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News, Notes, Talk

Here’s the longlist for the 2022 National Book Award for Translated Literature.

Today, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2022 National Book Award for Translated Literature, which includes ten titles originally written in nine different languages: Arabic, Danish, French, German, Japanese, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, and Spanish. The judges for Read more >

By Emily Temple

Here’s the longlist for the 2022 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

Today, the National Book Foundation announced the 10 books on the longlist for the 2022 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, including two graphic novels, three coming-of-age stories, and one remix of The Great Gatsby. The judges for this Read more >

By Emily Temple

Need a friend? Google has a tool that lets you "talk to books."

Hey nerds. Have you ever wished you could talk to your books? Or rather, have you ever wished they could talk back? Today I learned that Google has a tool that aims to help you do just that. Sort of, Read more >

By Emily Temple

Here are this year’s Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalists.

Today the Dayton Literary Peace Prize announced its 2022 finalists. The only international literary peace prize given in the US, the prize “honors writers whose work uses the power of literature to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding.” The Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Jean-Luc Godard disliked e-books before they even existed.

The revolutionary—and highly literary—filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard died today at the age of 91. Thinking about him, and about all the books in his films (sometimes held sexily by Jean-Paul Belmondo), I was reminded of an anecdote reported by Richard Brody, Read more >

By Emily Temple

Strand Bookstore’s $1,500 Bottega Veneta tote bag sucks and I hate it.

Strand Bookstore is taking the idea of the “status tote” to a whole new level and is now selling a special Bottega Veneta limited edition black tote back for $1,500. I hate it. Yes, we here at Lit Hub are Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

24 glorious new books to welcome into the world today.

Is there any pleasure greater than flipping to the first page of a brand-new book? This week brings us a particularly delightful bounty, with new titles from Ling Ma, Sandra Cisneros, Elisa Gabbert, Jim Harrison, and more. * Ling Ma, Read more >

By Katie Yee

Attention, phonies: a rare signed edition of The Catcher in the Rye is up for sale.

Let’s be honest: if you have £225,000 to spend on something as frivolous as a signed copy of The Catcher in the Rye instead of giving it to some nuns at a train station, Holden would definitely have considered you Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

This year, The Simpsons has a Halloween special devoted to Stephen King’s It.

Wow. If my math is correct, there have been 34 seasons of The Simpsons. What the hell, man. One of the most popular recurring specials in the Show That Will Not Die has always been the annual Halloween Special—aka The Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

Like everything else, all those book bans are probably Facebook's fault.

If you’ve ever spent time in a Facebook parents’ group, you know that aside from the occasional good pediatrician recommendation, they are absolute nightmarish cesspools of sleep-training blowups and decidedly un-gentle Gentle Parenting evangelism. Apparently, though—as there always is with Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Josh Hawley, the man who fled from danger of his own making, wrote a book called Manhood.

It was announced yesterday that Josh Hawley, the senator from Missouri who will always be remembered for fleeing the very crowd he’d recently egged on with a fist, has written a book called Manhood.* The book, to be published by Read more >

By Jonny Diamond

The Gilead Expanded Universe will continue with the Hulu adaptation of The Testaments.

The Hulu adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale is set to end after its sixth season (the fifth is set to debut on September 14), but fear not, strong-stomached fans of the Gilead universe: an adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 2019 follow-up Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize named 11 recipients this year, awarding a total of $1.1 million.

The Poetry Foundation today announced the winners of its annual Pegasus Awards, including a sweeping expansion of its Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the prestigious lifetime achievement award normally given to one living poet each year. This year, 11 poets received Read more >

By Corinne Segal

This William Gibson adaptation might be terrible, but I'll still watch it.

If you enjoy Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s particular brand of dour, techno-futuristic gobbledegook, well, you’ll probably be all over this upcoming series adaptation of William Gibson’s bestselling 2014 novel The Peripheral. Premiering next month, The Peripheral stars Chloë Grace Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Today's hero: the 82-year-old Egyptian man who has collected 15,000 books for his community.

Amid all the terrible book (banning) news, it’s nice to find a small bright spot. Today, that brightness takes the form of 82-year-old Hamdallah Abdel Hafez, who has been collecting books for his community in Dakahlia, Egypt for the past Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

The Griffin Poetry Prize has created the largest international prize for a book of poetry.

The Griffin Poetry Prize announced today it would combine two awards to create a single, $100,000 prize, making it the largest international prize for poetry. Previously, a judging panel awarded an International and a Canadian prize; those two will now Read more >

By Corinne Segal

Here are the finalists for the 2022 Kirkus Prize, one of the world's richest literary awards.

The Kirkus Prize, now in its ninth year, is one of the richest annual literary awards in the world with the winners in each of the three categories receiving $50,000. The 18 finalists for this year’s Kirkus Prize were chosen Read more >

By Literary Hub

Check out this typeface inspired by Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío.

I’ve noticed that poets on the internet typically inspire either rhapsodic Twitter-praise (often from other poets), or extreme annoyance. So it’s nice to see someone react to one in a slightly more concrete way (even if the poet in question Read more >

By Jessie Gaynor

Kogonada will direct an adaptation of R.O. Kwon's The Incendiaries.

Now here’s a piece of literary adaptation news to get fired-up about. Kogonada—the critically-acclaimed, delightfully mysterious South Korean-American filmmaker and video essayist whose works include Columbus, After Yang, and Pachinko—is set to direct a limited series adaptation of R. O. Kwon’s Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Hong Kong activists convicted for writing “seditious” children’s books.

While it’s hard enough to keep up with government censorship here in the Land of the Free, things in Hong Kong aren’t looking great either. According to Agence France-Presse, a Hong Kong court today convicted five pro-democracy trade unionists of Read more >

By Jonny Diamond