Based on Min Jin Lee’s eponymous bestselling novel, Apple TV’s new series Pachinko is a curious reverse export product in a post-Squid Game era. Produced and directed by Korean Americans, it is about Korea but not of Korea. Will it appeal to audiences who have come to love propulsive K-dramas? And will it be more
Literature
‘Flight’ is a 1938 short story by the American writer John Steinbeck, included in his short-story collection The Long Valley, which focuses on the Salinas Valley in California. The story is about a young man from rural California who goes into town and kills a drunken man in a fight; he has to flee to
March 18, 2022, 10:58am It’s not even noon and we’ve basically cycled through two fruitless Twitter storms around putatively bookish topics. The first seems like a classic case of engagement farming (“How can you read fiction during a time of war [you escapist monster]?”), so ought to be truly ignored.* The second—which is a bit
TODAY: In 1922, Jack Kerouac is born. 14 contemporary artists on how reading influences their work (and what they’re reading now!). | Lit Hub Art “Writing is very subconscious, and the last thing I want to do is think about it.” Rare thoughts on writing from Cormac McCarthy. | Lit Hub Craft “Austen knew much more about female erotic fantasy
‘The Pedestrian’ is a 1951 short story by Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), which is included in his 1953 collection The Golden Apples of the Sun. In some ways a precursor to Bradbury’s more famous novel Fahrenheit 451, ‘The Pedestrian’ is set in a future world in which people sit mindlessly and passively in front of their
March 18, 2022, 1:24pm Last month, we blogged about researchers using ecological models to estimate the amount of lost medieval literature, and now, we’re blogging about the opposite: researchers using work from creatives to conduct ecological research. As JSTOR Daily highlighted this week, scientists have recently examined the effect of climate change on Walden Pond’s
TODAY: In 1932, John Updike is born. “By definition, the war reporter seeks out trauma.” Dan O’Brien on the essential value—and deep cost—of reporting from conflict zones. | Lit Hub Journalism More Hollywood or Hallyu? Juhea Kim weighs in on the upcoming series adaptation of Pachinko. | Lit Hub Film & TV Ross Showalter
‘I, Too’ is a 1924 poem by the American poet Langston Hughes (1901-67), a leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance who was nicknamed ‘the Bard of Harlem’. In part a response to Walt Whitman, ‘I, Too’ sees Hughes asserting that he, and other black American voices like his, also ‘sing’ of America and are America,
March 17, 2022, 12:22pm Here at Lit Hub, we believe strongly in the power of poetry. So we were heartened to see all of Twitter come together because of a single poem—or, actually, the mention of a single poem. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “Later at the lunch, maybe you might wanna watch, I’m gonna be
TODAY: In 1740, Henry Fielding summors Poet Laureate Colley Cibber to court for murdering the English language. “Austen knew much more about female erotic fantasy than is commonly assumed.” Robert Morrison considers Jane Austen’s works as a precursor to Bridgerton. | Lit Hub TV Jonathan Franzen and his art team go behind the scenes of
Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-84), who was the first African-American woman to publish a book of poetry: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral appeared in 1773 when she was probably still in her early twenties. Wheatley’s poems, which bear the influence of eighteenth-century English verse – her preferred form was the heroic couplet used by
March 16, 2022, 2:10pm Something nice to look at this Wednesday: Swedish artist Cecilia Levy, a former bookbinder and graphic designer, is creating paper sculptures of familiar objects using words and phrases carved from vintage books. She tears, cuts and shreds the pages and merges them using paste, molds, and papier maché, reconstituting the books
TODAY: In 1961, Irving Stone’s The Agony and the Ecstasy is published by Doubleday. 14 contemporary artists on how reading influences their work (and what they’re reading now!). | Lit Hub Art Terese Marie Mailhot considers what book royalties can’t buy. | Lit Hub Money “Sometimes a cookie is not just a cookie.” Felicia Berliner
‘The Day Before the Revolution’ is a 1974 short story by the American fantasy and science-fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018). The story is a prologue to Le Guin’s ‘ambiguous utopia’ novel The Dispossessed. ‘The Day Before the Revolution’ focuses on the last day in the life of Odo, the woman who had led
March 15, 2022, 4:22pm Today in things that are incredibly helpful: Matt Bell, author of the novel Appleseed and writing guide Refuse to Be Done, shared, over Twitter, an example of a cover letter for creative writers looking for academic jobs. The letter he shared was one he wrote to apply to Arizona State University, where he’s an associate
Knopf announced March 8 that it will publish two novels by Cormac McCarthy this fall, his first in 16 years, but don’t expect a book tour. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author lives an entirely private life. “He doesn’t give interviews, doesn’t give lectures, and doesn’t do book signings,” Michael Hall wrote in Texas Monthly in 1998.
‘The Caterpillar’ is a very short story by the American writer Lydia Davis (born 1947). The story is about memory, consideration, and the small and ordinarily overlooked, focusing on someone who finds a caterpillar in her bed one morning and then drops it while trying to carry it downstairs and outside. You can read ‘The
‘A Wagner Matinée’ is a short story by the American writer Willa Cather, first published in Everybody’s Magazine in 1904 before being collected in Cather’s collection The Troll Garden the following year. In just a few pages, Cather sketches out a wasted life where a woman, who left Boston to go and live on a