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News, Notes, Talk

The world's oldest surviving letter by an actual Christian contains a request for fish sauce.

Sometimes the greatest secrets are right under our noses, in shuttered backrooms or buried beneath layers of decades-old junk. One researcher at the University of Basel, in Switzerland, has discovered a treasure likely to appeal to epistolary and classical fanatics Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Lakeith Stanfield will star in an adaptation of Kwame Onwuachi’s 'Notes From a Young Black Chef.'

Last night, Variety reported that Lakeith Stanfield (also known as the actual best part of Atlanta, there I said it, don’t @ me) to star in a feature film adaptation of Kwame Onwuachi’s Notes From a Young Black Chef—which is Read more >

By Emily Temple

New Books Tuesday: Your weekly guide to what’s publishing today, fiction and nonfiction.

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

The Vita and Virginia trailer is full of literary flirting and headbands.

IFC has released the trailer for Vita and Virginia, tells the story of Virginia Woolf’s love affair with Vita Sackville-West (and if the trailer is any indication, their mutual love affair with headbands). Also featured: sexy smiles, greenhouse flirting, drowning foreshadowing, Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Don't let Dale Peck's Mayor Pete op-ed ruin the Democratic Presidential climate summit!

The New Republic’s Emily Atkin left work early last Friday for a weekend in the woods of West Virginia, where she had no cell service. She had earned a vacation. After months of work, she and her colleagues were closing Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Indie booksellers urge you to resist the siren call of Amazon Prime Day.

In solidarity with the Amazon Strike—in which Amazon warehouse workers in a suburb of Minneapolis are striking to protest their terrible working conditions (unions of Amazon workers in Europe have staged strikes on Prime Days in the past, but the Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Christian Book Distributors' name is an unexpected casualty of your CBD obsession.

Here’s a surprisingly low-stakes and silly story about a Christian publisher! The Massachusetts-based, pragmatically-named Christian book distributor, Christian Book Distributors, had to change its name to Christianbook due to all the calls it was getting from people looking for CBD, Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Historian Sarah Milov wrote a book so good that three men on NPR talked about it without naming her.

It must be a great feeling to write an authoritative book on a compelling subject and have it discussed on a substantial national platform. Not so great: when those people fail to name either you or the title of your Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Which literary icon is the purest example of your astrological sign?

Aquarius (January 20-February 18) Audre Lorde Obviously, Audre Lorde is the definition of an Aquarius. Just take a look at this bold and brilliant essay from 1985 on police brutality, Apartheid, and harnessing our power. Pisces (February 19-March 20) Gabriel García Read more >

By Katie Yee

Chicago's only black woman-owned bookstore is open for business.

Semicolon—a vibrant new bookstore, community space, and gallery for Chicago’s street art scene—opened its doors on Tuesday with a party and mural unveiling. The store is “just one of a handful of woman-owned bookstores in Chicago and currently its only Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Your weekly book deal memo: Daisy Johnson, Brandon Hobson, Scaachi Koul & more

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

Your favorite reads: this week's most clicked-on books at Book Marks.

Hello from Book Marks, Lit Hub’s “rotten tomatoes for books!” How It Works: Every day, our staff scours the most important and active outlets of literary journalism—from established national broadsheets to regional weeklies and alternative litblogs—and logs their book reviews. Each Read more >

By Katie Yee

Olivet Nazarene University fires new teacher for including curse words and a lesbian in his novel

T. J. Martinson’s love of academia and literature came from watching his father teach in the communications department at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois; like everyone else in his family, he went to college there. This spring, when ONU Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Novelist Rachel Lyon will be the next Editor in Chief of Epiphany

Today, in a press release, the Board of Directors of Epiphany announced that Rachel Lyon, author of Self-Portrait With Boy, founder of the Ditmas Lit Literary Series, and Literary Hub contributor, will be taking over the role of Editor in Chief. Read more >

By Emily Temple

20 young booksellers have just won some of James Patterson's money.

The most prolific man in letters, James Patterson, has bestowed upon 20 UK booksellers the Young Bookseller Special Achievement Award in recognition of their “talent and extraordinary contribution to the bookselling industry.” Bestselling author/philanthropist Patterson (whose has sold somewhere north Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

The dad-rock book tie-in we’ve all been waiting for: a Metallica children’s book.

God, Metallica is getting dangerously close to grandad-rock* (Lars Ulrich is 55), but it’s obviously a very rock and roll thing to keep fathering kids until you die (what’s up Rod Stewart). And look, everyone knows that parenthood does weird Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Wonder Boys">

Wonder Boys">Remembering Rip Torn's "I . . . am a writer" speech from Wonder Boys

Beloved stage and screen actor, geriatric bank robber, and Norman Mailer hammerer Rip Torn passed away on Tuesday, after a long battle with genteel society. He was 88. There have been many wonderful Torn performances down through the years, from Wonder Boys">Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Like you, James Patterson thinks Jeffrey Epstein's arrest is "terrific."

James Patterson, a very rich author, is among those glad that billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein has been charged with sex trafficking. Patterson wrote a book about Epstein in 2016 called Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal that Undid Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

You can now bid on Philip Roth's old typewriters and baseball cards (and they're surprisingly cheap)

This summer, Litchfield County Auctions will be auctioning off hundreds of items from the estate of Philip Roth, including furniture, fixtures, loads of Chinese art and artifacts, and rather more sterling silver than you might expect, as found in his Read more >

By Emily Temple

What if you could suddenly understand stories read in seven different languages?

For three nights in Manchester (July 12-14), as many as 300 people will file into a theatre space littered with cables and sound equipment. Seven islands will be placed throughout the audience, hosting seven of the world’s most celebrated authors: Read more >

By Marcia Lynx Qualey