America’s favorite book spokesperson LeVar Burton is taking his talents to Twitter to give readers of all ages a little escapism in the form of a soothing story hour. Burton announced yesterday that starting this Friday, he would livestream three Read more >
This morning, TODAY Show co-host Jenna Bush Hager announced her book club pick for April 2020: Elizabeth Wetmore’s Valentine. Wetmore’s debut novel is set in Odessa, Texas, in 1976, and follows the aftermath of a horrific attack on fourteen-year-Gloria Ramírez in Read more >
Like you, here at Lit Hub, we’ve been waiting for Hulu’s adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People for some time now. We analyzed the first look images. We got excited over the first teaser trailer. And hey, if you’d like Read more >
Another day, another public figure releasing poetry in response to the coronavirus crisis. On Sunday, senator and former presidential candidate Cory Booker tweeted a short poem he wrote about… the indomitable human spirit, I think? Some late night writing: pic.twitter.com/uwcY3yEH1e Read more >
César Aira, Artforum (New Directions) The hero of Cesar Aira’s new novel is obsessed with the magazine Art Forum, and over this 90 page novel, he finds a way to show us why without once becoming the boring guy at the cafe Read more >
Country music legend and goddamn national treasure Dolly Parton (who also happens to be a true fairy godmother of American literacy) is going to be reading to us all starting this Thursday, April 2. As you can see below, the Read more >
Tomie dePaola, celebrated author and illustrator who delighted millions of children with his warm and witty books, died on Monday in Lebanon, New Hampshire, from complications after surgery for a fall he had suffered last week. He was 85. The Read more >
Nothing calms the nerves in anxious times like an eerie, upper-class English voice speaking to you from beyond the grave. Submitted for your approval, then, is this rare recording of Virginia Woolf. Taken from an April 1937 BBC Radio broadcast Read more >
The Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses celebrates the best fiction published by presses with fewer than five full-time employees every year. The 2020 winner is Fitzcarraldo Editions, a small publisher based in South-East London that also published Olga Read more >
Powell’s in Portland—one of the largest independent bookstores in the country—announced via Facebook on Friday that because of the surge in online book orders “we now have over 100 folks working at Powell’s again—all full time with benefits.” This is Read more >
Here’s the thing about chatting with large groups of friends on Zoom: it bears very little relation to how large group hang-outs usually happen. No judgment if you and all your friends sit in a circle and take turns speaking Read more >
On Friday, Rebecca Makkai tweeted a 1918 advertisement that suggested readers could “escape the flu by spending the evenings in your own home” with a phonograph. (Turns out social distancing to prevent illness isn’t exactly a new idea.) Interested, I Read more >
Today, the Cleveland Foundation announced the winners of the 2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, the “only national juried prize for literature that confronts racism and explores diversity.” For the past 85 years, these awards have been vital in celebrating the voices Read more >
It’s no secret to LitHub that librarians are heroes, but a Columbia University Libraries technologist is proving this yet again, in face of the supply shortages facing the New York City hospital workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 Read more >
Yes, I’m talking about Bob Dylan. Because Bob Dylan knows you’re bored. Or at least he thinks you’re bored enough to listen him tell you about the JFK assassination for 17 minutes. And he wants to help. Today, Dylan released Read more >
Ludwig Bemelmans, the author and illustrator of the Madeline books and an artist whose paintings often appeared on covers of The New Yorker (as well as on the walls of the Carlyle Hotel), did not begin a career in the Read more >
Paul Goma, a Romanian author and vocal critic of the Socialist Republic of Romania throughout the 1970s and ’80s, died in Paris earlier this week at 84 as a result of complications caused by coronavirus, according to Goma’s biographer. He Read more >
A children’s librarian from a Pittsburgh suburb has created a new Harry Potter-themed diversion for kids stuck at home: an online escape room. At the start of the game, players have just been assigned to their houses at Hogwarts and Read more >
The celebrity response to coronavirus has been a real mixed bag—lots of house tours, plenty of unsolicited songs, a soupçon of dangerous misinformation—but we’ve also seen some genuinely delightful cultural contributions. For instance, noted Shakespearean Sir Patrick Stewart’s pledge to Read more >
If you’re disappointed about Opening Day, I highly recommend (re)watching Field of Dreams. James Earl Jones as a delightfully grumpy recluse is very relatable right now. Also, Kevin Costner is a hoot. What does this have to do with books? you Read more >
