The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Dua Lipa’s literary empire is expanding. (Again.)

You may know her as a Grammy winning pop star, best at baiting hooks that keep Barbie in a trance. But these days you’re just as likely to know Dua Lipa for her second job: bookfluencer. The British impresario founded Read more >

By Brittany Allen

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Nonfiction

Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for nonfiction, based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide, generously provided by the American Booksellers Association. Compiled, designed, and distributed by The Independent Publishers Caucus. * 1. The Gales Read more >

By Literary Hub

If you read cursive, the Newberry has a job for you.

The Newberry Library in Chicago is scouting transcribers to demystify its handwritten collection. As Dan Kelly wrote in yesterday’s Chicago, the archive’s hunt for “living Rosetta stones” first kicked off in 2013, when the Newberry launched a campaign to transcribe Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Why can’t human editors identify AI?

Lately, there’s been a spate of revelations about AI users slipping slop-assisted work past human editors. First there was Shy Girl, the horror novel pulled by its publisher once they realized it had been largely AI-generated. Editors failed to see Read more >

By James Folta

One great poem to read today: Lucie Brock-Broido’s “Am Moor”

This April marks the 30th iteration of National Poetry Month, which was launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996. To celebrate, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending one great poem to read every (work) day of Read more >

By Emily Temple

André Alexis has won the 2025 Story Prize.

André Alexis has won the 2025 Story Prize, an annual award for short fiction, for his collection Other Worlds (FSG Originals). Other Worlds was selected from the Story Prize shortlist (which also included Lydia Millet’s Atavists and Ayşegül Savaş’s Long Read more >

By Literary Hub

Why is Bob Dylan hawking AI-generated historical fiction?!

As if to prove his point, the Nobel-winning mage who wrote “the times, they are a-changing,” has finally joined Patreon. As Pitchfork reported yesterday, Bob Dylan—aka Zimmy, Blind Boy Grunt, Lucky Wilbury—has made a new personal account on the pay-to-play hosting Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Here is the shortlist for the 2026 International Booker Prize.

The shortlist for the International Booker Prize is out today, and it includes many books published by women and independent presses, two debuts, and writers from eight nationalities and four continents. The International Booker celebrates fiction and collections that have Read more >

By James Folta

Tana French, Colm Tóibín, Yann Martel and more: 20 new books out today!

We’re at the bitter end of March, and here to usher in the closing of the dreary winter, and welcome in the tidings of April, there are more than a few big books arriving on this new books Tuesday. Let’s Read more >

By Julia Hass

Percival Everett, Andrea Long Chu, Gatsby... 23 new paperbacks out this April.

April approaches, and with it comes a bevy of new books to look out for, balms in a year of astonishing chaos and uncertainty, and so I’m delighted to share some novels, memoirs, essay collections, explorations, and more to spend Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

This week’s news in Venn diagrams.

Inspired by something Drew said on The Lit Hub podcast, I’ve been rethinking how I’m organizing the books I want to read, and trying to cull a little by being a little more honest about what I’m actually going to Read more >

By James Folta

Here are the winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards.

Tonight the National Book Critics Circle announced the recipients of its book awards for publishing year 2025. As NBCC President Adam Dalva declared in his opening remarks, this year’s NBCC Awards are marked by a moment when “the very concept Read more >

By Literary Hub

A new podcast from M. Gessen explores an ugly family secret.

M. Gessen, the prolific author with bylines in The New York Times and The New Yorker, has launched a new podcast in partnership with Serial Productions and the Times. “The Idiot” follows Gessen’s cousin Allen, a sketchy business man. “If Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Two of your favorite screen stars are going literary.

Stephen Colbert, the recently defenestrated late night host, is co-writing a new Lord of the Rings movie. A long time Tolkien fan—real ones will remember his cameo in 2013’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug—Mr. Colbert will be pulling a Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Books x Bodegas is bringing little libraries into Bronx bodegas.

NYC bodegas are special places. You can grab all manner of essentials and snacks, order your most idiosyncratic breakfast sandwich, pet a cat, and catch up with a guy who only knows you as “boss” but has seen you at Read more >

By James Folta

Hitting the road? Here are three recommendations about trips that get out of hand.

If you’ve talked to me in the last couple of weeks, you’ve no doubt heard me gush about Satyajit Ray’s exquisite Days and Nights in the Forest, a funny and touching Bengali language Indian film that I’ve now seen twice Read more >

By James Folta