The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Here's the opening of Elena Ferrante's next novel.

Today, Elena Ferrante’s Italian publisher Edizioni E/O announced that her next novel will be in bookstores soon—on November 7 of this very year. Those would be Italian bookstores, of course—but her American publisher, Europa Editions, was quick to assure us: Read more >

By Emily Temple

Very good boo(k) recommendations from Laura van den Berg's ghost class.

Yes, it’s that time of the year. School is back in session. Coffee shops are doing pumpkin spice everything. Movie theaters are planning their Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic screenings. Bookstagram is once again overrun with knitwear and ceramic mugs full Read more >

By Katie Yee

Philip Roth's estate, now on the market for $2.95 million, is the perfect place to masturbate.

Philip Roth’s Lichfield, Connecticut estate is on the market for $2.925 million. Roth bought the home in 1972 for $110,00 in cash, and it served as his primary residence from 1996 to 2001, during which time he wrote his American Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

The first reviews of The Goldfinch are...not good.

The Goldfinch—John Crowley’s lavish adaptation of Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Dickensian doorstopper—premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this weekend and the first reviews have been, well, somewhat less than kind. Currently sitting on a decidedly un-fresh 31 percent rating on Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Random House publisher Susan Kamil has died at the age of 69.

Executive vice president and publisher of Random House Susan Kamil, who published Salman Rushdie, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Elizabeth Strout, Sophie Kinsella, and Ruth Reich, among many others, died this weekend from complications relating to lung cancer, the AP reports. Random House Read more >

By Emily Temple

EXCLUSIVE COVER REVEAL: Becoming Duchess Goldblatt.

Becoming Duchess Goldblatt, “a debut memoir and joyful romp,” will be published anonymously by the author behind the beloved Twitter account. The book tells two stories: that of how a writer deep in grief rebuilt a life worth living through Read more >

By Literary Hub

Emma Cline's next book is a short story collection called Daddy, and it's coming out soon.

Good news for all fans of strange cults, luscious writing, and page-turners: as Publishers Lunch reports, Emma Cline’s first story collection, Daddy, will officially be published in 2020 by Random House (and Chatto & Windus in the UK). As you Read more >

By Emily Temple

Dear male writers: here's how not to write about breasts.

Today, on the garbage website that controls our lives, some actually very good writing advice from author and editor Katherine May, which I present below without further comment: A note from a very weary editor, to all male writers: Women’s Read more >

By Emily Temple

Are you brave/desperate enough to try the Most Dangerous Writing App?

Writing a novel takes a long time because of how many of our hours we must spend not writing, for secret reasons. Especially accomplished procrastinators might find themselves with extraordinarily clean homes or a steady supply of cakes. (Thought personally, Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Horse Girls, Degas, and Flamin' Hot Cheetos: the most noteworthy 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 Read more >

By Emily Temple

Attention: the inventor of Flamin' Hot Cheetos is writing a memoir.

How’s this for a picture perfect American story: Richard Montanez was the son of a Mexican immigrant who worked as a janitor at Frito-Lay. Then, he invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and now he’s a PepsiCo executive and a legend among Read more >

By Emily Temple

The Problem(s) with Goodreads.

Earlier this week noted toaster-review site and server farm Amazon enraged booksellers across the country by breaking the sales embargo on Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments; yesterday, writing for Medium’s tech channel OneZero, Angela Lashbrook gave Amazon’s book club division, Goodreads, Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

File under gross, predictable: Sarah Huckabee Sanders is writing a memoir.

Former White House Press Secretary and noted baby cage enthusiast Sarah Huckabee Sanders is writing a novel  memoir that will likely be full of lies. It will be published by St. Martin’s Press in fall 2020. The book will detail Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

The cover for Hilary Mantel's The Mirror & the Light has been revealed. . .

Sort of. In truth, American fans will have to wait a little longer to see what image will be gracing the cover of the US version of The Mirror & the Light, the long-awaited final novel in Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Why it's bad when a bookstore's biggest competitor—Amazon—breaks a sales embargo.

Most of the time, Porter Square Books gets books with a Tuesday release on the preceding Friday. If we did not honor strict on-sale dates or embargoes, that would give us a significant sales advantage over stores that tend to Read more >

By Josh Cook

Margaret Atwood is the second (!) novelist to make the cover of TIME this year.

Need some evidence that literature isn’t dead? (Besides that very question being an insufferable cliché, I mean?) May I present Margaret Atwood, uncorking a Mona Lisa smile on the cover of TIME. Obviously it’s totally warranted, but consider the fact Read more >

By Emily Temple

Amazon breaks sales embargo on Margaret Atwood's The Testaments

Copies of Margaret Atwood’s feverishly awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments, have already made their way to readers, via Amazon, despite one of the strictest sale-date embargoes many booksellers have ever been forced to sign. The book is Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books to be made into a TV series.

Deadline is reporting that Ursula K. Le Guin‘s beloved Earthsea books are going to be made into a TV series. Oscar-nominated producer Jennifer Fox (Michael Clayton, Nightcrawler) will be developing the show for studio A24, which will then shop it Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

More than forty cities are hosting protest readings for migrant justice tomorrow night.

The brutality of the Central Processing Center, an immigration detention camp in McAllen, Texas, more commonly called “la perrerra” or “the dog kennel” by those acquainted with it, has been well-documented by this point. Five years after it opened as Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Lionel Shriver breaks vow, returns to Australia to be repeatedly censored on stage and TV.

It’s hard to forget Lionel Shriver’s 2016 sombrero-sporting keynote at the Brisbane Writers Festival in which she railed against the “fascistic” overtones of identity politics, and warned that accusations of “cultural appropriation” were tantamount to the worst kind of censorship. Read more >

By Jonny Diamond