Literature

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) What has a defunct British publication got to do with the genesis of one of Coldplay’s signature songs? ‘Yellow’ was very much the band’s breakthrough hit in the summer of 2000, and is perhaps the best-crafted song on their debut album, Parachutes. But why ‘Yellow’? What is the meaning

June 2, 2023, 10:54am Working with the Booker Prize Foundation, Dua Lipa recently visited HMP Downview, a women’s prison in Surrey, to get a firsthand glimpse of Books Unlocked, a program set up by the BPF and the National Literacy to foster a culture of reading for incarcerated people. Lipa, who recently launched a book

June 1, 2023, 11:10am I didn’t see it coming, but I’m open to it: E. Jean Carroll announced today in her Substack, post-legal victory over Donald Trump in her civil sexual abuse case, that she is writing a serialized romance novel with Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, on Substack. It will be a bit of an

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) What is a ‘banana republic’, and where does the phrase come from? The origins of this phrase can be found in the work of a popular American writer, although his role in coining this phrase and giving it to the world is not as well-known as it should be.

June 1, 2023, 9:34am As the sun climbs, people are folding their linens into packing cubes and squaring a nice good beach read on top—something to sink into in the glare of the Caribbean sun, or squint at through oversized sunglasses. Get yer sizzling beach reads! yells the internet (us included, needless to say our

May 31, 2023, 11:01am In the past few months, it has become increasingly clear that something is very wrong with book criticism. As the editor of a literary website, I believe that a robust literary discourse can only make the industry stronger and more vital. Unless, of course, the discourse involves things that people don’t

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) The printing press is one of the great inventions of the last millennium. It revolutionised how many people could read and own books, led to an explosion in the sheer number of books in the world, and helped to spread the word (quite literally) of the Protestant Reformation in

May 31, 2023, 10:00am According to the powers that be (er, apparently according to Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network), May is Short Story Month. To celebrate, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending a single short story, free to read online, every (work) day of the month. Why not read along with us? Today, we recommend: “The

May 30, 2023, 3:06pm Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice… Pablo Neruda called it “the greatest revelation in the Spanish language since Don Quixote of Cervantes.” William Kennedy deemed it “the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Highway’ is from 1950: an early short story by Ray Bradbury (1920-2012). In just a few pages, Bradbury gives us one of his earliest responses to the atom bomb and nuclear Armageddon. Bradbury is widely recognised as one of the greatest – and most lyrical – science-fiction writers

May 30, 2023, 10:00am According to the powers that be (er, apparently according to Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network), May is Short Story Month. To celebrate, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending a single short story, free to read online, every (work) day of the month. Why not read along with us? Today, we recommend: “The

Readers love to read about book people almost as much as writers love to write about them (I love to do both). My latest novel, On Fire Island, follows uber-talented young book editor, Julia Gold and literary wunderkind, Benjamin Morse, through their journeys on and off the page. Threaded in between love, death and summer hi-jinks, readers

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) A song about drugs? Or a literal ride across a desert? Or a longing for the dry expansive lands of America while enduring the rains of a foreign land? ‘A Horse with No Name’, the best-known song by the folk group America, has invited a slew of interpretations since

In the latest “Craftwork” episode, a deep-dive conversation about the horror genre with author and story expert John Truby. His latest book, The Anatomy of Genres: How Story Forms Explain the Way the World Works, is available from Picador. Subscribe and download the episode, wherever you get your podcasts!  From the episode: Brad Listi: What

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) was an important twentieth-century American poet whose work was firmly rooted in the African-American community which she wrote about so well. Born in Kansas, Brooks declared her intention to become a poet when she was just seven years old. She would go on to fulfil that

“This character is going to kill themself.” Ask my husband how many times I’ve said that to him while we watched a movie or show, only for him to turn to me astonished when it happens and say, “How did you know?” I know because I can see the plot points being set up like