Lit Hub Daily: April 9, 2026
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1859, Samuel Langhorne Clemens receives his steamboat pilot’s license.
- David Farrier revisits “Briggflatts,” Basil Bunting’s classic poem of bio-acoustic die-off. | Lit Hub Criticism
- “I think my affection for New Kids on the Block alone is definitely not a novel. But a cruise that you’re stuck on with whoever’s on it with you—to me, that’s a perfect novel.” Emma Straub talks to Maria Sherman about her original 1990 New Kids on the Block fanny pack. | Lit Hub In Conversation
- Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for fiction and nonfiction. | Lit Hub Bookstores
- In honor of National Poetry month, we think you should read Michael Ondaatje’s “To a Sad Daughter.” | Lit Hub Poetry
- Am I the asshole for not wanting to do an author photo for my debut novel? Kristen Arnett answers this and your other questions. | Lit Hub Advice
- “Might be described as a post-porn fever dream of Eastern European magic realism crossed with a plant-based Joy of Sex.” 5 book reviews you need to read this week. | Book Marks
- Anne Enright’s TBR features work by Niamh Campbell, Sally Hayden, Louise Kennedy, and more. | Lit Hub Criticism
- “Not to preserve him exactly. / Not to forget. Eye pits, no eyes.” Read two poems by Leigh Lucas from the collection, Splashed Things. | Lit Hub Poetry
- “Caroline was thirty-four, which was not too old to have kids. But it was, she thought, too old to not know if she wanted to have kids.” Read from Hallie Cantor’s debut novel, Like This, But Funnier. | Lit Hub Fiction
- “If you would save the planet, forget The Planet; if you would sustain and repair nature, forget Nature. Remember the example of Gilbert White. Think only of the sensual properties of one dear place.” Alan Jacobs on the evolution of writing about the natural world. | The Hedgehog Review
- Caroline Fraser considers three recent books about consumption, waste, and “Miltonic corporate devilry.” | NYRB
- “The Soviet products became useless paper, sold by the kilo to meat and beignet sellers as wrapping material, and Marx’s Capital, the erstwhile Bible of the intelligentsia, was consigned to the same dusty niche as the Egyptian Book of the Dead.” On when the American dream came to Africa. | Equator
- Kyle Chayka explores the urge to destroy technology through history. | The New Yorker
- In case you need another reason to split from Amazon, your older Kindle may no longer allow you to buy or download books. | Ars Technica
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