Lit Hub Daily: August 13, 2026
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1934, Mary Hunter Austin, early nature writer of the American Southwest, dies.
- explores the conservative, Christian, and ultra-nationalist roots of the global anti-trans movement. | Lit Hub Politics
- From Hinge to Feeld, dating apps are moving into the literary space. | The Hub
- “The truth about Life of M is that the book isn’t really about Natalie Portman at all.” 5 book reviews you need to read this week. | Book Marks
- Titles by Jack Finney, Jason Rekulak, Rachel Aviv, and more are on Ed Park’s TBR. | Lit Hub Criticism
- How the Dar Prize stands apart from the literary nationalism of the Russian state. | Lit Hub Politics
- “Nelson doesn’t gain her readers’ trust despite the first-person, but rather through her particular deployment of it.” Why Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts is an achievement in perspective. | Lit Hub Criticism
- Fantasy fiction is my first literary love. Am I the asshole for abandoning it? | Lit Hub Advice
- “Margot and I were preparing to host our monthly dinner party when I told her this wasn’t working for me anymore.” Read from Téa Mutonji’s new novel, My Person. | Lit Hub Fiction
- “Nazi Germany was indeed unique in its particular ghoulishness, ambitions, and scope… but, as Koeppen’s trilogy suggests, it was neither an aberration nor was it to be even for a short while an end to such atrocities.” Deborah Eisenberg on Wolfgang Koeppen’s postwar novels. | New York Review of Books
- On running a bookstore/skateshop in Ballerina Farm country. | The Paris Review
- Casper ter Kuile examines the eroticism of ancient religious texts. | Vox
- Jamaica Kincaid tells Kaitlyn Greenidge about arguing with editors, working as a backup singer, and shaving her eyebrows (before anyone else). | Harper’s Bazaar
- Does every character in American Psycho speak like a chatbot? | Aftermath
- Love the movie or hate it, at least more people are reading The Odyssey. | Slate
Article continues after advertisement
