Literature

THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 1886, Emily Dickinson dies at age 55, with fewer than a dozen of her 1,800 poems published.  Lucy Ives offers prompts to help you write something you can’t measure. | Lit Hub Craft Cassidy Gard explains why she can’t just take it easy: “I think for a

This spring marks five years of escalating attacks on books and libraries in America. Throughout 2026, organizations across the spectrum will be marking this anniversary, both to emphasize how long and complex this battle has been and to champion and celebrate the work being done to protect equitable access to books and libraries. Let’s begin,

Today in a ceremony at Swansea, Decatur-based American poet Sasha Debevec-McKenney was announced as the winner of this year’s £20,000 Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, which celebrates literary talent in writers under 40, for her debut collection Joy is My Middle Name. Debevec-McKenney was “unanimously” selected by this year’s judging panel, which consists of Irenosen

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Penguin Random House’s First Quarter Was Strong Can you guess the books that drove sales the most? Internationally, For the Fans! (KPop Demon Hunters) by Angela Song sold 1.6 million copies in the U.S., U.K.,

THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 2006, poet Stanley Kunitz dies.  On Anthony the Turk and Grietje, the 17th century couple deserving of reality TV treatment. | Lit Hub History Robert K. Brigham remembers searching for his dad, both abroad and right in front of him. | Lit Hub Memoir Stine An’s TBR

I’m beginning to think there’s a Bad Take Troll out there somewhere with regular reminders in his calendar to start desmadre, and one of his favorite pots to stir is the one about audiobooks counting as reading. Why he decided to send the psychologist from Law & Order SVU as his messenger this time around

The Windham-Campbell Prize Winner on Works by Frances A. Yates, Vladimir Nabokov, Donald Westlake, and More Memory is my most important tool as a writer. I’m fascinated by how memory works, how it is organized, all the methods that have been developed to increase it and explore it and to summon images from the depths

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. The One Episode of Season 3 of Good Omens Is Here, and I Want to Know Why I mean, I know why. It’s because of money, but I still want to know why. I say

THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 1915, Edith Wharton writes in her diary about witnessing World War I in France.  “Primo Levi didn’t know why he deserved to survive: why him, rather than someone else?” On Primo Levi’s translation of Kafka after Auschwitz. | Lit Hub Criticism Lucy Sante recommends books about memory

Historical fiction is a site of postmodernism. In whatever historical period a book takes place, we all bring associations and images to that time period. The recent past is obviously easier to conjure and reference with the visual support of film and photography. The 1970s were an especially important time in cultural history in the

To begin In preparation for these lectures, I made a list of projects, drawings, films, installations and performances I could use as the spine of these talks—each lecture having a project, to be used both as a reference to what I was talking about, and also as raw material with which to think. Thinking in

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. We’re Getting a FOURTH WING Series Through Amazon Prime And Oscar Winner Michael B. Jordan is producing it! He’s joined by executive producer Lisa Joy (Westworld), executive producer/showrunner Meredith Averill (Wednesday), and Rebecca Yarros herself.

THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 1828, poet, painter, and translator Dante Gabriel Rossetti is born.  “The waxing and waning fortunes of languages are inevitably historical and political questions, and these questions are likewise delirium-inducing if we sit with them honestly.” The benefits of being a polyglot (as a fiction writer). | Lit

Beloved Disciples by Mario Elías (Queer Guy Fiction) This Is Why I Need You by Alecsandra Kakon (Sapphic Fiction) Love Beyond Reasonable Doubt by Swati Hegde (Bisexual M/F Romance) It’s Never Going to Happen by Sarah G. Levine (F/F Romance) Vile Lady Villains by Danai Christopoulou (F/F Fantasy) The Lost Book of Lancelot by John

Why the 2000s are dominating books, music, and movies today. On a recent episode of Anne-Helen Peterson’s Culture Study podcast, the author Xochitl Gonzalez waxed nostalgic for the end of the Bush years. Working in New York at the time, the author of Last Night in Brooklyn recalled edgy fun in public parks, livable working conditions

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. A Reader Broke Up With Her Boyfriend Because of Sarah J. Maas’s ACOTAR If reading that headline makes you grimace a bit, let me flesh it out. In a TikTok video, 27-year-old Kaeli Dance describes

THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET TODAY: In 1926, C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien meet for the first time.  Lilian Pizzichini searches for the Elsa Schiaparelli dress from Muriel Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means. | Lit Hub Art “In other words, this high drama of winners and losers follows a very, very

Task #10 of the 2026 Read Harder Challenge is “Read a book recently adapted for film, TV, or musical,” and it’s one of the easiest on the list: we’re in a golden age of adaptations. Books are getting optioned left and right for TV or film, and some of the most popular movies and TV