The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Good news! PEN America’s staff union has reached a tentative contract agreement.

PEN America United has won a tentative, first bargaining agreement with PEN America management after a long, 21-month negotiation. The announcement also comes two weeks after the entire membership voted unanimously to authorize a strike if it became necessary. We’re Read more >

By James Folta

8 bike books to read before the Tour de France ends.

If you have any cycling fans in your life, you know that many of us have been glued to the Tour de France for the last three weeks. After today’s grueling mountain section, there are only a few days of Read more >

By James Folta

Here's the shortlist for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction.

The Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust has announced the shortlist for the third annual Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction is an annual $25,000 cash prize given to a writer for a Read more >

By Emily Temple

Judy Blume! Halle Butler! Narnia for grown-ups! 23 new books out today.

It’s the middle of July already! What a July it’s been so far, much less what a 2024 it’s been. If you need to sit back and process it all for a bit in the background while you read something Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

Workshops for Gaza has raised over $10,000 for Palestinians in need.

An inspiring group of autonomous writers, artists, and educators have begun organizing online workshops as a way to raise money for Palestinians in Gaza and “divest knowledge and skills from the universities that have been complicit in genocide.” Inspired by the Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Americans' confidence in higher education has taken a nosedive.

According to a new Gallup poll, Americans are losing the thread with higher education. Confidence in college has taken a nosedive, with one out of three poll responders claiming they have “little or no confidence” in higher education. This contrasts Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Rejoice! We're getting a new Zora Neale Hurston novel.

This winter, our eyes will be watching the shelves. That’s right, people. A previously unpublished book from the late genius Zora Neale Hurston is coming out in 2025. That book will be released on January 7th, 2025—to mark what would Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Take a peek inside the new Interior Chinatown adaptation.

Charles Yu’s genre and form-bending novel Interior Chinatown is getting a streaming adaptation, and the studio has released a few photos offering an… interior look. The National Book Award winner follows Willis Wu as he struggles to become the protagonist Read more >

By James Folta

How to pick the perfect book to read on a plane.

I recently took some long flights and found myself puzzling over which books to bring along for the plane ride. So here, in no particular order, are a few guiding principles to help you compile your in-flight library. I’m dedicating Read more >

By James Folta

20 Canadian authors have withdrawn from the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Twenty Canadian authors have withdraw their books and labor from the Scotiabank Giller Prize until it severs its ties to companies “complicit in Israel’s ongoing occupation, displacement and murder of Palestinians.” In a letter to the Giller foundation published earlier Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

They paved Pemberley and put up a parking lot.

The Dolphin Hotel, a former hitching post for Jane Austen herself, is set to be converted into student dorms. The 500 year old space is believed to be the oldest inn in Southampton. Ms. Austen made several appearances there, and Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Columbia’s architecture journal has launched a new project to publish Gazan writers.

The Avery Review, an architecture journal based at Columbia University “dedicated to thinking about books, buildings, and other architectural media,” is launching a new project called the Gaza Pages, a space to publish writing “by Gazan writers about Gaza, about Read more >

By James Folta

Yoko Tawada! Taffy Brodesser-Akner! Reimagining Sylvia Plath! Deals with the Devil! 27 new books out today.

Ah, another Tuesday! For my American readers, it’s the weekend after Independence Day, and—whether or not you grilled things, took place in a corybantic hot-dog-eating contest, watched legal and illegal fireworks compete instead, fell into a food coma, protested the Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

A USC study finds that (some people think) AI is as funny as the average person.

A new study out of USC compared comedy writing by humans to comedy writing generated by ChatGPT, and found that “ChatGPT can produce written humor at a quality that exceeds laypeople’s abilities and equals some professional comedy writers.” But their Read more >

By James Folta

So long, #SmutWeek. Time to celebrate pious fiction with #NunDay.

Elsewhere this June, certain readers were ripping bodices in celebration of smut—that saucier end of the romance novel spectrum. But over here at Lit Hub, we’re girding our loins. Naturally, we know there’s a time and a place for bulging Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Salman Rushdie's attacker has rejected a plea deal.

Photo by Elena Ternovaja The American man who attacked writer Salman Rushdie with a knife in 2022 rejected a plea deal yesterday. The deal offered to Hadi Matar would have reduced the number of years he would spend behind bars, Read more >

By James Folta