The Last of Us—HBO’s star-studded adaptation of the VERY popular video game of the same name—has been a huge hit. Whether or not you think it veers too far from the game (or hews too close, or is politically compromised), you’ve probably kept watching it, week in, week out. The story itself is not an
Literature
March 9, 2023, 1:43pm There is a literary phenomenon that afflicts married people, in which a writer they have embraced as speaking their very thoughts puts out a new book, and it is a divorce book. This triggers a certain paranoid crisis: do you read the book, or will the divorcing catch? Are you in
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) The American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) was a poet, playwright, andfeminist, who enjoyed considerable success during the ‘Roaring Twenties’. As A. Mary Murphy notes in The Facts on File Companion to 20th-Century American Poetry, Millay’s poetry books sold in the sorts of numbers we usually associate with
TODAY: In 1892, poet and novelist Vita Sackville, considered the inspiration for the androgynous protagonist of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, is born. Fabulous fungi: On the endless possibilities of the mushroom. | Lit Hub Nature “Race is not usually considered an example of desire.” Read new poetry by Monica Youn. | Lit Hub Poetry Oscars Countdown: What to read (and watch)
‘Rappaccini’s Daughter’ is a short story by the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64), first published in the United States Magazine and Democratic Review in December 1844. The story is about an Italian medical researcher who grows poisonous plants in his garden. His daughter grows up to be immune to all of the poisons – but
March 8, 2023, 3:23pm “I like to think I sprang from a head,” Patricia Lockwood once wrote, “I like to think the head was mine.” We cannot all come into the world with divine knowledge of the written word immaculately stacked into the halls of our minds, but we could perhaps manage to be born
What are the best poems about knowledge? Poetry often contains a kind of wisdom or deeper knowledge: about the world, about love, about what might await us after we die. Whether we agree with the forms of knowledge poets postulate or vehemently disagree, the poet is often seeking out, in William Blake’s memorable phrase, ‘the
March 8, 2023, 11:08am Today, over at Conjunctions, you can read “Every Friday Nite is Kiddies Nite,” a previously unpublished short story by Tennessee Williams—part of the forthcoming collection The Caterpillar Dogs and Other Early Stories, which will be published by New Directions in April. “‘Every Friday Nite is Kiddies Nite,’ written before 1939, was
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Love Story’ is one of Taylor Swift’s best-known songs. Released in 2008, it appeared on her second studio album, Fearless. But what is the meaning of this classic Swift ballad, and what was the inspiration behind the song? What influenced Swift in writing the song’s lyrics? ‘Love Story’ details
March 7, 2023, 3:42pm For someone who has foreseen the downfall of society, Margaret Atwood sure is chipper and fast with the reparteé. Take her recent WIRED interview with Kate Knibbs (lucky you, Kate!), who did a great job of facilitating a wide-ranging and titillating chat about everything from ChatGPT to aging. Atwood’s new short
Tolerance is an important topic in literature, because to tolerate something also involves an acknowledgment that there is a potential objection to the thing being tolerated. Nobody ‘tolerates’ winning a million pounds on the lottery, but we talk of ‘tolerating’ the loud music coming from a neighbour’s house when they’re having a barbecue, with ‘tolerating’
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Perhaps the most famous idea in all of Plato’s work is the Allegory of the Cave. This much-discussed (and much-misunderstood) story is a key part of Plato’s Republic, a work which has the claim to be the first ever literary utopia. In The Republic, Plato and a number of
TODAY: In 1923, The New Republic publishes Robert Frost’s iconic poem “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” If you’re heading to Seattle for AWP, here’s where to eat, drink, and visit, according to local writers. | Lit Hub 11 new books to get your hands on this week. | The Hub OSCARS WEEK: What
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) is one of the greatest of all Irish poets. His first collection, Crossways, appeared in 1889 when he was still in his mid-twenties, and his early poetry bore the clear influence of Romanticism. As his career developed and literary innovations came with modernism in the early decades of the twentieth century,
March 6, 2023, 3:38pm The Book of Animal Secrets: Nature’s Lessons for a Long and Happy Life is not supposed to publish until tomorrow, March 7th, but is already a bestseller thanks to author Dr. David Agus’s comfort in the media habitat. He has been able to promote the book on CBS News and The Howard
‘I Stand Here Ironing’ is a 1956 short story by Tillie Olsen, first published in Prairie Schooner under the title ‘Help Her to Believe’. It acquired its more famous title when it was republished in Olsen’s 1961 collection Tell Me a Riddle. The story takes the form of a monologue spoken by a mother who
March 6, 2023, 10:21am You cannot be president unless you first allow yourself to imagine yourself as president. So goes the wisdom of self-help author and new-age guru Marianne Williamson, who is back, baby, with a 2024 run for the top job (before enlightenment itself). Speaking with the New York Times at her weekend campaign
If the literary landscape of the early twentieth century, at least when it comes to short stories, is dominated by Anglophone writers like Katherine Mansfield, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf, then the mid-twentieth century arguably belongs to the Latin American writers who helped to move the short story form into new and exciting directions. Magical