The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Rihanna: the only girl in the world whose memoir comes with a marble pedestal.

If you wanted to see a lot of photos of Rihanna, you could follow @badgalriri on Instagram OR you could buy this 504-page “visual autobiography.” (Think Kim Kardashian’s Selfish but probably way better.) Rihanna is a 15-pound doorstopper that features Read more >

By Katie Yee

Here are the winners of this year's Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Another week, another prestigious literary prize announcement. This time, it’s the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, which “celebrates the power of literature to promote peace, social justice, and global understanding.” The nonfiction winner was Rising Out of Hatred, by Eli Saslow, a Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

The Booksellers is a fascinating look into the world of rare book dealers.

First editions, signed or inscribed copies, incunabula, manuscripts, and artists’ books . . . the list goes on. Bibliophiles of all stripes are aware of these terms and their monetary value although they may not have a clue who has Read more >

By Joseph Pomp

Jim Carrey, Bill Gates, & Rivers Solomon: 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 up on the radical, life-affirming history of LGBTQ bookstores.

Jason Villemez at the Bay Area Reporter reports today on the expansive history of LGBTQ bookstores, tracking their humble beginnings at the cultural outskirts of bookselling, their rise as community hubs during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the new roadblocks they’re Read more >

By Corinne Segal

National Enquirer editor threatens to sue booksellers over Ronan Farrow book.

Parodically villainous Dylan Howard, the former editor-in-chief of The National Enquirer and alleged sexual harasser, really, really doesn’t want you to read Ronan Farrow’s upcoming book, Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators. Catch and Kill is Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Will everyone in Chicago please bring their books back to the library now?

Fellow procrastinators rejoice: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced earlier this week that the city’s library system would stop charging late fees, making it the largest city in the country to do so. Now, books that have been checked out will Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Here are the winners of this year's $40k Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grants.

Today, the Whiting Foundation announced its 2019 grantees of the Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grants, which aims to “foster original, ambitious projects that bring writing to the highest possible standard.” Each of the eight winners will be awarded $40,000 to support Read more >

By Literary Hub

PSA: Jim Carrey is writing a novel.

An unwitting participant on The Truman Show, a man bestowed with all of Morgan Freeman’s godly powers, the Grinch, and now… novelist? Everyone’s favorite Canadian-American actor is putting on a different Mask and writing a book. Memoirs and Misinformation is going to Read more >

By Katie Yee

Welsh writer Jo Lloyd wins £15,000 BBC National Short Story Award.

The 2019 BBC National Short Story Award, partnered with Cambridge University, has just announced that this year’s winner is Welsh writer Jo Lloyd for the story “The Invisible,” inspired by the life of an 18th-century woman from Carnarvonshire who claimed Read more >

By Eleni Theodoropoulos

Head over to The Believer for their new interactive comic feature by artist Matt Huynh.

More of this, please. The Believer has a brand new interactive comic feature up today by Sydney-born artist Matt Huynh “about growing up in a community of Vietnam War refugees resettled in Australia’s heroin capital.” It’s a beautiful and engaging Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

8 brand new books you should pick up 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

Here are the bookies' odds for the 2019 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Literary gambling enthusiasts of the world, rejoice! Your chances of guessing the winner of the most prestigious prize in letters have, for one year only, doubled. Yes, as we all know by now, because of the Swedish Academy’s decision earlier Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Who's going to take home Canada's biggest cash prize for literature?

The shortlist for the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize was just announced. For the past 26 years, the Giller Prize has been celebrating Canadian fiction writers. They award the largest purse for literature in the country, a whopping $25,000 cash prize! Read more >

By Katie Yee

15 years after Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke is back.

Yes, folks, it’s true: a full 15 years after Susanna Clarke’s beloved 1,000-page, best-selling debut, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, (set in an alternative 19th century England in which magic exists (again)), she’s announced her second novel: Piranesi, which will be Read more >

By Emily Temple

“There’s going to be a WeWork ‘The Book’”!? our office shrieked in shock and dismay.

Obviously there is. Noted international landlord and Saudi money-launderer WeWork—as tumultuously run and absurd a company as ever companied—is going to get the full investigative book treatment, according to Axios. Wall Street Journal reporters Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell will Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

David Mitchell, Yaa Gyasi, and Guillermo del Toro: 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

A new guide from PEN America provides some answers on campus "free speech" controversies.

PEN America has released a Campus Free Speech Guide aimed at helping students and educators navigate free speech-related conflicts and controversies on campus. The guide was in part a response to requests from educators who were eager for clear guidance, PEN America Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Here are the seven shortlisted debut novels for the 2019 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.

Lit Hub is excited to announce the shortlist for the 2019 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. This year’s judging panel included Tommy Orange, Emma Straub, Monique Truong, Maaza Mengiste, and Claire Messud. They are: De’Shawn Charles Winslow, In West Read more >

By Literary Hub

Oh yes, Fleabag's Hot Priest is your new Tom Ripley.

According to Variety, Andrew Scott, better known as “the hot priest” (though I still think of him as the Best Moriarty), has signed on to play the lead in a new Showtime series based on Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley novels. Ripley will Read more >

By Emily Temple