Literature

TODAY: In 1892, J.R.R. Tolkien is born.   • Whatever else it may hold, 2024 is going to be a great year for books. Here are 230 we’re particularly excited about. | Lit Hub • “I am not crazy. I do not actually think Margaret Cavendish talked to me in my dreams.” Francesca Peacock on

It seems impossible that 2024 could outdo what was truly a spectacular year of SFF and speculative offerings. But considering how difficult it was to narrow down this preview, you and I are in for a treat this year. We’ve got alternate-history utopian nations and near-future dystopian surveillance states, sexy wedding duels and interstellar artifact

TODAY: In 1956, American cartoonist Lynda Barry is born. (Photo by Guillaume Paumier.) • Here are 24 sci-fi and fantasy titles to watch out for in 2024 (are we in the future yet?). | Lit Hub • New year, new writing goals: Angela Brown on why there’s always time to follow your bookish dreams. |

Nasser Rabah was born in Gaza in 1963 and continues to live there. Like almost everyone in Gaza during the Israeli assault, he has been displaced and communication has been sporadic. Despite this, a poem of his appeared in Amman, several weeks ago, written and sent on the three percent of battery power left on

Dear Lit Hub Reader, We need your help. For the past decade, Literary Hub has brought you the best of the book world for free—no paywall. Now, as one of the last independent book-focused publications on the internet, we want to cover an even larger part of that world. Because of you, Lit Hub has

It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times, but at least the reading was good. Here are the Literary Hub staffers on the best books—both new and old, because why limit ourselves? Time is a flat circle, etc. etc.—that we read in 2023: Andrew Leland, The Country of the Blind: A

“With the kids jingle bellingAnd everyone telling you be of good cheer…”* Welcome, fellow haters, to another bilious edition of the Most Scathing Book Reviews of the Year. As longtime readers of this annual feature will know, each year in the run up to the holidays, we (the normally benevolent stewards of BookMarks.reviews) make a

TODAY: In 1947, Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire opens at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway in New York, starring Jessica Tandy and Marlon Brando in his first major stage role.   “Protecting students from books containing sexual acts does not protect them from performing sexual acts.” Jane Smiley talks to an Iowa high

December 22, 2023, 9:01am 2o24 is approaching! It’s hard to believe that 2023 is over, but a new year means new possibilities (always), new resolutions (maybe), and new books (once again, always). But it also means a new chance to pick up some excellent reads from 2023 that you might have missed when they first

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. I hate when I hear a writer talking about “finding their voice.” I’m sure they mean well, but for my money, confining yourself out of the gate beneath the idea that there’s a certain way you’ll need to learn to talk—much less to think, or to

December 21, 2023, 2:23pm One of my dreams is for my books and my writings to travel the world, for my pen to have wings so that no unstamped passport or visa rejection can hold it back.  Another dream of mine is to have a small family, to have a little son who looks like

TODAY: In 1892, Dame Rebecca West is born. (Photo by Madame Yévonde.)    Drumroll, please: It’s the Biggest Literary Stories of 2023. | Lit Hub For winter solstice, the authors of Spectral Evidence: The Witch Book discuss the contemporary echoes of centuries-old fears. | Lit Hub History What Sabrina Orah Mark is reading now and

The end of the year is approaching, the universe is expanding, and the internet is updating—right now, it is mostly updating its Best Of lists. Therefore, per Literary Hub tradition, I will now present to you the Ultimate List, otherwise known as the List of Lists—in which I read all the Best Of lists and

December 20, 2023, 9:27am At 5:30PM yesterday evening, New York City media workers began gathering on the steps of the New York Public Library at Bryant Park to honor the lives and work of the Palestinian journalists killed by Israel since October 7. Representatives from the News Guild, the National Writers Union, and Writers Against

And yet again, we’ve reached the end of a long, bad year. For the sake of posterity, and probably because we’re masochists, here’s the second installment of the 50 biggest literary stories of 2023, so you can remember the good, the bad, and all the literary cool girls we met along the way. Have fun: 30.The

December 19, 2023, 9:52am I’m sorry, but George Santos isn’t going away. In the grand tradition of American chicanery-cum-celebrity, the ousted congressman from Long Island has tapped into this country’s mass cultural id and will be residing there for the foreseeable future (much to the delight of Bowen Yang). Anyway, in the spirit of pandering

December 18, 2023, 11:37am A group of writers, artists, educators, and cultural organizations from around the world are calling for weekly sunrise-to-sunset fasts starting on Thursday, December 21 until a permanent ceasefire is called in Gaza. Inspired by the poem “Think of Others” by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, the Fast for Gaza campaign was initially

The literary world may have a complicated relationship to popularity—see every literary novelist’s love/hate (and almost always unrequited) relationship with the bestseller list—but the internet does not. Simply: it’s good to be read, and so we thank you, our readers, for consuming, commenting on, and sharing pieces from Literary Hub this year. Revisit the biggest