Not sure if you’ve heard, but defiantly unctuous French novelist-cum-provocateur* Michel Houellebecq is having second thoughts about his whole “xenophobic libidinous creeper toad” thing—at least when it comes to doing it on camera with attractive young Dutch women. Allow me Read more >
First, there was Helen Mirren as Regal Patricia Highsmith. Then came Oscar Isaac as Sexy Kurt Vonnegut. Now, get ready for Chris Chalk as Super Intense James Baldwin. Yes, continuing the recent trend of casting Hollywood and prestige TV stars as Read more >
One fateful day at the New York Public Library, 10-year-old Truman Capote followed a lady—who turned out to be Willa Cather—home. He offered an evocative description of her in a remembrance found after his death: “She was of ordinary height Read more >
Literary Hub is very pleased to reveal the cover for Nobel Prize winner J. M. Coetzee’s new novel The Pole, which will be published by Liveright this September. Here’s more about the book from the publisher: Exacting yet maddeningly unpredictable, Read more >
In a win for small presses, the 2022 Republic of Consciousness Prize winner has been announced: God’s Children Are Little Broken Things: Stories by Arinze Ifeakandu, published by A Public Space Books. God’s Children Are Little Broken Things has also Read more >
It’s Tuesday again, and a lot of fascinating new books are out today. Here are a few to consider picking up. * Stephanie Marie Thornton, Her Lost Words: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley (Berkeley) “Thornton writes lyrically about Read more >
Alfred A. Knopf has done it, dropped a little grenade in the timelines this afternoon with the news that it will publish Jhumpa Lahiri’s Roman Stories this October. The Lahiri-hive was swift to celebrate what will be the first short Read more >
Firstly, I promise this is not one of those articles that begins with “I put a prompt into ChatGPT and this is what it generated.” This post is written 100% by me, a tired lady with an itchy head who Read more >
Everyone has a novel in them, right? For actor Millie Bobby Brown, that novel is a fictionalized account of her grandmother’s experience of the Bethnal Green Tube Disaster, a horrific moment in WWII when hundreds of Londoners died while attempting Read more >
Perhaps the fact that Mormon fantasy author Brandon Sanderson made $55 million last year started things off on the wrong foot. For Wired senior editor Jason Kehe, that was the peg on which to hang a profile of the author, Read more >
Last night, in a ceremony at the New School in New York City, the National Book Critics Circle announced the winners of its 2022 awards, narrowed down from an impressive list of finalists in six categories: Autobiography, Biography, Criticism, Fiction, Read more >
When the waters rise above the doors of the Chicago Cli-Fi Library at the University of Chicago and books beg to be let in, a key question asked by the gatekeepers will be “what is climate fiction?” As extreme weather Read more >
The shortlist for the £20,000 Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in the biz, was announced this morning and includes four debuts. The prize, named in honor of the iconic Welsh poet who died in Read more >
The American Library Association (ALA) tracked 1,269 demands to censor library books and other resources last year, double that of 2021 and the highest in over 20 years; the highest since the ALA began tracking such things. Of the titles Read more >
Not only is Dolly Parton one of the greatest songwriters in the history of America—and more recently, one of its foremost advocates for childhood literacy—she has also been one of its true style icons. From her classic, over-the-top signature rhinestone Read more >
Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort. Especially if your home is the Austen family’s Steventon House in Hampshire, a 6,900 square foot Georgian beauty on 51 acres, beautifully updated and complete with walled garden, swimming Read more >
She might not have written an entire book in one day, but Australian author Karina May has a pretty good, pretty sweat-smile story behind the rom-commy Duck à l’Orange for Breakfast, which comes out March 28 from Pan Macmillan Australia. Read more >
Keeper of the lost words and defender of the trees Robert Macfarlane has released a poster of his poem “Heartwood” into the wild in the hopes that people will use it to support land preservation. In an Instagram post, he Read more >
The media got itself into a twist this week as (old) news that your favorite friend to pigs Sam Neill had dealt with a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma hit the airwaves. Neill, who is 8 months in remission for the Read more >
Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Benjamín Labatut’s new novel, The MANIAC, which will be published by Penguin Press this fall. Here’s how the publisher describes the book: From one of contemporary literature’s most exciting new voices, Read more >
