The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Attention: Kevin Wilson's novel about twins that spontaneously combust is going to be a movie.

The team that brought us The Fault In Our Stars, (500) Days of Summer, and The Disaster Artist is coming together to adapt Kevin Wilson’s just-released novel. It is Elizabeth Gabler’s first acquisition at 3000 Pictures, a new production label focused on Read more >

By Katie Yee

Here's your chance to win personalized postcards from literary stars.

Continuing a wonderful holiday tradition, literary magazine The Common has launched its sixth annual author postcard auction. Until November 30th, readers will have an opportunity to bid online for personalized, handwritten postcards from 30 writers, including André Aciman, Valeria Luiselli, George Saunders, Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

What would an AI text generator do with the first lines of literature's greatest novels?

Neural networks are getting fancier and AI is getting scarier. And now we have a neural network that can do a pretty credible job writing copy (based on its inputs, of course, and a prompt). So look, I’m fine with Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

The 5 new books you should be reading this week.

Every week, a new crop of great new books hit the shelves. If we could read them all, we would, but since time is finite and so is the human capacity for page-turning, here are a few of the ones Read more >

By Emily Temple

Public memorial for the great Toni Morrison set for November 21 in NYC.

If you are in New York City on Thursday, November 21 you have the good fortune to be able to honor one of the truly great American writers, the late Toni Morrison. Morrison, who died on August 5 at the Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

So here's a story from A to Z: Ginger Spice is writing a novel.

Good news, Spice Girls fans: soon(?) you’ll be able to spice up your bookshelf with a novel by Geri Horner (née Halliwell), AKA Ginger Spice. At “the 50th anniversary party of upmarket watch company TAG Heuer Monaco at Chucs Cafe Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

What book would you choose to have made into a paper sculpture?

Yes, yes, books are for reading, BUT have you seen Maryland artist Jodi Harvey’s book sculptures? If you’re not sure what to get the reader in your life, might I suggest commissioning Harvey to take an edition (“first editions are Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

The longlist for this year's €100,000 International DUBLIN Literary Award is 156 books long.

The longlist for the 2020 International DUBLIN Literary Award was announced today, and it is indeed long—156 books long, to be precise. The prize is sponsored by the Dublin City Council, and the longlist is comprised of nominations from public Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Donald Trump Jr. booed out of his own book launch by young America Firsters.

Donald Trump Jr. was booed out of his own book launch. Though the ruckus started with a heckle from a protester shouting “immigrants are welcome here,” Trump Jr. did not get any love from the younger America First crowd gathered Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Have you seen the horrifying trailer for The Invisible Man?

H. G. Wells’ diabolical Dr. Griffin aka The Invisible Man becomes the latest Victorian horror beastie to make an unlikely 21st-century return to the big screen. Initially planned as a Jonny Depp vehicle (the optics of which, as you’ll see Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Here's why you should preorder all your books from independent bookstores.

Who doesn’t love an independent bookshop? Think of the Shop Around the Corner in You’ve Got Mail! Think of the Travel Book Co. in Notting Hill! Embryo Concepts in Funny Face! Black Books from the British sitcom of the same name! Read more >

By Katie Yee

Are there any actual surprises on this list of the hockey world’s favorite books?

Look, I love hockey. I haven’t lived in Canada in 20 years, and being an ex-pat has probably made my fandom more acute, rather than less. So if I’m making fun of hockey people and their reading habits, please know Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Developers plan to turn the setting of Joyce's "The Dead" into a 56-room hostel.

As you may know, Dublin is full of James Joyce-related attractions and pilgrimage points; one of the most interesting of these is a Georgian townhouse often called “The House of the Dead.” This, of course, is the place where James Read more >

By Emily Temple

Tori Amos, Charlie Jane Anders, Sarah Weinman: the week in book deals.

My personal form of astrology is to anxiously trawl Publishers Marketplace every week. No, wait, hear me out: it’s how I can tell the only future that matters: which books I will be reading a year and a half from now. Also, Read more >

By Emily Temple

Dear Kurt Vonnegut superfans, there's now a museum you can visit in Indianapolis.

It’s a good time to be a Kurt Vonnegut fan.  While there’s never a bad month to dust off your banned book collection, November encapsulates all things Vonnegutian: the 50th anniversary of Slaughterhouse-Five, the grand opening of the permanent Kurt Read more >

By Leandra Beabout

Don't lose your mind, but next year's Met Gala theme is (basically) Virginia Woolf.

Today, Vogue announced the theme for 2020’s milestone Met Gala (and exhibition I guess, though that’s definitely second tier at this point, sorry): “About Time: Fashion and Duration.” According to curator Andrew Bolton, that will mean “a reimagining of fashion Read more >

By Emily Temple

We—who are literary snobs—support Kendall Jenner's taste in books.

Last night, Kendall Jenner posted an Instagram story of her TBR pile, and while “literate celebrity” has emerged as a robust subgenre of celebrity in the past few years, we were still impressed by her choices. We’ve come to expect Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Mariana Enríquez wins the Herralde Prize for a work of Gothic political horror.

Argentine author and journalist Mariana Enríquez has won this year’s Herralde Prize, a Spanish-language award given annually by the Barcelona-based publisher Anagrama. The award comes with a cash prize of €18,000. Enríquez’s novel, Nuestra parte de noche (Our Share of Night), is a Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Oprah's next book club pick is Elizabeth Strout's Olive, Again.

This morning, Oprah announced her latest book club pick: Elizabeth Strout’s Olive, Again, her recent follow-up to her Pulitzer prize-winning Olive Kitteridge. “I love [Olive] because she’s so 100% authentically herself,” Winfrey said. “She always says the things that we are always Read more >

By Emily Temple

Literary Earthquakes: Tori Amos is publishing a memoir

Tori Amos—synesthete musical prodigy, RAINN activist, and one of the most iconic singer-songwriters of the 1990s (easily the greatest musical decade)—is releasing a new, politically-themed memoir entitled Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage. The book, Amos’ first since her Read more >

By Dan Sheehan