The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

What's the deal with Book Girl Summer?

Earlier this month, the fashion house Miu Miu staged a marketing event at an unlikely catwalk: Casa Magazines. This was part and parcel of a recurring pop-up called ‘Summer Reads,’ at which fans of the brand can line up to Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Most freelance book critics are making less than minimum wage.

Since September 2023, the book criticism working group of the Freelance Solidarity Project (a union of digital media workers, organizing to raise labor standards across the industry) has been collecting data on freelance rates. Its findings, published earlier this month, Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

A definitive ranking of Brat Pack movies.

This week, the ex-teen heart-throb, ur-“Nice Guy,” and award-winning travel writer(!) Andrew McCarthy made his documentary debut at the TriBeCa film festival. Brats—the film in question, now on Hulu—documents the rise and fall of the enfants terribles who defined the Read more >

By Brittany Allen

What does it mean that Barnes & Noble is buying Denver indie Tattered Cover?

After several tumultuous years, there’s light at the end of the tunnel for Denver’s Tattered Cover bookstore. Denverite reports that the troubled local chain (TC has six stores in the Denver area) accepted a $1.8 million offer from Barnes & Read more >

By Drew Broussard

Rachel Cusk! Francine Prose! Thom Gunn! 27 new books out today.

It’s another Tuesday, and—against the depressing impulses of doomscrollers to begin each day with bad news—I fortunately have good news to offer: there’s a veritable salmagundi of new books out today in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. In fact, I have Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

The Indian government is planning to prosecute Arundhati Roy.

Arundhati Roy, the internationally recognized author and activist, is currently wanted by the Indian authorities. This comes after the Lieutenant General of Delhi granted police permission to prosecute the Booker Prize-winning novelist under a draconian anti-terrorism statute called the Unlawful Read more >

By Brittany Allen

What to read next based on your favorite Tony nominee.

This Sunday, Broadway will recognize some of the year’s plays and musicals with a shiny celebration and a great many inside jokes. Maybe you’ve seen some of the nominated plays. Or maybe you will, later, when they reach PBS or Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Why Polidori's The Vampyre was falsely attributed to Lord Byron.

One night in the rainy summer of 1816, at Lord Byron’s summer estate, Villa Diodati, in Cologny, near Geneva, Switzerland, Byron, and his friends Percy and Mary Shelley passed the time by telling ghost stories. The stories they created would Read more >

By Olivia Rutigliano

Creative ways to show off your prestige galley.

Finally, you’ve got an advanced copy of a hotly anticipated forthcoming book. Reading it will be great—sure, whatever—but showing it off is going to be even better. Go beyond the coy Instagram posting, and elevate your galley brag game.   Read more >

By James Folta

The 2024 Young Lions Fiction Award goes to E.J. Koh.

Hear ye, hear ye! The Seattle-based novelist E.J. Koh has won the 24th annual NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award for her book The Liberators.  A time and space-hopping epic following two Korean families, The Liberators enlists “memory, trauma, and empathy” to Read more >

By Brittany Allen

The Refaat Mobile Library is raising funds for Gaza.

The good people behind the Refaat Mobile Library—a traveling memorial library created in honor of Refaat Alareer, the beloved Palestinian poet and educator who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in December—are holding an emergency fundraiser for Gaza, and they could Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Here are the winners of the 2024 Women's Prizes.

At a ceremony on Thursday in London, The Women’s Prize Trust, which “creates equitable opportunities for women in the world of books,” announced the winner of the 2024 Women’s Prize for Fiction—as well as the winner of the inaugural Women’s Read more >

By Literary Hub

Have you ever wondered what W. B. Yeats looked like as a baby?

Of course you have. It keeps most of us up at night. Well, wonder no more. Earlier today, in honor of the Irish Nobel Prize winner’s 159th birthday, the Twitter account of Lissadell House (“the crucible of Ireland’s historic, literary Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

I think I’ve been demonically possessed by this Bible App ad.

If you’ve been on the New York subway lately, you’ve probably seen this ad, imagining Satan leaving a zero-star review for Bible App: “Zero Stars. Would not recommend.” And if you’ve been on the New York subway with me lately, Read more >

By James Folta

Ted Chiang has won the PEN/Faulkner Foundation’s short story prize.

Photo by Arturo Villarrubia Science fiction writer Ted Chiang has won the 2024 PEN/Bernard and Ann Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. The award is given each year to a writer who has “demonstrated exceptional achievement in the short Read more >

By James Folta

1979’s The Book-Store Book documents a lost borough of booksellers.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter established the Department of Education and was attacked by a rabbit. In 1979, New York City Mayor Ed Koch was in his first term, and The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” broke into the Top 40. Read more >

By James Folta

New literary podcasts to add to your queue.

Say you’re no newb to the literary podcast. You’ve got Brad Listi’s “Other Ppl,” “Between the Covers,” and “The Maris Review,” sitting pride of place in your digital library. And—perhaps inspired by this very website—you’ve been tickling your cochlea lately Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Here are the guest editors (and new covers!) for the Best American Series 2024.

The Best American Series is a literary institution. But just in case you’re stumbling upon it for the first time: Each book in the annual series showcases of best short fiction and nonfiction in a given year, from short stories Read more >

By Literary Hub

Robert Pinsky! Porochista Khakpour! Rufi Thorpe! 26 new books out today.

Dear Readers, it is once again Tuesday, and that means, as ever, that there are new things to read and rejoice in. And today is no exception, for there are many, many exciting new books to consider. I’ve compiled twenty-six Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

Attention: Soon you'll be able to do a writing residency in Ursula Le Guin’s home.

Ursula Le Guin’s family and Literary Arts in Portland announced today that Le Guin’s old home will become soon become the Ursula K. Le Guin Writers Residency. That’s right, you might be able to write at the desk where Le Read more >

By James Folta