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News, Notes, Talk

What are the 10 best American cities for booklovers?

Sure, this a somewhat vague and slightly dubious question to ask (there are probably as many ways to “measure” a city’s appeal to a booklover as there are to define what a booklover is) but Apartment Guide has attempted to Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Britain is divided over a missing Oxford comma on a new "Brexit" coin.

Finally, some Brexit news for grammar pedants! The new commemorative Brexit 50p piece (cursed phrase) is missing an Oxford comma. The coin reads “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations” (lol, k). Phillip Pullman called for the coin’s boycott on Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

John Bolton’s memoir probably wasn’t leaked by a heroic assistant editor.

Some very important parts of former national security adviser John Bolton’s forthcoming memoir, The Room Where It Happened: A Washington Memoir (Simon & Schuster, March 17), have leaked. The bit that everyone is talking about confirms that Donald Trump did, Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

In 2019, more Americans went to the library than to the movies. Yes, really.

The US film industry may have generated revenues somewhere in the region of $40 billion last year, but it seems Hollywood still has plenty of work to do if it wants to compete with that most hallowed of American institutions: Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Here's the 2020 longlist for the £30,000 Dylan Thomas Prize.

Swansea University just announced the longlist for this year’s International Dylan Thomas Prize. Since 2006, this prestigious award has been celebrating young writers. The £30,000 purse (that’s $39,191.85, or 2,799 Sweetgreen salads, friends) is awarded to the best published literary Read more >

By Katie Yee

Writers are calling for a professor's reinstatement after he was fired for posting a political joke.

On Wednesday, more than 160 writers, academics, and civil liberties organizations signed an open letter addressed to the president of Babson College weeks after the firing of Asheen Phansey, the college’s former Director of Sustainability, who was dismissed earlier this month Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

The Last Thing He Wanted trailer is full of Joan Didion fan service (and explosions).

There’s a new trailer for the highly anticipated film adaptation of Joan Didion’s 1996 novel The Last Thing He Wanted, starring Anne Hathaway as a Wants-to-Do-Right reporter who, in the course of investigating a story, becomes entangled in an international Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Reagan Arthur named as publisher of Knopf.

The smoke has been spotted at the corner of Broadway and 56th Street, and Reagan Arthur has been announced as the new publisher of Knopf. Amazingly, Arthur is only the fourth person to helm one of the most important publishing Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Exclusive: watch the trailer for The Booksellers, a new documentary about rare book dealers.

Have you ever dreamed of becoming an antiquarian bookseller? Or just wanted to get to know one better? Or maybe you just like old books a lot. Either way, this is the documentary for you. Directed by D.W. Young and Read more >

By Emily Temple

We're finally getting a TV adaptation of The House on Mango Street.

For a long time, Sandra Cisneros resisted the idea of having her much-loved 1983 classic, The House on Mango Street, adapted for the screen. But the Chicago-born author changed her mind, according to Deadline, because of renewed attention on Latinx immigration narratives Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

The new publisher of The Paris Review is Mona Simpson.

The Paris Review Foundation has announced the appointment of bestselling novelist Mona Simpson as the venerable magazine’s new publisher. As today’s press release details, Simpson—the author of six novels and the recipient of numerous literary accolades including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Bret Easton Ellis thinks people only liked the American Psycho film because of "woke-ness."

Yesterday, MovieMaker published an oral history of the film adaption of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho (a book that Roger Rosenblatt described, in his review in The New York Times, as “the journal Dorian Gray would have written had he been a Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Jeanine Cummins addresses the American Dirt controversy.

Today, Jeanine Cummins appeared at Winter Institute in Baltimore, and as Michael Cader reports for Publishers Lunch, commented on the ongoing controversy over her new novel, American Dirt. Bookseller Javier Ramirez, who introduced Cummins, brought up the topic at the Read more >

By Emily Temple

In 2021, The Great Gatsby will be up for grabs.

Though we can’t know what our world will look like a year from now, at least one thing will be true: The Great Gatsby’s copyright will expire at the end of 2020, officially inducting F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age classic into the Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Here's what you need to know about the biggest literary controversy of the decade (so far).

As you may have noticed if you’re a person who follows Literary Twitter in any fashion, online controversy over Jeanine Cummins’ new novel American Dirt exploded over the weekend. If you aren’t, or if you were engaging in a digital Read more >

By Emily Temple

10 new books to add to your TBR pile.

Every week, the TBR pile grows a little bit more. It’s getting precarious. It’s taking up your whole nightstand. It’s threatening to crush you in your sleep. Well, what are you waiting for? Get cracking. What are you reading this Read more >

By Katie Yee

Today on Scottish Twitter: Shell asks poet laureate of profanity Irvine Welsh “not to swear.”  

Can you imagine running a corporate Twitter account and publicly asking Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh not to swear? If you can, maybe you are “Sara” from @ShellEnergy. As people often now do when faced with the infuriatingly scripted, labyrinthine misinformation Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Lee Child wanted to kill Jack Reacher—but instead he's giving him to his little brother.

According to The Guardian, Lee Child, whose popular Jack Reacher books (and by popular, I mean over 100 million books sold in 49 languages across 101 territories) are soon to become an Amazon series, is quitting his most famous character. Read more >

By Emily Temple

Do you even love books if you haven’t collected all of these independent bookseller cards?

Canadian independent publisher (and bookstore!) Biblioasis has printed up a limited run of indie bookseller trading cards, featuring heroic comic book portraits of prominent booksellers. Why? Well, for starters, this week is the annual independent booksellers conference in Baltimore, the Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

The new Little Fires Everywhere trailer is lit in more ways than one.

As you, devoted reader of The Hub, might recall, just before the holidays we were gifted this teaser trailer for the TV adaptation of Little Fires Everywhere. Celeste Ng’s bestselling novel (her claim to flame, if you will) is about Read more >

By Katie Yee