The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Move over, tea controversy—turns out Jane Austen’s brother was an abolitionist.

Recently, a series of clickbait articles started by The Telegraph claimed that Jane Austen had been “canceled for drinking tea” and was “under historical interrogation.” That was not the case. In fact, scholars and museums have been trying to parse Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Even Jared Kushner has a book deal now.

Oy vey: the Associated Press has reported that Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Donald Trump and top official of . . . Donald Trump, has signed a book deal with HarperCollins’s conservative imprint Broadside Books, to be released in 2022. The Read more >

By Walker Caplan

"They're old and outdated. That's the truth." Little Richard on why the critics should shut up.

Picture it: Ali MacGraw as a working-class Radcliffe College student and Ryan O’Neal as a preppy Harvard student and hockey player. These two crazy kids come from opposite worlds but, surprise surprise, they fall head over heels in love. In Read more >

By Vanessa Willoughby

Shakespeare quotes, rewritten for business school.

Yesterday, Twitter learned that UNC Chapel Hill was hiring a lecturer to teach courses in both Shakespeare and business writing (at a rate of… $8,000 per course). Of course, if the university really wanted to streamline operations, the two could Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Listen to Jeff Daniels narrate a new Dave Eggers story.

Calling all Dave Eggers and Jeff Daniels fans alike: the two have teamed up for the audio release of Eggers’ new story, The Museum of Rain, published this month by McSweeney’s and Scribd Originals. Check out a brief excerpt below, Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Attention, dictionary nerds: here is list of words with surprising shared etymologies.

It’s finally happening. We’re re-entering casual society en masse, which means we’re going to need some better small talk than “Did you cut your own hair or just let your hair grow?” And since I find that etymology can actually Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Are we entering the era of a wholly separate “conservative” publishing industry?

Today’s big conservative* publishing news is all about Donald Trump’s book, which—in the manner of Canadian girlfriends everywhere—may or may not exist; but amid all the bluster and puffery comes news of a conservative publishing house called All Seasons, named Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Is Elon Musk a Philip K. Dick fan?

One of the perks of the digital age is that we have unprecedented access to the thoughts of incredibly powerful people. Never before have we been able to intimately experience the president’s thoughts on Coke or Cher’s thoughts on . Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Watch Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr. trade insults on live television.

On this day in 2008, in an interview with The New York Times, when asked to comment on conservative commentator William F. Buckley, Jr.’s passing, the legendary Gore Vidal said that “hell is bound to be a livelier place, as Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Trump says he’s written “the book of all books”. Publishers are skeptical.

Alas, Trump news: the former president, in a . . . well . . . Trumpian statement, has announced out of nowhere that he is writing “the book of all books” and he is “writing like crazy.” Journalist Maggie Haberman Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Everything you need to know about last week’s Anthony Fauci book deal controversy.

If you’ve been reading frightening headlines or tweets saying that Dr. Anthony Fauci is set to make millions off of a book about lessons he learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, let me set your mind at ease: he isn’t. Instead, Read more >

By Walker Caplan

What's the one novel Bill Gates thinks you should read this summer?

It’s a well known fact that business magnate, philanthropist, and erm, very questionable husband Bill Gates loves to read. He periodically recommends books on his blog, GatesNotes, without exactly promising that reading them will make you rich, successful, and questionable, but also Read more >

By Emily Temple

20 new books for your midsummer reading.

Need a book to take to the park? You’re in luck… It’s New Books Tuesday! * Jonathan Lee, The Great Mistake (Knopf) “[A] seriously entertaining fictional recreation of the life and violent death of a forgotten giant in the history of Read more >

By Katie Yee

Join Lit Hub & the Royal Society of Literature in celebrating Dalloway Day on June 16th!

Every year on “a Wednesday in mid-June,” the Royal Society of Literature celebrates the work and legacy of Virginia Woolf. This year, Dalloway Day falls on Wednesday, June 16th (Which is also Bloomsday, if you’re keeping score), and the celebrations Read more >

By Literary Hub

Watch this never-aired ABC television profile of James Baldwin.

Thank goodness for archives. A Closer Look, Inc., a project of storied producer and documentarian Joseph Lovett, has made it their mission to promote health- and social justice-related historical materials through film—and among said materials is an unaired ABC 20/20 Read more >

By Walker Caplan

Here are the best reviewed books of the week.

Rivka Galchen’s Everyone Knows You Mother Is a Witch, Lionel Shriver’s Should We Stay or Should We Go, Akwaeke Emezi’s Dear Senthuran, and Lawrence Wright’s The Plague Year all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. Brought to Read more >

By Book Marks