“Summer Reading” may be a fraught concept in the world of literary thinkpieces and book promotion, but here’s something that’s the opposite of fraught: kicking back with a good novel on a warm summer evening. So let’s not overthink this, okay? Here are just a few of the books hitting shelves this season that the
Literature
Have you heard the one about the goddess and the Syrian? Perhaps it sounds unfamiliar when phrased like that, but we’re talking about the myth of Venus and Adonis, one of the great tragic love stories from classical mythology. But what exactly is the story of Venus and Adonis? Let’s take a closer look at
Every month, all the major streaming services add a host of newly acquired (or just plain new) shows, movies, and documentaries into their ever-rotating libraries. So what’s a dedicated reader to watch? Well, whatever you want, of course, but the name of this website is Literary Hub, so we sort of have an angle. To
An escape from history seems impossible for 2015 Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich. After chronicling the Soviet Union through her “documentary novels,” her own genre often mistaken for oral history, since 1985, she had begun working on two new books, one on love and another on aging and death. She saw these topics as an opportunity
Who is Achilles? And what was his role in myth? How should we analyse his character, and the meaning of the story of Achilles? And where did the phrase ‘Achilles heel’ come from? Let’s take a closer look at the stories about Achilles from Greek mythology. Before we come to an analysis of the myth,
June 3, 2022, 11:30am I love Pizza Hut with a white hot passion, and I do firmly believe that it should always be trending because of its cheesy goodness. They had stuffed crust ages before Papa John’s deigned to attempt it. (My only beef with them is that they do not deliver to my apartment…
TODAY: In 1924, E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India is published. “I realized that I was no longer a skeptical observer of the Northern hypothesis of Shakespeare authorship; I had become a collaborator.” Michael Blanding on the (extremely compelling) Sir Thomas North theory. | Lit Hub History David Yoon’s 13 Habits of Highly Effective Writers. | Lit
Fathers are often domineering or formative presences in fiction, and the following classic short stories all focus on the important influence of fathers on their children, even though, in at least one of the stories listed here, the father is absent from the story itself. These stories are among some of the best – and
For the people who love book events but who hate getting off the couch, this one’s for you! * In Conversation: Lydia Conklin and Leslie JamisonJune 6 @ 7pm EST In Lydia Conklin’s Rainbow Rainbow, queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming characters seek love and connection in hilarious and heartrending stories that reflect the complexity of our
TODAY: In 1926, Allen Ginsberg is born. “We need to rid ourselves of this arrogance, of the primitiveness of the authoritarian systems.” A conversation with Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich. | Lit Hub Politics A George Saunders adaptation, Jeff Bridges’ return to TV, and a queer spin on Pride and Prejudice all feature among the
The book known variously as the Song of Solomon, the Song of Songs, and Solomon’s Song is something of an oddity in the Bible, in that it is an unabashed description of romantic and erotic love between a man and a woman. Despite its common title, however, Solomon didn’t write it, and many scholars now
June 2, 2022, 12:13pm A group of activists employed by Amazon protested the sale of anti-trans books on its platform with a die-in on Wednesday, which they held during a company event recognizing the start of Pride Month. The employees, members of the group No Hate at Amazon, laid down at the site where a pride
TODAY: In 1907, Harlem Renaissance writer Dorothy West is born. How James Baldwin’s singular children’s book, Little Man, Little Man, “answers to a higher calling.” | Lit Hub Jean Hanff Korelitz enthuses about fiction and the Hill Cumorah Pageant… obviously. | Lit Hub Questionnaire “If American conscience were only half alive… a scream of
The fiction of the English writer Angela Carter (1940-92) is, first and foremost, the fiction of ideas. She is best-known for her 1979 collection of tales, The Bloody Chamber, which is often described as a series of ‘versions’ or ‘retellings’ of classic children’s fairy tales. But as Carter was quick to point out, she was
June 1, 2022, 11:31am Death of a Salesman is returning to Broadway! In 1949, Arthur Miller won the Pulitzer Prize for this play, a critique of the futility of chasing the American Dream. Willy Loman has spent so much of his life on the road as a traveling salesman; upon returning home, he comes to
TODAY: In 1968, Helen Keller dies at 87. “In themselves they are disproportional, flat, fragile, caricatured, grotesque, carnivalesque.” On Franz Kafka’s nearly lost drawings. | Lit Hub Art Bill McKibben reckons with the myths (and ugly truths) of the American Revolution. | Lit Hub History 11 novels that create their own shape. | Lit
‘The Furnished Room’ is a short story by the US short-story writer O. Henry, whose real name was William Sydney Porter (1862-1910). His stories are characterised by their irony, their occasional sentimentality, and by their surprise twist endings. All of these things became something of a signature feature, and ‘The Furnished Room’, which is one
May 31, 2022, 12:10pm Focusing on a screen, whether it’s your work screen or your post-work FUN SCREEN(!), can feel like it’s draining the life force right out of you and making it impossible to focus on anything longer than 280 characters (and to be honest, some of those long Tweets are a stretch, too).