February 10, 2023, 11:17am Percival Everett, one of the country’s most prolific and critically acclaimed “writer’s writers,” has just inked a deal for what seems certain to be his highest profile novel to date. James, Everett’s 24th novel, has been pitched as “a harrowing and ferociously funny retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the
Literature
‘The World Is Too Much With Us’ is perhaps William Wordsworth’s finest sonnet. Published in 1807, it offers, in just fourteen lines, a miniature ‘manifesto’ for Romanticism, as Wordsworth bemoans the ways that modern life is preventing us from fully appreciating the wonders of the natural world. Let’s take a closer look at ‘The World
The following first appeared in Lit Hub’s The Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. I’ve just returned from a long walk with my dog, Freddie, a cloud-white bichon frisé with a sunny disposition and a jaunty tail. For Freddie, the senses are not a leash but an all-day party: the world of the body is delicious; movement
‘House Taken Over’ is a 1946 short story by the Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar (1914-84). In the story, a brother and sister living in a large house in Buenos Aires feel that their house is gradually being taken over by some mysterious intruders. Eventually, they decide they must leave the house. You can read ‘House
February 9, 2023, 11:26am Yesterday morning, The Washington Post’s Ron Charles published a summary of “what readers hate most in books“—the result, Charles tells us, of asking the readers of the Post’s Book Club newsletter to write in with their pet peeves. “The responses were a tsunami of bile,” Charles writes. “Apparently, book lovers have
‘Women’ is a 1970 poem by Alice Walker (born 1944), one of the best-known African American writers of the second half of the twentieth century. Although she is probably most famous for her 1982 novel The Color Purple, Walker has written short stories and numerous other novels. She also started out her published career as
The following is from Dizz Tate’s Brutes. Tate grew up in Florida and lives in London, U.K. She has had short stories published in The Stinging Fly, Dazed, No Tokens Journal, Five Dials, 3:AM Magazine, among other publications. She was long-listed for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award in 2020 and won the Bristol
‘A White Heron’ is one of the best-known short stories by the American writer Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909). Published in 1886 in the collection A White Heron and Other Stories, the story is about a young girl who is approached by a hunter who offers her money if she will divulge the location of a
February 8, 2023, 12:35pm The Academy Awards approach. And so, as we’ve done in the past, we have been preparing for the Fake Oscars by thinking about the Real Oscars: that’s right, the Book Oscars. Er, the Book Oscars that aren’t the National Book Awards. You can wear a gown to the National Book Awards.
‘Reunion’ is a 1962 short story by the American writer John Cheever (1912-82). In the story, a young man meets up for a reunion with his father, but his father’s rude manner leads to their reunion being a failure. ‘Reunion’, like much of John Cheever’s short fiction, seems straightforward and can easily be comprehended, but
The following is from Jennifer Savran Kelly’s debut novel Endpapers. Kelly lives in Ithaca, New York, where she writes, binds books, and works as a production editor at Cornell University Press. Her short fiction has appeared in Hobart, Black Warrior Review, Green Mountains Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts,
What are the best examples of the cinquain in English and American poetry? There is actually more than one way to define what a cinquain actually is, but the broadest definition is that a cinquain is any five-line poem. That’s it: a poem composed of five lines. But such a broad definition would mean that
February 7, 2023, 1:21pm Here’s a cool one. Dame Helen Mirren—the Oscar-winning star of The Queen, Gosford Park, Hitchcock, and, most recently, something called Shazam! Fury of the Gods—is set to star as the poet of apprehension herself, Patricia Highsmith, in an upcoming thriller film. Directed by Anton Corbijn (Control, A Most Wanted Man, many
Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s most perennially popular and widely studied plays. Its story of ‘star-cross’d lovers’, whose love for each other is doomed from the start because they belong to rival families in the Italian city of Verona, is one of the most famous love stories in world literature. Below, we introduce
The following is from Kevin Jared Hosein’s Hungry Ghosts. Hosein is the winner of the 2018 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the author of three books that have been published in the Caribbean, including The Repenters, which was short-listed for the Bocas Prize and long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award. He is a science
‘Thank You, Ma’am’ is a 1958 short story by the African-American poet, novelist, and short-story writer Langston Hughes (1901-67). In the story, a teenage boy attempts to steal a woman’s purse, but she catches him and takes him back to her home, showing him some kindness and attempting to teach him right from wrong. You
February 6, 2023, 12:02pm Down your blacksmith tools and shake the moths out of your wedding dress, because Olivia Colman (The Favorite, The Father) and Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders, Spencer) are bringing Big Dickens Energy back to our TV screens. Great Expectations—an upcoming BBC/FX period drama miniseries based on Charles Dickens’ 1861 bildungsroman in which a
‘Those Winter Sundays’ is a 1962 poem by the American poet and essayist Robert Hayden (1913-80). It is probably his most widely anthologised and frequently studied poem, and arose from Hayden’s own conflicted feelings towards his foster father. You can read ‘Those Winter Sundays’ here (the poem takes around one minute to read) before reading