The Valkyries are a key part of Norse myth. But who are the Valkyries, and what role do they play in the stories of northern Europe? Many of us are familiar with the piece of music by the German composer Richard Wagner, ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, which has been used countless times in films (most
Literature
September 16, 2022, 12:06pm The American Library Association has released its preliminary data on attempts to censor books or limit library resources, and the numbers are bad. From Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, there were 681 “attempts to ban or restrict library resources,” targeting 1,651 titles in total. This number already exceeds the total number
‘The Remarkable Rocket’ is one of the fairy tales for children written by the Irish author Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). It was published in the 1888 collection The Happy Prince and Other Tales. ‘The Remarkable Rocket’ is about a firework which is set to be let off as part of the spectacular wedding celebrations held in
TODAY: In 1950, American literary critic and scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. is born. “It took months of OCD treatment and two Brené Brown books to understand there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in writing—there are only decisions.” Elissa Bassist reflects on treating her writers’ block by treating her OCD. | Lit Hub Memoir
September 15, 2022, 3:15pm Today, the National Book Foundation announced the 10 books on the longlist for the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction, including memoirs, science writing, biographies, and histories, as well as three books that tackle the pandemic. The judges for this year’s award are Carol Anderson, Melissa Febos, Thor Hanson, Janet Webster
TODAY: In 1915, P. G. Wodehouse’s short story “Extricating Young Gussie” is published in The Saturday Evening Post, introducing the characters Jeeves and Bertie. “There is a kind of freedom in divorcing the maker from what is made.” Kailyn McCord considers the myth of the Made Writer. | Lit Hub Writing Life What do
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was a leading figure in English Romanticism. As well as co-authoring the landmark 1798 collection Lyrical Ballads with his friend William Wordsworth, Coleridge was also a critic of unmatched genius, whose pronouncements on Shakespeare, Romanticism, and the literary imagination remain influential even now. Below, we select and introduce some of the
September 14, 2022, 3:15pm Today, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2022 National Book Award for Translated Literature, which includes ten titles originally written in nine different languages: Arabic, Danish, French, German, Japanese, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, and Spanish. The judges for this year’s award are Nick Buzanski, Veronica Esposito, Ann Goldstein (Chair),
TODAY: In 1814, Francis Scott Key, American lawyer and amateur poet, pens “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Olivia Rutigliano on the legacy of legendary filmmaker Jean Luc Godard (who disliked e-books before they were invented). | Lit Hub Film Chinelo Okparanta considers William Styron’s Confessions of Nat Turner and the ethics of writing across racial identities. |
September 13, 2022, 11:36am Today the Dayton Literary Peace Prize announced its 2022 finalists. The only international literary peace prize given in the US, the prize “honors writers whose work uses the power of literature to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding.” The winners and runners-up will be announced on September 27; winners receive
It is common to hear that Americans no longer inhabit a shared reality. To a large extent this is true, especially in an era of social media manipulation, but we did not share a reality in simpler times either. We never shared equal justice under the law. What we did perhaps share was an ideal—the
September 12, 2022, 10:58am Let’s be honest: if you have £225,000 to spend on something as frivolous as a signed copy of The Catcher in the Rye instead of giving it to some nuns at a train station, Holden would definitely have considered you a phony. (“Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue
The following from Scholastique Mukasonga’s Kibogo. Gallimard published her autobiographical account of growing up in war-torn Rwanda Inyenzi ou les Cafards (Cockroaches). She is also the author of La femme aux pieds nus (The Barefoot Woman) and L’Iguifou (Igifu). Her first novel, Our Lady Of The Nile, won the Ahamadou Kourouma prize and the Renaudot
Artist/JRR Tolkien devotee Jenna Kass and TV critic/fantasy philistine Dylan Roth are a married couple who have joined forces to review the new original series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Can this latest on-screen voyage to Middle-earth satisfy both a diehard with the wisdom of the Eldar and your average Sam,
September 9, 2022, 10:12am The Hulu adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale is set to end after its sixth season (the fifth is set to debut on September 14), but fear not, strong-stomached fans of the Gilead universe: an adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 2019 follow-up to her dystopian classic, The Testaments, is in the works as a
September 9, 2022, 10:22am It was announced yesterday that Josh Hawley, the senator from Missouri who will always be remembered for fleeing the very crowd he’d recently egged on with a fist, has written a book called Manhood.* The book, to be published by Regnery, purports to call on “American men to stand up and
TODAY: In 1886, Hilda Doolittle, a poet and leader of the Imagist movement who used H.D. as her pseudonym, is born. Ann Beattie in praise of the great Chef James Haller, whose lessons in cooking apply just as seamlessly to life. | Lit Hub Food “It’s the kind of energy that just might change your
‘The Ice Palace’ is a short story by the American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), originally published in the Saturday Evening Post in May 1920. The story is about a southern belle who becomes engaged to a man from the North; however, she almost freezes to death in an ice palace at a winter carnival