The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

All the books that (probably) radicalized Lindsay Weir.

Last week, the world’s most perfect television show celebrated its 25th anniversary. Under-loved on its initial release, Freaks and Geeks now enjoys one of the smugger lost cause fan clubs. We are legion, us torch-holders for Lindsay and Sam. As Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Here are the bookies' odds for the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced this Thursday, October 10. Who will win? As ever, no one knows. But everyone likes to guess…and bet. And because money talks, the betting odds can tell you a lot. Or Read more >

By Emily Temple

Margaret Atwood’s poems! Spamalot! Marie Curie! 25 new books out today.

October is moving briskly along. If it’s all moving a bit too quickly, and you need to slow down for a bit with a brilliant new book, you’re in luck. Below, you’ll find twenty-five exciting, distinctive works out today in Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

Postmodern genius Robert Coover has died at age 92.

Novelist and short story writer Robert Coover, a master of metafictional and intricately fabulist and experimental literature, died on Saturday in Warwick, England, “surrounded by family,” according to the AP. He was celebrated (particularly by other writers) for works that Read more >

By Emily Temple

The house from Practical Magic has inspired an architectural design trend.

And it is called, aptly, oh-so-aptly, Whimsigoth. The house at the center of 1998’s Practical Magic may be among the Most Pinterested Fictional Property. A robust mood board movement puts The Owens’ Manse in a whole aesthetic constellation with candelabras, Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Some advice from literature for Mayor Adams and his corrupt friends.

Sometimes friends get you in trouble. It’s just going to happen. Even your closest, oldest friends will give you bad advice or indulge a destructive impulse—“Stay out for one more!” “Text him!” “Take extravagant airline upgrades from Turkey!” But if Read more >

By James Folta

Here are the finalists for the 2024 Cundill History Prize.

Today, McGill University announced the finalists for the 2024 Cundill History Prize, which celebrates books that “speak to major issues in the present day.” Finalists will each receive $10,000; the winner, judged on “historical scholarship, originality, literary quality and diverse Read more >

By Literary Hub

Here are this year's literary MacArthur Fellows.

Yesterday, the MacArthur Foundation announced its class of fellows for 2024. The annually given fellowship “is a $800,000, no-strings-attached award to extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential.” Colloquially known as “genius grants,” the MacArthur is Read more >

By Brittany Allen

So, you want to read some horror? Here's a spooky season starter kit for the genre-curious.

Ah, October: some might say it’s the best month of the year. (It is.) Certainly, it is the spookiest (although Charles Dickens might argue for December) and by the time you read this, I have no doubt that your neighborhood Read more >

By Drew Broussard

Here are the finalists for the 2024 National Book Awards.

Today, the National Book Foundation announced the finalists for the 2024 National Book Awards in all five categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature. The finalists were selected from a starting total of 1,917 books submitted by Read more >

By Literary Hub

Ta-Nehisi Coates! Joyce Carol Oates! Karl Ove Knausgaard! 27 new books out today.

The wheel of the year never stops turning, and October, suddenly, is here. For many of us, the fall can be a time both of harvests and loss, a time of fire and fading, life and death. For many Americans, Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

Witchcraft! Ross Gay! Sonic Youth! Bryan Washington! 27 new books out in paperback this October.

October, astonishingly, is here already, bringing with it cooler weather, fiery and fading leaves, meditations on the passage of time and death as change, and, of course, spooky season. And, of course again, new books to read, including paperback editions Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

Five cultural hubs to follow for Hurricane Helene updates.

This weekend, a devastating hurricane knocked out a large swathe of the Southeast. A superstorm caused by climate change, Hurricane Helene is the largest natural disaster to hit the Carolina region in recorded time. Disaster relief is slow going, and Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Attention Austen fans: Now you can have tea with Lizzy Bennet, IRL.

Lizzy Bennet, the hero of Pride and Prejudice, is that rare, perfectly-drawn character that one can imagine walking right off the page. But luckily, we no longer have to imagine. She’s real, folks. And she’s ready to talk. A UK-based Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Looking for what to watch this weekend? Try your favorite authors' favorite films.

Ever since novelists started mixing with Hollywood, film and prose have been easy bedfellows. A lot of authors are proud cinephiles. Others go so far as to credit movies as major form or content influences. And thanks to the fleet Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Jhumpa Lahiri refused an award for artistic integrity from a museum that fired staff over kaffiyehs.

In a show of pro-Palestinian solidarity, the author and activist Jhumpa Lahiri refused to accept an honor from the Noguchi Museum yesterday. The Isamu Noguchi Award, named for the museum’s founder, has been conferred annually since 2014. It seeks to Read more >

By Brittany Allen