September 2, 2025
Today, we’re previewing this month’s new books, tracing the influence of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth on literature, investigating what we can learn from books we don’t like, and more!
- “In Israel, the literary world censors, silences, distorts, segregates and thus collaborates with the atrocities perpetrated in Gaza.” An open letter from an editor in Israel. | Lit Hub Politics
- Rabhi Alameddine considers depressing books that could cheer you up by Gerbrand Bakker, Hans Fallada, Leo Tolstoy, and more. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- Logan Karlie explores the literary afterlives of Labyrinth and the liminal space between dreams and reality. | Lit Hub Film
- From spooky quests to new tellings of familiar tales, Caroline Carlson recommends 10 great children’s books coming out in September. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- You don’t need to love The House of Mirth (or, what we can learn from books we don’t like). | Lit Hub Criticism
- This month’s new poetry leans into mystics, martyrs, bats, blood sonnets! | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- Natalie Zutter highlights fall sci-fi and fantasy by C.L. Clark, Naomi Novik, K.J. Parker, and more. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- Jane Ciabattari talks to Joan Silber: “I’ve never been a writer who knows what she’s doing before she sets out.” | Lit Hub In Conversation
- The 20 books out today include titles by Arundhati Roy, Nathan Harris, Bolu Babalola, and more! | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- “The Colombian heiress had problems of her own, obviously. Traumas I couldn’t relate to.” Read “The Heiress” from Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s collection, Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus is Alive! | Lit Hub Fiction
From around the internet:
- Richard Grant visits Cormac McCarthy’s personal library, two years after the author’s death. | Smithsonian Magazine
- “Her white is not only luminous but also blinding. Empty, but filled to the point of overwhelm. It is a frequency too saturated to parse.” Dashiel Carrera considers whiteness in sleep, the Velvet Underground, and Han Kang’s latest novel. | Los Angeles Review of Books
- What growing up with a magician as a father can teach about skepticism and curiosity. | The MIT Press Reader
- “Few fruits carry as many contradictions as the Punica granatum, better known as the pomegranate.” On the mythology and medicine of the poet’s favorite fruit. | JSTOR Daily
- What John Updike got wrong about the aftermath of Katrina: “Maybe it wouldn’t have been worth it to criticize his imperfect or, frankly, lazy and racist analysis.” | Oxford American
- Everyone’s Bourdainposting (but they don’t understand Bourdain). | Vulture
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#new books#science fiction#fantasy#horror#childrens books#new poetry#poetry#gaza#han kang#palestine#labyrinth#the velvet underground#jim henson#cormac mccarthy#reading list#book reccs#the house of mirth#hurricane katrina#pomegranate#anthony bourdain#edith wharton#new fiction#john updike#short story#novel excerpt#magic#magician#bourdainposting#lit hub daily#lit hub