Lit Hub Daily: October 20, 2025
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1928, Dorothy Parker reviews A.A. Milne’s The House at Pooh Corner in The New Yorker, writing that it made her throw up.
- Steven J. Zipperstein explores the biographical underpinnings of Philip Roth’s iconic work of Jewish-American fiction, Portnoy’s Complaint. | Lit Hub Criticism
- Ben Machell chronicles the life of Tony Cornell, the 20th century’s most prolific ghost hunter. | Lit Hub Biography
- Joshua Blackburn explores the long-standing mysteries behind words of unknown origins. | Lit Hub History
- “White supremacy is constructed and maintained by Black service work and by the extraction of a social performance of deference.” On Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, and the impact of Black labor unions on poetry. | Lit Hub Craft
- Is your small town the center of the universe? For Robyn Ryle, the answer is yes. | Lit Hub Memoir
- Cundill Prize Finalist Marlene L. Daut recommends five essential books for understanding Haitian history. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- What her mother’s past as an inventor taught Coco McCracken about the art of writing. | Lit Hub Craft
- “Eating in season is a deep and inspiring worldview that connects you to nature, to the bounty of the land around you, to the rhythm of your own life.” Why school lunches should be made with local ingredients (also, a chicken soup recipe!). | Lit Hub Food
- “Long ago. Saying those words puts me in a strange mood.” Read from Hiromi Kawakami’s novel The Third Love, translated by Ted Goossen. | Lit Hub Fiction
- Lauren Hough goes looking for ghost towns (which is harder than it sounds). | Texas Highways
- Emily Zarevich on The History of Emily Montague, often considered the first Canadian novel (which may be terribly Canadian at all). | JSTOR Daily
- Aida Alami reports on the status of Leqaa Kordia, “the last Columbia protester in ICE detention.” | The New Yorker
- Amber Tamblyn remembers Andrea Gibson, “that rare breed of writer whose deep compassion for the human condition was limitless, potent, and unequivocal.” | Poetry
- “It’s a statement that abuses of power are tolerable again.” On Lorin Stein and Tablet’s right-wing shift. | The Nation
- How Ukrainian writer and pacifist Artem Chapeye was driven to fight a war. | The New Republic
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