Lit Hub Daily: October 21, 2025
THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET
TODAY: In 1772, Samuel Taylor Coleridge is born.
- “Elizabeth keeps falling down the steep stairs here. Send the checks. I need the money.” Read John Updike’s letters to his editor, William Maxwell. | Lit Hub Biography
- In a world where tech billionaires want more innovation as instant gratification, Tochi Onyebuchi thinks we should try to “move slow and make things.” | Lit Hub Politics
- Noor Alyacoubi recounts the struggle to find food and clean water in Gaza. | Lit Hub Memoir
- The 22 new books out today include titles by Claire-Louise Bennett, John Grisham, Erin Somers, and more! | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- Jane Ciabattari interviews Adam Johnson about his novel, The Wayfarer, and writing about ancient Polynesia. | Lit Hub In Conversation
- Gish Jen on writing in the sweet spot between memoir and fiction: “These are finally not snapshots of life; they’re portraits. And as such, their aim is a bit different.” | Lit Hub Craft
- Yaron Weitzman recommends books for basketball lovers by David Halberstam, Jeff Pearlman, Jack McCallum, and others. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- “Here was how it worked in the world of the affair: there was a big, anonymous hotel one town away.” Read from Erin Somers’ new novel, The Ten Year Affair. | Lit Hub Fiction
- “Despite their sometimes shaggy-dog qualities, they have a centripetal force to them.” Gene Seymour considers Chester Himes’ Harlem noirs. | The Nation
- Writers, musicians, and the Simpsons discuss their favorite Pynchon novels. | The New York Times
- Michael Callahan considers the case of the Hardy Boys’ success. | Smithsonian Magazine
- “As I said, some of our books were kept in suitcases. I had my own suitcase filled with children’s picture books.” Vika Lomasko on authoritarianism, political art, and her book, The Last Soviet Artist. | The Comics Journal
- Maddie Martinez examines a literary history of women knights, golems, and the romanticization of the Medieval era. | Reactor
- “I have not written much since the disaster, but the disaster is writing me.” Vanessa Holyoak considers memory and loss in the aftermath of the LA fires. | Los Angeles Review of Books
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