Lit Hub Weekly: February 23 - 27, 2026

• “Imagine a wealthy Oxbridge don giving their teenager a blank check for their Brontë birthday bash and you might begin to grasp the vision.” Emily Van Duyne reviews Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. | Lit Hub Film
• Eunsong Kim on the relationship between art and capitalism (and the reading crisis as class warfare). | Lit Hub Politics
• “You just do language.” Lauren Groff on craft, reading, and her new collection, Brawler. | Lit Hub In Conversation
• David J. Silverman considers race, religion, and the European myth of indigenous savages. | Lit Hub History
• Carlos Manuel Alvarez contemplates exile: “Whatever I said about Cuba in the future, it would come from the conscience of someone who no longer lived there.” (Tr. Will Noah.) | Equator
• Jynne Dilling remembers Michael Silverblatt: “The miracle of holding a galaxy of details in one single brain, to see meaning, entanglement, and instruction knitted across that vastness—it’s one way to explain the singularity of Michael Silverblatt…” | n+1
• “This isn’t because screens are inherently attention-destroying. It’s because the dominant platforms have been deliberately engineered to fragment attention in service of advertising revenue.” How capitalism engineered the reading crisis. | Aeon
• “At great cost to themselves, these two editors dared to imagine a society where transgressive literature was a kind of portal to a freer future.” Stephanie Gorton on the history of Margaret Anderson’s groundbreaking magazine, The Little Review. | The New Republic
• Ana Woulfe interviews cartoonist Diane DiMassa about zines, tattooing, and the reissue of Hothead Paisan. | The Comics Journal
• On watching Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, adapted from Donald E. Westlake’s novel The Ax, in a bad job market. | Los Angeles Review of Books
• Mosab Abu Toha considers the reality of ceasefire in Gaza: “It’s still a genocide ongoing.” | Democracy Now!
• James McWilliams considers the life and work of Everette Maddox, poet and New Orleans’ most “most literarily accomplished barfly.” | Poetry
• How bookbinders helped the Nazis build databases of people to target. | The New York Times
• Why are so many men reading bell hooks’ All About Love? | Harper’s Bazaar
• Sabrina Imbler details their long, disappointingly boring correspondence with (not) Elena Ferrante. | Defector
• Mark Oppenheimer looks back on Judy Blume’s Wifey, “a steamy tale of lust and adultery, a career pivot that many worried would destroy her career as a writer for children.” | Vulture
• What’s the value of education if AI is doing your homework? | 404 Media
• Rachel Vorona Cote considers Claire Baglin’s On the Clock and asks if contemporary fiction ignores the working class. | The Nation
• What’s up with Noam Chomsky’s Epstein friendship? | The New Republic
• “What is neglected by those sounding the death knell of the humanities is any assessment of the actual quality of college essay writing that AI based on large language models can produce.” Ben Parker separates the reality of AI essay writing from the clickbait. | Public Books

Also on Lit Hub:

The American government’s war against the Seminole • In Lieu of Flowers and the importance of naturalizing grief • Books about bad mothers • The power, safety, and ritual of a latex fetish • This week in literary history, The Gutenberg Bible is published • The secret life of the awabi abalone • Craft lessons from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills • “How do we keep writing when they are killing poets?” • History (and mystery) of migraines • Birthright citizenship in a post-9/11 America • Lessons for Black queer activists from James Baldwin • Tayari Jones on a book she hasn’t read • Ukrainian literature to help understand the ongoing war • How Martha Gellhorn and Virginia Cowles survived 1930s Europe • Read “Afternoon in the Cemetery,” a poem by Asa Drake • The American right’s unslakable desire for censorship • The deadly rivalry between Trotsky and Stalin • How Pong became a hit for Atari • Jesse Jackson’s support for LGBTQ rights and HIV/AIDS prevention • A day in his life of a paperboy in 1974 • The intersection of philosophy and fable • Books about radical care at the end of the world •  Read “Astro Mischief,” a poem by Preeti Vangani • The impact of big oil on the plastic industry’s growth • How to write when the world around you is on fire • Heritage, family and the importance of oral history • Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers in fiction and nonfiction • 5 book reviews you need to read this week • Am I the asshole for preferring adaptations to the original books? •  Seven Hamptons novels to read this winter • Taking writing inspiration from the history of tarot • The Cold War agents responsible for colonial expansion • February’s best book covers • Writers on when they write and why • The creation of Captain America • The literary film and television coming to streaming • These new paperbacks are coming in March • February’s best reviewed books • The mixed fascist (and antifascist) legacies of England’s Mosley family • Allen Ginsberg on poetic honesty