“This demon shooting video game mod might be your new favorite book.”
James Folta looks at MyHouse.wad, a 2023 mod of Doom II based on Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves.
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
July 8, 2025
Today, we’re celebrating upcoming sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, wondering how much weed Shakespeare smoked, learning about what makes a good translation of Dante, and more!
- In case you still don’t have enough books to read, these are our 33 most anticipated sci-fi, fantasy, and horror titles for the rest of 2025! | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- How stoned was Shakespeare when he wrote Hamlet? Sam Kelly investigates. | Lit Hub History
- Calvin Duncan and Sophie Cull on William “Joe Writs” Johnson and how jailhouse lawyers save the lives of their fellow inmates. | Lit Hub Politics
- The 20 new books out today include a new translation of Dante, a memoir of America’s Next Top Model, love amidst shipwreck, and more! | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- It might not be possible to write a universal story, but that didn’t stop Lidija Hilje from trying. | Lit Hub Craft
- “I think precocious children in fiction can be pretentious. But what are you gonna do? Write about a dumb one?” Jane Ciabattari interviews Gary Shteyngart. | Lit Hub In Conversation
- Maris Kreizman, Claire Jia, Lawrence Burney, and more authors answer our burning questions about how they write. | Lit Hub Craft
- “Last night she came to me again. We were in the room, facing each other on opposite beds, our legs not reaching the marble floor. We hadn’t aged at all.” Read the story “Ghosts” from Aysegül Savas’s new collection, Long Distance. | Lit Hub Fiction
From around the internet:
- Mary Jo Bang on the importance of vernacular when translating Dante’s Paradiso to English. | Asymptote
- How can design move forward as a field? Maybe it needs some literary inspiration. | The MIT Press Reader
- “In such stories, crabs are a symbol of efficient, brutal evolution at its simplest.” Will humans evolve into crabs? Michael Garfield explains. | Aeon
- “Like many libraries, archives, and other small organizations, Iaso discovered her Git server was getting slammed only when it stopped working.” This open-source software is fighting AI bot scrapers. | 404 Media
- Jeff VanderMeer recommends his favorite cli-fi. | The New York Times
- Authors wonder what the outcome of Mahmoud v. Taylor means for their books. | The Guardian
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May 2, 2025
Today, we’re looking forward to this month’s new books, thinking about what it means to be a parent who writes about your kids, and feeling really angry about this whole capitalism thing!
- Leaving Twitter, publishing poetry, and talking about… men who read? All on the Lit Hub Podcast. | Lit Hub Radio
- Caroline Carlson recommends ten new universe-expanding children’s books. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- From Hell and drifting to the super gay, these new poetry collections are coming in May. | Lit Hub Poetry
- “Writing about Theo was—is—painful because it’s a distillation of my general anxiety, and at times shame, in turning my life into content.” Arianna Rebolini on being both a parent and a memoirist. | Lit Hub Craft
- This month’s SFF brings stories of queer futures, Golden Age sci-fi, and a romantasy take on what it really means to be a horse girl. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- “The children woke coughing. Smoke hung above their beds, so they dropped beneath it, dressed lying down.” Read from Clea Young’s new story collection, Welcome to the Neighborhood. | Lit Hub Fiction
From around the internet:
- Zoe Dubno considers Shulamith Firestone’s Airless Spaces and how capitalism makes us all miserable. | The Nation
- “Allowing re-creation of known stories by new authors gives these monsters an afterlife of their own, leaving lasting impacts on the genre for decades, or even centuries to come.” Olivia Pavao on the public domain as horror hero. | Public Books
- Gina Gagliano catches up with comics publishers four months after originally talking to them about the effects of Trump’s tariffs on their work. | The Comics Journal
- Tim Brinkhof on the relevance of Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday: Memoirs of a European to our authoritarian present. | Los Angeles Review of Books
- Kevin Nguyen explores the life-changing power of interviewing your family. | The New York Times Magazine
- Sophie Gilbert and Amanda Hess discuss riot grrrl, Britney Spears, and the internet as a character. | Interview
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- The National Book Award shortlists have been announced; but who has the best cover? Allow us to judge these worthy books on looks alone. | NPR, Literary Hub
- The efficiently organized bedlam of the Frankfurt Bookfair begins today. Apparently Hitler will be there, and the German literary scene is analogous to a serial killer. | Literary Hub
- Congratulations to Marlon James, who has won this year’s Man Booker Prize for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings. | The Man Booker Prize
- Why do readers continue to revere Thoreau, a narcissistic jerk, and Walden, “the original cabin porn?” | The New Yorker
- “I simply do not believe that literature is about inflicting pain, choosing elites, or providing utility.” Scott Esposito defends un-difficult literature. | Entropy
- Two literary investigations of political repression and sexuality, brought to you by Canada’s pioneer of speculative fiction (Margaret Atwood) and France’s “enfant terrible and dirty old man” (Michel Houellebecq). | The Atlantic
- Luc Sante reviews Richard McGuire’s Here, a graphic novel set in the corner of a living room and spanning from 3,000,500,000 B.C. to A.D. 22,175. | The New York Times
- From Odysseus’s encounters with witches to Gothic romance, a history of pre-Poe horror. | Flavorwire
- “I really miss modernism.” Sarah Nicole Prickett on control, dualities, and the fiction of Henry Mathews, written like gossip. | Hazlitt
- “She paused to look at her reflection in the black-tinted windows. Ungodly!” A short story by Sarah Levine. | Storychord
Also on Literary Hub: Paul Holdengraber and Claudia Rankine talk in episode 4 of A Phone Call From Paul · Read a selection from Garth Risk Hallberg’s City on Fire · Five books making news this week · The story of Virginia Pye’s grandmother, an American widow alone in 1930s China · A poem by Wayne Koestenbaum · Why the printed book will last another 500 years · A story by William H. Gass
#national book awards#frankfurt book fair#marlon james#a brief history of seven killings#thoreau#walden#scott esposito#margaret atwood#michel houellebecq#luc sante#richard mcguire#horror#sarah nicole prickett#henry matthews#sarah levine#paul holdengraber#claudia rankine#garth rick hallberg#city on fire#wayne koestenbaum#william h gass#lit#lit news#lit hub daily