The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

10 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

Oprah's latest book club pick is Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Water Dancer.

The Third Age of Oprah’s Book Club began in earnest this morning as the beloved former talk show host and literary tastemaker revealed her first new selection in almost a year: Ta-Nihisi Coates’ debut novel, The Water Dancer. Making the announcement Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Hundreds of authors signed an open letter supporting Kamila Shamsie.

After last week’s decision by the Nelly Sachs Prize jury to rescind the award they had initially offered to novelist Kamila Shamsie, the London Review of Books has today published a response from other members of the literary world. More Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Here are the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 honorees.

This morning, the National Book Foundation announced its annual 5 Under 35 honorees: a list of writers under the age of 35 “whose debut work promises to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape,” each one selected by a Read more >

By Emily Temple

Gift idea for a weird poet: a handwritten book of poetry by Bonnie (of 'and Clyde' fame).

If you’re looking for the perfect gift for a special someone in your life who loves poetry and crime memorabilia—and honestly, there’s probably a fair amount of overlap in that Venn—you’re in luck! You can bid on this handwritten book Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Climate activist Greta Thunberg has two books coming out with Penguin Press next year.

Surprising no one, climate hero Greta Thunberg, whose forthright, outspoken approach to environmental activism, will publish two books in 2020 with Penguin Press, a memoir Our House is on Fire (written with her family), and a collection of her speeches, Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Here is the 2019 Longlist for the National Book Award for Fiction.

It’s here: the final day of the National Book Foundations’ longlist announcements. Yep, it’s time for the fiction list, as chosen by judges Dorothy Allison, Ruth Dickey, Javier Ramirez, Danzy Senna (Chair), and Jeff VanderMeer from a pool of 397 Read more >

By Literary Hub

Epic scams, Rear Window meets Get Out, and Chris Rock: 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

Amazon employees are staging the Seattle headquarters' first strike over climate change.

As climate activists gather in hundreds of cities around the world today, Amazon employees will participate in the first strike at the company’s Seattle headquarters. Their action, spearheaded by the group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, is part of the Read more >

By Rebecca Renner

Kamila Shamsie was stripped of a literary award for her support of Palestine.

Kamila Shamsie, award-winning British Pakistani author, was due to receive this year’s Nelly Sachs Prize—a biennial, €15,000 award given by the German city of Dortmund that recognizes “outstanding literary contributions to the promotion of understanding between peoples”—until yesterday, when the Read more >

By Aaron Robertson

Residents of this Colorado city are trying to save local journalism... with their library's help.

Longmont, Colorado is a news desert. It’s one of many in the US at a time when readers increasingly rely on national legacy publications for news along with smaller online organizations, often supported by a single rich funder, that are Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Here is the 2019 Longlist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Day four of the National Book Foundations’ longlist announcements; today we’re looking at the ten titles judges Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Carolyn Kellogg, Mark Laframboise, Kiese Laymon, and Jeff Sharlet think illuminate “new perspectives on political, natural, cultural, historical, and personal Read more >

By Literary Hub

One of Elizabeth Warren's strategists is longlisted for the National Book Award in Poetry.

Another reason to be pro-Warren: she supports (and is supported by) poets. Turns out that one of the poets up for the National Book Award this year, Camonghne Felix, is also the Director of Surrogates & Strategic Communications at Elizabeth Read more >

By Emily Temple

Lucy Ellmann says if you can't handle her 1,034-page book, you're probably a baby.

Pretty much anyone should be able to finish Lucy Ellmann’s one-sentence, 1,034-page novel Ducks, Newburyport, the author told the Washington Post, unless you are a baby. “One English reviewer claimed only 2 percent of people (besides himself) would understand the Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Here's what the first audio comic for blind readers sounds like.

Unseen, the first audio comic aimed at blind audiences, begins with a welcome from creator Chad Allen. “We’re living in a challenging time, and as a person with a disability, my perspective is often excluded from the conversation,” Allen, who Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Here's what that AI face-categorizer did with 12 famous author photos.

By now, you’ve probably seen the barrage of ImageNet Roulette photos on your Twitter feed. They’re basically just photos of people’s faces surrounded by a green box and a label, based on the site’s guess of what social role you Read more >

By Katie Yee