November 9, 2022, 12:21pm For as long as humans have been writing, we’ve been writing about the things that make us miserable. And there’s something almost heartening about the knowledge that there are some constants in the history of human misery: tiny, itch-provoking bugs, for one. As further evidence of humanity’s long-standing war with lice,
Literature
TODAY: In 1967, the first issue of Rolling Stone is published. Kris Jansma on working the polls and having long (bipartisan) conversations about literature with his fellow Election Inspectors. | Lit Hub Politics Read rapid-fire interviews with the National Book Award finalists. | Lit Hub “Now we have conversations where we can’t remember what’s in the
November 8, 2022, 1:04pm Because I contribute heavily to the Lit Hub Instagram account, I spend an unconventional amount of my free time taking screenshots whenever there’s a writer in a movie or TV show. (To my friends and family who have had to put up with my incessant pausing, I’m sorry!!) This means that
“In all creation there is nothing constant,” says Pythagoras in the final book of the Metamorphoses. All things are subject to the power of change: bodies, landscapes, cities, nations—even the cosmos. Ovid announces his epic’s main theme as metamorphosis in its first two lines: “My spirit moves to tell of shapes transformed / into new
‘What Sally Said’ is a short story or vignette from Sandra Cisneros’ 1984 novel The House on Mango Street. Cisneros, born in 1954, is a Mexican-American author whose fiction and poetry often reflect the lives of Latin-American communities, especially children, in the United States. The narrator of the novel is Esperanza Cordero, a 12-year-old Chicana
November 7, 2022, 1:33pm In honor of tomorrow’s US midterm elections (NB: please vote), I present: a little literary inspiration for the tireless Democratic party email scribes. Moby-DickThis is important, Ishmael. Mrs DallowayMrs Dalloway said she would FUND the GOP HERSELF. David CopperfieldWhether you will turn out to be a HERO for your party, or
TODAY: In 1872, poet and violinist Leonora Speyer is born. Laura van den Berg kicks off When I’m Not Writing, a new series about writers and their hobbies, with a reflection on why she took up boxing. | Lit Hub “Whether by breast or bottle, no two feeds are alike.” Alice Bloch talks to
Gayl Jones, the highly acclaimed author who was first “discovered” and mentored by Toni Morrison, has twice disappeared from our sight. The first time was after a stellar launch as one of America’s most daring and distinctive literary lights, after two brilliant novels (Corregidora and Eva’s Man) brought out by Morrison at Random House, and
People sometimes ask me if having been a librarian helps me in being a writer. The honest answer is that sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. It doesn’t help to know, for example, how many books already get published every year in all categories (close to a million, not counting self-published books), or how
November 4, 2022, 9:10am Yesterday, Netflix dropped the nudity-forward trailer for its new adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s “controversial classic” Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which was famously banned for being obscene—specifically due to thirteen “episodes of sexual intercourse” in the book, “described in the greatest detail. . . leaving nothing to the imagination,” not to mention, among
TODAY: In 1963, Spanish poet Luis Cernuda dies. Emily Temple rounds up the 60 greatest academic satires, campus novels, and boarding school bildungsromans of the last 100 years. | Lit Hub Reading Lists Lynn Caponera considers the wild and wonderful legacy of Maurice Sendak’s creations (and his rigorous work routine). | Lit Hub Art & Photography “To publish a collection of
‘The Flowers’ is a 1973 short story by Alice Walker. Running to just two pages and under 600 words, the story can be regarded as an example of flash fiction or micro-fiction. It tells of a ten-year-old girl’s discovery, while out picking flowers, of the skeleton of an African-American man who was lynched in the
November 4, 2022, 9:51am Well, here’s a study conducted purely to pander to the book internet: Researchers in the psychology department at St. Mary’s University in Calgary found that seven to eight year olds who read out loud to therapy dogs for fifteen minutes every week over an eight-week period saw greater improvement in their
TODAY: In 1936, C.K. Williams is born. How to bake black pepper snowballs… vengefully. | Lit Hub Food Costumes, plotting, mise-en-scène, monologues: Lyle Jeremy Rubin on how war becomes a (deadly) performance. | Lit Hub Memoir They lie to us, they weigh about as much as a hardback copy of Infinite Jest, and other
November 3, 2022, 5:04pm A producing power trio of Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, The Whale, etc), Danny Stong (Dopesick, Game Change, The Butler) and Kit Steinkellner (Sorry for Your Loss) has scored a pilot order from FX for an adaptation of Catherine Lacey’s The Answers. Lacey’s near-future dystopian novel—the story of Mary Parsons,
TODAY: In 1901, André Malraux is born. Lynn Caponera considers the wild and wonderful legacy of Maurice Sendak’s creations (and his rigorous work routine). | Lit Hub Art & Photography Candidus, Vindex, Populus, Shippen, and other journalistic pseudonyms Samuel Adams used to fight for independence. | Lit Hub History “This year of trying to
‘Gretel in Darkness’ is a 1975 poem by Louise Glück. The poem is a dramatic monologue spoken by Gretel, the little girl from the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. In the poem, Gretel reflects on how she is haunted psychologically by the memory of the witch she killed, in order to save herself and
November 2, 2022, 1:33pm Joan Didion’s estate sale, “An American Icon: Property From the Collection of Joan Didion,” hosted by Stair Galleries, is open for bidding now through November 16. The collection includes plenty of iconic art, eyewear, and furniture, as well as a few items that I think deserve special mention. After all, as