The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Amazon bans Mein Kampf, with only a few exceptions.

About a month after a flurry of reports revealed that Amazon had started to remove more Nazi propaganda from its bookstore, the company has announced an official ban on most editions of Mein Kampf along with other Nazi-themed books. Jim Waterson, Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Here is a (growing) list of resources for gig workers affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

It will be a long time before we know the full effects of the coronavirus pandemic, but it’s already clear that its impact has been immediate and uniquely horrific for freelance artists, writers, and other gig workers in the US, Read more >

By Corinne Segal

How you can support bookstores during the coronavirus pandemic.

Though most bookstores are closing their doors to the public, you can still buy books from them! And because you believe in our shared responsibility to preserve the wellbeing of those most vulnerable among us, you’re staying home and reading Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Some bookish suggestions for what to do when you're social distancing with your toddler.

Day one of “in the house school” for my three year old began (at 7am) with him playing teacher, asking me what I had for breakfast (nothing, because somehow at eight months pregnant I’m still morning sick) and then him Read more >

By Emily Firetog

The first lines of 10 classic novels, rewritten for social distancing.

Of course, books can be a balm in these terrifying times—but as the surge in sales of plague-related literature reveals, sometimes all we want to read are books that speak directly to our terrifying times. Well, friends, with a little elbow Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Can't decide what to read next? Tell us your favorite books and we'll recommend one just for you.

Have you already gotten through the first round of your self-isolation reading list? Are you trying to decide what book to read next? The Literary Hub staff has got your back—not to mention a lot of strong opinions about literature. Read more >

By Emily Temple

The Museum of the Bible's Dead Sea Scroll fragments have been revealed as worthless forgeries.

Here’s some Monday morning schadenfreude to start your week right: after extensive testing, it seems that the Museum of the Bible’s sixteen fragments of the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls, for which museum founder Steve Green paid millions of dollars, are in Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

So Shakespeare wrote King Lear during a plague. Well, good for him, say all the writers.

Over the weekend, as countries around the world began or continued to shut down, many Twitter users, the most prominent among them being Rosanne Cash, reminded their followers of how productive one William Shakespeare managed to be when the plague Read more >

By Emily Temple

Hold on to your Nebulas: Ken Liu's short stories are coming to TV.

Ken Liu, the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of more acclaimed SFF short stories than you can shake a futuristic stick at, will soon be bringing his expansive imagination to the small screen. As Publishers Marketplace announced earlier today, AMC Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Lots of people are looking up "pandemic" and "quarantine" and "Kafkaesque" in the dictionary.

Turns out people have some questions about the new coronavirus—and not just “what is social distancing, exactly” and “can I go to the gym?” This morning, Merriam-Webster lexicographer Peter Sokolowski tweeted this list of recent lookups in the digital dictionary: Read more >

By Emily Temple

Here are the National Book Critics Circle Award winners!

This evening, the National Book Critics Circle announced the winners of their annual awards, which celebrates excellent writing and encourages the discourse around literature. These are the only national awards chosen by the book critics themselves. The original ceremony that Read more >

By Katie Yee

A Natalie Wood biography suggests her husband played a role in her death.

Almost 20 years ago, celebrity biographer Suzanne Finstad published her 2001 bestseller Natascha: The Biography of Natalie Wood. By that point, the vague details surrounding Wood’s death in 1981 made it one of Hollywood’s most infamous mysteries. Wood had gone missing Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Lady Gaga's organization is publishing an anthology about kindness.

Boy do we need it. Lady Gaga and her organization, the Born This Way Foundation, have announced that they’ll be publishing an anthology later this year called Channel Kindness: Stories of Kindness and Community.  All of the anthology’s authors are contributors Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

In honor of Jack Kerouac's 98th birthday, let's look back at his time as a Gap model.

Chaos reigns throughout the world, but we should still take a moment to remember Jack Kerouac, Beat-turned-khaki icon, on his birthday. Gap was able to license the photos of Kerouac it used in the 1993 campaign when the feuding relatives Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Women racked up the prizes from the American Academy of Arts and Letters this year.

Yesterday, the American Academy of Arts and Letters announced that the winner of the $100,000 Christopher Lightfoot Walker Award is poet and essayist Leslie Marmon Silko, best known for her writings on her Laguna Pueblo heritage and for the vital Read more >

By Katie Yee

Digital readers are more likely to be writers than print-only readers, says a new report.

Sorry, typeset loyalists: A new report from the National Endowment for the Arts is making digital and audio readers look great. The report, based on responses to the 2017 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, shows that digital and Read more >

By Corinne Segal