The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Jeremy O. Harris pulled Slave Play’s LA premiere over CTG's lack of female playwrights.

As Americans get vaccinated and pandemic restrictions are lifted, theaters are opening up and announcing new programming. Last week, LA’s Center Theatre Group announced the 2021-22 season for their two theaters, the Mark Taper Forum and the Kirk Douglas Theater, Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Here's the trailer for the musical adaptation of Cyrano, starring Peter Dinklage.

If you thought the Kidney story was bad, imagine the long-form journalism that Robert Kolker could have written about Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, the actual guy whose life (real and imagined) is the subject of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

How an iconic Canadian rock band lured angry teens to the dark arts of Ayn Rand.

If there was one band that dominated the soundtrack of a 1980s childhood on the wrong side of outer-suburban Toronto, it was Rush. Particularly if you had older brothers who smoked a lot of pot. To be honest, though, we Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

On the mysterious obscenity scribbled on John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath manuscript.

This week, SP Books, a press which primarily publishes manuscripts, will release facsimiles of the handwritten manuscript of The Grapes of Wrath. The manuscript, currently stored in the University of Virginia’s archives, reveals information previously unknown to casual readers about Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Here are the bookies’ odds for the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Attention literary gamblers and other people who like losing money: the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced this Thursday, October 7 at 7:00 EST, and the bookies are open. The winner will receive a Nobel Prize diploma, a Read more >

By Emily Temple

Exclusive cover reveal: Akwaeke Emezi’s Content Warning: Everything.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Freshwater and The Death of Vivek Oji author Akwaeke Emezi’s debut poetry collection, Content Warning: Everything, which will be published by Copper Canyon Press this spring. Here’s how Copper Canyon describes Read more >

By Literary Hub

Rapper Noname just opened an LA library dedicated to the Black experience.

Fatimah Nyeema Warner, otherwise known as Noname, has become a fierce advocate for literacy. The Chicago rapper, who generated buzz after appearing on Chance the Rapper’s 2013 mixtape Acid Rap, launched her synonymous book club in July of 2019. Noname Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

Astronomers have determined the exact hour that Mary Shelley thought of Frankenstein.

It’s a well known fact that an 18-year-old Mary Shelley (then still Mary Wollstonecraft, after her mother) wrote Frankenstein at Lord Byron’s house (actually a rented mansion on Lake Geneva) after the poet, during a streak of bad weather, challenged Read more >

By Emily Temple

Here are the 2021 National Book Award Finalists.

Today, the National Book Foundation announced the twenty-five finalists for the 2021 National Book Awards—five each in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, translated literature, poetry, and young people’s literature. This year’s winners will be announced live on Wednesday, November 17th Read more >

By Emily Temple

21 new titles to get cozy with this week.

Fall may be here, but October sure is coming in hot with these new books—including titles from Tracy K. Smith, David Sedaris, Miriam Toews, Eugene Lim, Claire Vaye Watkins, and (oh, yes) Jonathan Franzen. * Jonathan Franzen, Crossroads (FSG) “His Read more >

By Katie Yee

Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black is coming to Hulu.

Today, Hulu announced that it has ordered a nine-episode limited series adaptation of Esi Edugyan’s Booker-shortlisted novel Washington Black. Sterling K. Brown (This is Us, Black Panther) will star in the series; he’s also executive producing under his Indian Meadow Read more >

By Walker Caplan

This 7-year-old is advocating for more disability-centered books in libraries.

7-year-old Noah Holt loves to read, but was caught off guard when he noticed his elementary school’s library and the public library near his house in Amesbury, Massachusetts owned barely any books about disability. Holt, who has acute flaccid myelitis Read more >

By Walker Caplan

The time Terry Pratchett’s German publisher inserted a soup ad into his novel.

Did you know that German genre publishers used to insert paid product placement into domestic translations of popular international writers? Yes, it’s true. And here’s exhibit A (via this Neil Gaiman thread). Apparently the reason beloved sci-fi writer Terry Pratchett Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Exclusive cover reveal: Ada Limón's The Hurting Kind.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Ada Limón’s latest collection of poetry, The Hurting Kind, which will be published by Milkweed Editions this spring. Here’s how Milkweed describes the book: These poems slip through the seasons, teeming Read more >

By Literary Hub

The most memorable English teachers on TV, ranked.

The other day, I was walking down the street and I ran into my favorite high school English teacher. It was delightful! And it was very strange to realize that I hadn’t seen her in over a decade, since she Read more >

By Katie Yee

Joan Didion's whole backlist is getting a minimalist new redesign.

Today, EW reported that in 2022, Vintage Books will be republishing Joan Didion’s entire backlist—beginning with her latest, Let Me Tell You What I Mean—with a brand new, cohesive redesign. The new covers, which were designed by Linda Huang, are Read more >

By Emily Temple