I love every inch of The Talented Mr. Ripley. I think every writer should read it—mostly because it’s a pleasure from start to finish, but it doesn’t hurt that there is so much to learn from Patricia Highsmith about pacing, Read more >
Lawrence Ferlinghetti—a crucial supporter of the Beat movement and literary icon who bore a century’s worth of witness to social and political transformation—died on Monday at the age of 101 of interstitial lung disease, The Washington Post confirmed. Ferlinghetti epitomized Read more >
Surprisingly, despite the heavy toll taken by the COVID-19 pandemic on brick and mortar bookstores (especially independent brick and mortar bookstores) nationwide, US book sales actually increased by 8 percent in 2020. What demographic is responsible for keeping the industry Read more >
For Flannery O’Connor enthusiasts and critics alike: PBS’s next episode in their American Masters biographical series focuses on Flannery O’Connor. The episode premieres on March 23rd and, as per PBS, features never-before-seen archival footage and newly discovered journals of O’Connor’s. Read more >
If you love space (or have a four year old [or both!]) you know that the Perseverance rover landed on the celestial planet Mars on Thursday. The mission will least one year on Mars, which means it will last 637 Read more >
National Book Award-winning fiction writer and former story editor for HBO’s Westworld (back in Season 1, before it jumped the RoboShark) Charles Yu, in collaboration with TaiwaneseAmerican.org, has created the Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes, “intended Read more >
While we’re all still in varying levels of lockdown, here’s a new travel destination to dream about: Book and Bed Tokyo. Book and Bed is an “accommodation bookshop”: a bookstore first, hostel second, so avid readers don’t need to pay Read more >
As the age-old advice goes, “Write what you know.” For Hillary Clinton, apparently this means pivoting from writing dense memoirs about “hard choices” and nonfiction books about women’s empowerment to . . . political fan fiction thinly disguised as a Read more >
Can you think of a single feel-good news story from the past five years that isn’t, at its core, an indictment of the society in which we live? Here at Lit Hub, one of our most-read stories last year was Read more >
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly back into the past, making film adaptations of the same classics again and again and again. As absolutely anyone might have predicted, there’s a new development in The Great Gatsby Read more >
Cancun day-tripper or Zodiac Killer? Such is the daily challenge set by walking late night punchline Ted Cruz, whose continued presence in the national consciousness seems like cruel parody at this point. The latest bit of Cruzian skullduggery involves shady Read more >
As I write this, it’s raining in Brooklyn, my dog is curled up at my feet, and my third cup of coffee is cooling. Pretty much the perfect atmosphere for reading. (Besides, I’m fresh out of new episodes of WandaVision to Read more >
Today, the Horror Writers Association—dedicated to promoting horror and dark fantasy writers—announced the finalists for the annual Bram Stoker Award, which honors the best work in horror and dark fiction published in the last year. The Award is named in Read more >
Despite having watched several seasons of Outlander I confess I eventually gave up. Sure, the scenery is gorgeous (The Grampians! The Highlands!), and the leads are very easy on the eyes, but the incessantly soap operatic twists built around a Read more >
I don’t know what’s wrong with me or what year I think it is, but it’s just now come to my attention that Ryan Gosling has a big ol’ tattoo on his arm commemorating the most disturbing and perverse children’s Read more >
Some fun news! Today, comics publisher BOOM! Studios announced a new five-issue original series written by Victor LaValle, whose novel The Ballad of Black Tom was a finalist for both the Hugo and the Nebula as well as a Bram Read more >
Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This gets the ephemerality of online right: images and interactions flash onscreen, seeming very important, and then, for the time being, they slip away. But not all readers are as digitally literate as Read more >
On Saturday, members of Malcolm X’s family called a press conference to reveal a letter about the alleged FBI and NYPD involvement in the murder of the late orator, author, and activist. The letter, written by former undercover NYPD officer Read more >
Edna St. Vincent Millay was born on this day in 1892, so naturally I’m thinking about my introduction to the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet: a tangential burn on her poem “God’s World” in Lois Lowry’s Anastasia Has the Answers. In the Read more >
If you’re like me, the millions of dollars you set aside for travel and leisure in 2020/2021 are now burning a hole in your pocket. These days, it feels like there’s little for a twenty-first century robber baron to spend Read more >
