The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Oscar Award-winner Charlie Kaufman does not want you to adapt his new novel for the big screen.

Charlie Kaufman, the Oscar Award-winning screenwriter of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich, has written a novel! Antkind tells the story of a failed film critic who stumbles upon “an impossible movie”—a three-month-long (!) stop-motion (!!) Read more >

By Katie Yee

Writers gather at New York cathedral to celebrate Toni Morrison.

Acclaimed writers Jesmyn Ward, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Michael Ondaatje, Edwidge Danticat, and Kevin Young were among the speakers who shared memories of the late Toni Morrison at a three thousand strong celebration of her life and work in the Cathedral Church of Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Paolini, Morrison, and more: here are the most exciting book deals announced this week.

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

The teaser for Emma (written by Eleanor Catton!) is full of snark.

The teaser for director Autumn de Wilde’s upcoming Emma adaptation combines many of the things I love to see in movies: sass against religious figures, meaningful eye contact during highly choreographed dance routines, people eating things while looking suspicious, and Read more >

By Corinne Segal

A Canadian literary prize is ending for a wonderfully Canadian reason.

The Charles Taylor Foundation, a charity organization that supports Canadian writers, gave a cheery explanation for why a literary prize it’s been co-sponsoring for two decades is coming to an end next year: they accomplished exactly what they’d set out to Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

A former Illinois library will become a very, very scary-looking doll museum.

Depending on who you are, this news that a doll museum will open in a formerly vacant library building is either kind of cool or will give you endless nightmares—that is, if you ever sleep again. I’m in the second Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Here Are the National Book Award Winners!

The 2019 National Book Awards—aka the Oscars for books—have officially been awarded! This year’s winners are as follows: Young People’s Literature: Martin W. Sandler for 1919, The Year That Changed America. * Poetry: Arthur Sze for Sight Lines. * Translation: Laszlo Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Here's where you can watch the National Book Awards live.

Perhaps you’re already aware that tonight is the National Book Awards, AKA “the biggest night in books,” AKA book prom, AKA the night of a thousand tote bags (just kidding! It’s very fancy). Tonight’s event will be hosted by LeVar Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Oxford's Word of the Year 2019 is...

Climate Emergency noun [C usually singular]: “A situation in which urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it” Before you say it, I know, and I am as appalled Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Inside Salman Rushdie's former safe house on London's shady "Billionaires Row."

The one-mile stretch of upscale London real estate known as “Billionaires Row” isn’t quite Savile. As Business Insider recently revealed, one of the properties in this neighborhood, at 9 The Bishops Avenue, was once the safe house of British-Indian author Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Move over, Twitter: Poetizer is a "positive, metaphysical," poem-based social media platform.

If you like social networking but find that the traditional platforms aren’t metaphysical enough for your taste, have I got an app for you. Actually, has Czech poet Lukas Sedlacek got an app for you. It’s called Poetizer, and it’s Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

A very accurate prediction of LeVar Burton's night hosting the National Book Awards.

In honor of the great LeVar Burton—reader, actor, Renaissance man, and host of tonight’s 70th-Annual National Book Awards—here’s our GIF-based preview of how his night will probably go. * 6:30pm Enters with entourage. via GIPHY 6:35pm Inspects (and approves) the Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Today in not everything is terrible: HarperCollins is launching a Native-centric imprint.

In Publishers Weekly, Sally Lodge reports that HarperCollins Children’s Books will be launching a new imprint “devoted to publishing books by Native creators that introduce young Native protagonists and showcase the present and future of Indian Country.” Heartdrum is currently Read more >

By Emily Temple

The New York Times’ acclaimed “1619 Project” to become a series of books.

Random House announced today that they’ve acquired the rights to a series of books based on the New York Times Magazine’s extraordinarily popular “1619 Project,” which interrogates received perspectives on four centuries of slavery in America through essays, stories, histories, Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Hallie Rubenhold wins £50K for Her Biography of the Victims of Jack the Ripper.

Social historian Hallie Rubenhold has won The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction for her book The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. The Five reconstructs the lives of five of the women killed by Read more >

By Literary Hub

Ian Williams wins Canada's prestigious Giller Prize for his debut novel.

Ian Williams, winner of this year’s $100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his debut novel Reproduction, began his acceptance speech Monday night with an emotional tribute. “Margaret Atwood over there is the first book I bought with my own money at Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Here are the new books you should read this week.

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

One of the largest book publishers in the world announces new publisher.

Andy Ward has been named a new vice president and publisher at Random House. Formerly editor in chief, Ward moves into the spot long held by the beloved Susan Kamil, who died in September. Ward has edited the likes of Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Alan Moore on Marvel vs. Scorsese: the influence of superheroes is "embarrassing" and "worrying."

Earlier this month, Martin Scorsese sparked a firestorm of online “discourse” when he wrote in the New York Times that Disney’s Marvel franchise films were “closer to theme parks than they are to movies.” The fanboys of the world (aka Read more >

By Emily Firetog

Why get an MFA when you have free advice from Wikihow's "How to Write" section?

There are a lot of ideas out there about how a person should become a writer: you can get an MFA or dive into the world of NYC publishing or even light out on the road to suck the very Read more >

By Jonny Diamond