The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Asterix gets its first female hero in 60 years.

For the first time in his six-decade, 38-book career of battling Romans and traipsing around ancient Europe, Asterix—the diminutive Gaul warrior whose antics have amused and enchanted generations of readers—will be stepping aside to let a female hero come to Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Take a look inside Rihanna's new photo-biography.

In case you haven’t heard, Rihanna released a book, Rihanna: Fenty x Phaidon, filled with photographs documenting her life and career, from Barbados to worldwide tours, fashion shows, and book showcases. For those of you unable to wait until you Read more >

By Literary Hub

A tornado has leveled Interabang Books, Dallas' largest independent bookstore.

On Sunday night, Interabang Books, Dallas’ largest independent bookstore and only full-service indie bookshop, endured a direct hit from a tornado that barreled through Dallas’ commercial districts, tearing a wide swath through local shops and national chains alike. The bookstore, Read more >

By Molly Odintz

Here is the 2019 shortlist for the Baillie Gifford Prize for nonfiction.

The shortlist for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction has been announced! The UK-based prize, which was first awarded in 1999, is open to books in the areas of current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the Read more >

By Literary Hub

The 10 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

Eliud Kipchoge is writing a memoir(!) and other notable book deals of the 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

Stephen King's home will become a museum and writers' retreat.

Today in “Stephen King is a good literary citizen” news: the writer’s home in Bangor, ME (the AKA the real-life Derry, where the sewers are perfectly normal thank you very much) will soon house an archive of his work and a writers’ Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Albanian author Ismail Kadare has won the 2020 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

Ismail Kadare is the 26th laureate of the renowned Neustadt International Prize for Literature, which recognizes outstanding literary merit in literature worldwide. Kadare is an Albanian novelist, poet, essayist and playwright who rose to fame in Albania on the strength Read more >

By Literary Hub

Literary Critic Harold Bloom has died at 89.

Harold Bloom, a controversial and best-selling critic whose career in literary criticism spanned more than half a century, died Monday at the age of 89. Born in the East Bronx in 1930, Bloom graduated from the Bronx High School of Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Bernardine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood share this year's Booker Prize.

The 2019 Booker Prize has been awarded to Bernardine Evaristo for Girl, Woman, Other and Margaret Atwood for The Testaments. The two will share the £50,000 prize. This is the third time the Booker has been split—in 1974 between Nadine Gordimer and Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

These are the 10 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

Dave Eggers, Lili Reinhart, and Rihanna: 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

Read Olga Tokarczuk's response to winning the Nobel Prize.

Riverhead has released a newly translated statement from Olga Tokarczuk, who won a Nobel Prize in Literature this week. “Olga had been unreachable for most of the day yesterday,” wrote Claire McGinnis, Riverhead’s Associate Director of Publicity, in an email, Read more >

By Emily Temple

EXCLUSIVE COVER REVEAL: Broken People by Sam Lansky.

Sam Lansky, author of the memoir The Gilded Razor and the West Coast Editor at TIME magazine, will publish a novel in June 2020. Here’s the cover!   Lansky’s narrator, Sam, is a writer and recovering addict based in LA in his Read more >

By Literary Hub

Anthony Bourdain's estate auction includes a lot of his early writings.

An auction of various things from the estate of Anthony Bourdain, the late writer, chef, and TV host, is happening now through October 30, and it includes a number of Bourdain’s early writings. The current bid for the original manuscript Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

PEN America expresses "deep regret" over Peter Handke's Nobel Prize.

PEN America issued the following statement today, from author and PEN America President Jennifer Egan, in response to the Swedish Academy’s choice of Peter Handke for the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature (along with Olga Tokarczuk): PEN America does not Read more >

By Emily Temple

The first ever dual Nobel Prizes in Literature have been awarded to Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke

Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke have been awarded the 2018 and 2019 Nobel Prizes in Literature, respectively (the prize was not awarded in 2018 after scandal and impropriety rocked the Swedish Academy). Tokarczuk was one of this year’s favorites to Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Ali Wong almost returned the advance on her book because she thought it was "terrible."

First came Baby Cobra, Ali Wong’s brilliantly brazen Netflix comedy special. She shares with us her sexual escapades with homeless men, pokes fun at feminism (“Lean in? I don’t wanna lean in. I wanna lay down!”), and she does it all while Read more >

By Katie Yee

The 2019 National Book Award Finalists are...

Here are the 25 finalists up for the National Book Awards in of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature: Finalists for Fiction: Susan Choi, Trust Exercise Henry Holt and Company / Macmillan Publishers Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Sabrina & Read more >

By Literary Hub

The 10 new books you need to 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