Literature

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Monday’s Child’ is the title sometimes given to a short children’s rhyme, which has been popular for several centuries. Lines such as ‘Monday’s child is fair of face’ and ‘Wednesday’s child is full of woe’ have become well-known; but what was the purpose of this song or poem? Perhaps

May 24, 2023, 2:50pm People simply must pick a lane: poetry is either impenetrable and outdated, or it’s a dangerous gateway drug to reverse racism. Florida, you cannot have it both ways! Politico reports today that an elementary school in the Miami-Dade area (renowned for services to democracy) received a single complaint that Amanda Gorman’s

May 24, 2023, 8:47am Japan’s son and now the toast of an Infanta of Spain: Haruki Murakami has won the Princess of Asturias Award for literature, an award given by the Spanish royal foundation to significant works from anywhere in the world. The panel said Murakami’s work—novels ranging from 1987’s Norwegian Wood to last year’s

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Born in the USA’ is rock music’s ‘The Road Not Taken’: perhaps of all American songs, none has been more consistently misinterpreted than the title track from Bruce Springsteen’s bestselling 1984 album. And when we say ‘misinterpreted’, we don’t just mean people have missed the point slightly: they get

May 23, 2023, 12:51pm Alfred A. Knopf will publish Until August, the final (as far as we know) novel written by Nobel Prize–winning writer Gabriel García Márquez before his death in 2014, next year. After years of rumors that there was an “an entire literary masterpiece, never seen by the public” locked away, Arc of

It was while I was writing a novel about an anthropologist in a northern archipelago that I conceived of this book. The anthropologist was doing a village study: an analysis of the alignments and organization of a small, self-contained place. The novel was based on my own experiences of living in the Faroe Islands with

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face’ is a famous quotation from the Bible. But where in the Bible does it appear, in what context, and what does it mean? Let’s take a closer look at the origins of this well-known quotation and

May 22, 2023, 11:55am Today in good news, the American Booksellers Association announced that membership is at its highest level in 20 years. Per reporting by Hillel Italie at the Associated Press: The ABA added 173 members last year, and now has 2,185 bookstore businesses and 2,599 locations. Three years after the pandemic shut down

This essay originally appeared in 1998. Jane Austen, as they might say in Los Angeles, is suddenly hotter than Quentin Tarantino. But before we try to establish what the Austen phenomenon is, let us first establish what it is not. About 18 months ago (in the summer of 1996) I went to see Four Weddings

‘The Boarded Window’ is a story by the American author Ambrose Bierce, who is also remembered for his witty The Devil’s Dictionary and for his mysterious disappearance in around 1914. Like many of Bierce’s tales, ‘The Boarded Window’ contains elements of the horror genre. The story is about a man living in a cabin in

Samantha Irby’s Quietly Hostile is available now via Vintage. We asked her a few questions about how she write, and what she can’t live without. * What part of your writing routine do you think would surprise your readers?Probably the fact that I am really unorganized and leave everything to the last minute? Wait, that probably won’t

May 19, 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: “Miracle

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) The Petrarchan sonnet, also known as the Italian sonnet, is the oldest of the two greatest and best-known types of sonnet. Although the invention of the sonnet form precedes him – the Sicilian poet Giacomo da Lentini is thought to have invented the sonnet in the thirteenth century –

I was in my late teens, and the community I lived in was a vibrant one. Pakistani and Indian families. Folks from Syria and Egypt and Indonesia making their home, living their lives in various parts of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. When we gathered together, it was on weekends, and usually on Sundays—at the local mosque. Our

TODAY: In 1899, French actress Sarah Bernhardt premieres an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet with herself in the title role.    “We’re holding the city. Ukrainian flags are fluttering above it.” From Kharkiv, Serhiy Zhadan records the first month of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. | Lit Hub When Arthur Conan Doyle got pranked by a couple of schoolgirls. |

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) In 1978, ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush became the first song written and performed by a female artist to top the UK singles charts. At the time, Bush was still a teenager, aged nineteen years old. Her powerful pop song inspired by a classic Victorian novel struck a chord

May 19, 2023, 11:56am It’s no wonder that book theft is on the rise in Florida, seeing as how Governor Ron DeSantis seems hellbent on making reading as hard as possible. So is anyone surprised a Florida couple (composed of a Florida Man and a Florida Woman) recently made off with some rare books, valuable

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. I’m fortunate that I’ve never been in a real physical fight, but I’ve been in plenty of sparring matches. Sure, I lost most of them, but I’d like to think I learned a few things from the various martial arts instructors screaming exasperatedly at me