The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Watch the first trailer for the new TV adaptation of Brave New World.

Yesterday, as part of NBC’s limited rollout of its new screening service Peacock, they released a few teasers for their original content—including this teaser trailer for their adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 classic Brave New World, which will be debuting Read more >

By Emily Temple

Remember when Doris Lessing absolutely did not care that she won the Nobel Prize?

On this day in 1962, Doris Lessing published The Golden Notebook, arguably her most famous work, in part because of how diligently college-age men still name-drop it to try to endear themselves to hot feminists. (Hi, we see what you’re Read more >

By Emily Temple

Gather round, children, for storytime with Tom Hardy and his french bulldog.

The BBC’s children’s channel CBeebies has had tremendous success over the past decade with its Bedtime Stories program—a ten-minute slot, airing every weeknight from 6:50 to 7, wherein a celebrity reads a children’s story to an audience of rapt rugrats across Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Here are the books New Yorkers are borrowing from the library while sheltering in place.

The New York Public Library’s list of what books New Yorkers are reading as they social distance shows a taste for dystopia, other people’s problems, and Michelle Obama—so, you know, the usual. As library locations remain closed, the NYPL has Read more >

By Corinne Segal

So you're telling me I could be quaranting on Shel Silverstein's houseboat?

If you’re looking to add a little mobility and a lot of whimsy to your home life (or as we call it, life), and you have $783,000, you’re in luck! Shel Silverstein’s houseboat, currently floating in Richardson Bay in Sausalito, California, is Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Abdelouahab Aissaoui has won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

A novel set at the beginning of France’s long conquest of Algeria has won the 13th International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Algerian writer Abdelouahab Aissaoui is the first from his country to win the prize, which comes with a $50,000 Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

The winner of the $50,000 Stella Prize spotlights the horrors of domestic abuse.

Last night, journalist Jess Hill was named the winner of the $50,000 Stella Prize, which celebrates excellence in Australian women’s writing. (The shortlisted authors, who will each receive $2,000, are: Charlotte Wood for her novel, The Weekend; Tara June Winch Read more >

By Katie Yee

Join us for a Virtual FSG Poetry Reading on Wednesday night!

Please tune in tomorrow night, Wednesday the 15th, at 7pm for a special FSG poetry reading at Lit Hub’s Virtual Book Channel. Host Hannah Aizenman, poetry coordinator at The New Yorker, will be joined by three poets, Eliza Griswold, Shane McCrae, Read more >

By Julia Hass

All your favorite pop songs reimagined as sonnets.

Today from the endless vault that is the internet: your favorite pop songs, rewritten as sonnets. I only recently stumbled across this truly hilarious and inspired (and now-defunct) Tumblr, but it made me laugh out loud in an otherwise depressing Read more >

By Emily Temple

Here are 10 new books to keep you company this week.

My second favorite quarantine activity has become refreshing the bookshop.org page to see how much they’ve raised for local bookstores. (At the time that I’m writing this, they’ve crossed over the half a million line!) My first favorite quarantine activity Read more >

By Katie Yee

'Literary Bookstores, Can They Survive?' And other cover lines from 50 years of Poets & Writers.

Poets & Writers is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2020. The organization began in 1970 with a program—which continues to this day—that pays writers fees for giving readings and leading writing workshops in community-based settings. In 1973 Poets & Writers Read more >

By Literary Hub

Poets & Writers is giving grants to writers affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Poets & Writers will give 80 grants of up to $1,000 to writers who have an affiliation with the organization and need emergency aid due to the coronavirus pandemic. Grants will be available to “writers with a prior affiliation with Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Here's your first look at a brooding Timothée Chalamet in Dune.

You guys: with the A-list actors confined to their gated compounds and every notable film release date kicked months down the road as the once-unstoppable juggernaut that is Hollywood grinds to a near-standstill amid the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown, we almost Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Quarantine Diversion #3,477: Virtually spin these historical globes from the British Library.

If you have a child you’ve been trying to “homeschool” first of all, much love and solidarity to you. But also, have you been letting the kid do random educational-adjacent things like “read graphic novels for two hours” and calling Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Nathan Englander's comfort carrots will make you feel better.

I’m tempted to include all 400 drafts of this recipe-intro, the 50 faux-cheery versions, the 50-desparing, the 18 where I told you how quickly I ate the Oreos that I’d bought for our emergency store, and the way too many Read more >

By Nathan Englander

City Lights Books could close for good—and it's asking for your help.

San Francisco’s iconic City Lights bookstore, which has been an anchor of the city’s literary world since Lawrence Ferlinghetti founded it in 1953, is asking for help to stay financially afloat as its doors remain closed. The store launched a Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Here are the literary Guggenheim Fellows of 2020.

Yesterday, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced its 2020 fellowship recipients. The folks on this list—which in total is comprised of 175 scholars, artists, and writers—were selected based on “prior achievement and exceptional promise.” Out of the 175 fellowships, Read more >

By Katie Yee

A new app has details on how to support 600 independent bookstores right now.

The plight of independent bookstores during the coronavirus pandemic has brought an outpouring of public support—but, along with it, an often-overwhelming deluge of messaging about whom to support and how. A new app, Save Your Bookstore, is trying to pull Read more >

By Corinne Segal

The OED is adding 12 new coronavirus-related entrants, including "elbow bump" and "infodemic."

The Oxford English Dictionary—which typically issues updates quarterly—is publishing a crop of coronavirus-related words out of cycle. Usually news of language evolving makes us happy, but this one is obviously much more ominous. Actually, less an omen than another shriek Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Here are the winners of the Sheikh Zayed Book Awards, one of the Arab world's major literary prizes.

The Sheikh Zayed Book Awards, among the most esteemed and lucrative literary prizes in the Arab world, recognized winners across seven categories today. This year marks the 14th edition of the awards, each of which comes with a cash prize Read more >

By Aaron Robertson