Vauhini Vara talks to John J. Lennon about the sensationalism of true crime and the reality of being human in prison.
July 17, 2025
Today, we’re looking at photography’s predecessors, the painters who got involved in the American Revolution, Ursula K. Le Guin’s 2000s-era YA trilogy, and more!
- Anika Burgess explores daguerreotypes, darkrooms, and the 19th century inventions that made photography possible. | Lit Hub Technology
- Ben Brooks recommends books featuring characters who redistribute their wealth by Dave Eggers, Neel Mukherjee, Ann Napolitano and more. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- Ocean Vuong’s new novel “treats its characters like hogs to the slaughter.” 5 book reviews you need to read this week. | Book Marks
- “Like liberty, patriotism required a fire to sustain it. But fire needs fuel, and this is what the revolutionary creatives provided.” On the artists who joined the fight for American independence. | Lit Hub History
- “Every time I woke up, someone died. Usually my girlfriend, Lavender, or my dad, or my boss.” Read from Kerry Cullen’s new novel, House of Beth. | Lit Hub Fiction
From around the internet:
- Lydia Aikenhead on the idea that “a book contains, represents, or allows access to a physical space.” | The Met
- Peter Milne Greiner revisits Ursula K. Le Guin’s forgotten YA trilogy, The Annals of the Western Shore. | Reactor
- Vinson Cunningham close-reads the promises of A.I. commercials. | The New Yorker
- “Cellblocks full of people who killed or hurt or robbed are watching real-life murders, kidnappings and robberies for entertainment.” John J. Lennon on consuming true crime in prison. | The New York Times Magazine
- André Naffis-Sahely considers Yannis Ritsos’s poetry of Greekness. | Poetry
- The WIT Literary Festival has announced its 2025 lineup, including conversations with Hanif Abdurraqi, Torrey Peters, and more! | The Authors Guild
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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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June 6, 2025
Today, we’re thinking about suburban conspiracies, the suppression of information in prisons, and how to write nonfiction!
- Aram Mrjoian explores the tension and creativity of fictionalizing the Armenian Genocide: “I’m not naïve enough to think I made something new, but I take some pride in having found my own way.” | Lit Hub Craft
- Amir Hussain considers prison literature and the state-led suppression of language. | Lit Hub Politics
- “I’ve always been interested in MLMS, then I found these other schemes, where you’re not even selling anything. In some ways they’re less legitimate, because there’s no product.” Dwyer Murphy interviews Megan Abbott about writing a thriller of suburban conspiracies. | Lit Hub In Conversation
- Susan Choi’s Flashlight, Todd S. Purdum’s Desi Arnaz, and Melissa Febos’ The Dry Season all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. | Book Marks
- Susan Walter recommends novels that dangle juicy family secrets by Celeste Ng, Lisa Jewell, Taylor Jenkins Reid, and more! | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- Read “Poetics,” a poem by Aaron Shurin from the collection Elixir: New and Selected Poems. | Lit Hub Poetry
- Thomas E. Ricks offers a step-by-step guide for aspiring authors of nonfiction. | Lit Hub Craft
- “To live in community with a place creates a sense of collective coherence….The absence of it: trauma.” Bridget Crocker on the importance of listening to the voice of the natural world. | Lit Hub Nature
- “Animals were her first love. Guinea pigs, prairie mice, salamanders with bright pink spots.” Read from Daniel Tam-Claiborne’s new novel, Transplants. | Lit Hub Fiction
From around the internet:
- “That’s what we lost: the symphony of a mind that contained us all.” Christopher Bollen on his friend, Edmund White. | Vulture
- Marilyn Robinson considers life in an occupied America. | New York Review of Books
- “Whether we call Lorelei too fast and loose or a little slow on the uptake, we do so with the fantasy of finding truth in speed.” Jeewon Yoo revisits Anita Loo’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. | Public Books
- Dan Sinykin interviews Tom Comitta about what people do (and don’t) want to read. | Los Angeles Review of Books
- Thuy Dinh examines literature of the Vietnamese diaspora. | Words Without Borders
- Maya Lerman interviews Melissa Febos: “ I think my work is self-help, but it’s just me helping myself and making that process transparent to other people.” | Dirt
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May 13, 2025
Today, we’re praising the poetics of basketball, giving AI hype some side-eye, and considering the effects of Trump’s anti-trans policies on incarcerated people.
- Alissa Quart wants to know: Why can’t Trump and JD Vance stop talking about dolls? | Lit Hub Politics
- “The most interesting fiction, to me, contains this element of strangeness, whether it’s set in the real world or an alternative one.” Jane Ciabattari interviews Karen E. Bender. | Lit Hub In Conversation
- From the Cold War to the present, Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna look at the very real dangers of over-hyping AI. | Lit Hub Technology
- Lincoln Michel, Susanna Kwan, Domenica Ruta and more authors take the Lit Hub questionnaire. | Lit Hub Craft
- “When I watch her, I feel like I’m witnessing something beyond me, something heavenly and incomprehensible.” Mac Crane praises Chelsea Gray and the poetics of basketball. | Lit Hub Sports
- Lincoln Michel recommends 10 novels with mind-blowing structures by Alejandro Zambra, Renee Gladman, Percival Everett and more! | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- Marguerite Holloway on the virtues of taking a tree-climbing workshop: “I came to know trees more deeply. I began to look closely, to see and to understand our profound connection to them.” | Lit Hub Nature
- The 27 new books out today include titles by Ocean Vuong, Rebecca Solnit, and more! | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- M.D. Usher takes stock of ancient philosophy, nature, and anthropocentric ideas in The Anthropocene. | Lit Hub History
- “Strange people often came to the farm, but they tended to be late risers, so Mad knew the first few hours would be easy.” Read from Kevin Wilson’s new novel, Run for the Hills. | Lit Hub Fiction
From around the internet:
- Mira Ptacin on teaching writing in prison and the devastating consequences of Trump’s anti-trans policies: “They declared Maine out of compliance with ‘agency priorities’. The punishment: cut funding, and not just any funding, but programs that worked.” | The Guardian
- Hannah Zeavin considers the relationship between poets and psychoanalysis. | The Paris Review
- The integration of life and art: Victoria Horrocks re-remembers Vanessa Bell. | Los Angeles Review of Books
- What even is close reading? Dan Sinykin considers. | The Nation
- Megan Fritts examines the success (and futility) of establishing guidelines for the use of AI in academia. | The Point
- Clare Malone on the past and future of The Washington Post. | The New Yorker