Lit Hub Daily: January 7, 2026
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1835, HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin on board, drops anchor off the Chonos Archipelago. Four years later, Darwin publishes his diary journal, The Voyage of the Beagle.
- “It wasn’t that Polly invented things; rather, she dealt with the truth selectively, leaving out details, inventing others, changing names, combining events.” How a collaboration with Virginia Faulkner produced Polly Adler’s A House is Not a Home. | Lit Hub Biography
- “It is easy to see the signs of encroaching fascism when they are loud and red and read “STOP” in bold type.” Understanding the rise and fall of Benito Mussolini. | Lit Hub History
- Chris Duffy explains why humor is an effective means of speaking truth to power. | Lit Hub Humor
- Dr. Charles Knowles explores the ancient history and science of the world’s oldest and most popular drug: alcohol. | Lit Hub History
- “Aisha dreamed she was sleeping beside her mother.” Read from Nahoko Uehashi’s novel Kokun: The Girl from the West, translated by Cathy Hirano. | Lit Hub Fiction
- Lara Williams meditates on the modern state of cringe. | Dirt
- On the fandom (and friendships) of being a romance reader. | The Guardian
- The life and times of “Bilitis”: How a literary hoax burnished Sappho’s legacy. | Aeon
- “Most people, especially New Yorkers, who are proud of their tap water, mock my interest in mineral water; to them, “‘all water tastes the same.’” The diary of a water sommelier. | The Paris Review
- From Moa Romanova to Corinne Halbert to DC’s Absolute line, The Comics Journal’s contributors pick their favorite comics of 2025. | The Comics Journal
- Saumya Roy reports on San Francisco’s housing crisis: “Watching these cases, I began to understand that homelessness in the United States was at least as much about isolation as it was about material deprivation.” | The Dial
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