The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

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

Florida men deny smalltown library access to the New York Times online, citing “fake news.”

The bullpen of the 1993 San Diego Padres Citrus County Commission (pictured above) has denied funding to county libraries for digital subscriptions to the New York Times. Led by left-handed middle-reliever area man Scott Carnahan, the commission (comprised of Scott, Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Here are the 10 new books you should read 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

Read this great historical profile of one of Kansas City's first black-owned bookstores, The Hub!

It has been heard around the Lit Hub offices that the true “literary hubs” of any given community are in fact, its bookstores*, places that foster conversation about ideas, politics, culture, and community. So it was with great pleasure I Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Sure, why not: Jonathan Safran Foer and Stella McCartney created a capsule collection.

Here’s a cursed lede: if you have an extra $530, you can buy a Stella McCartney x Jonathan Safran Foer “We Are the Weather” tee shirt from Saks Fifth Avenue! It is 100% cotton, and, according to Saks’ website, dry Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Heads up: you can get seven figures for a story collection (if you're Don Winslow).

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

Eve L. Ewing's debut poetry collection is being adapted for TV.

I have no idea how one goes about adapting a poetry collection into a TV series, but it looks like I’ll find out soon—AMC Studios is creating an Afrofuturistic anthology series based on Eve L. Ewing’s debut collection Electric Arches. Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Oh, look: an early misogynistic review of Frankenstein.

When Mary Shelley first unleashed Frankenstein on the world, just over 200 years ago, it was met with a few pretty mixed reviews. (With the exception of this glowing rave from her husband, the poet Percy Shelley, who had anticipated Read more >

By Katie Yee

An early look at the adaptation of Normal People, with commentary from my Irish colleagues.

Earlier this year, the BBC began filming a limited series adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People, which stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Marianne and Paul Mescal as Connell. Now, Vanity Fair has graced us with the first few photographs from the show, which Read more >

By Emily Temple