Literature

The Baillie Gifford Prize is the most prestigious nonfiction literary award in the world. We checked in with some past winners about their year in reading. * Craig Brown, 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize-winner for 150 Glimpses of the Beatles, recommends: Geoff Dyer is the funniest and most original nonfiction writer we have. In The Last

‘Young Goodman Brown’ is an 1835 short story by the American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Inspired in part by the Salem witch craze of 1692, the story contains a number of powerful symbols. But how should we analyse the symbolism of the story? Let’s take a closer look at the most important symbols in ‘Young Goodman

Author and Literary Hub Managing Editor Emily Temple and Lit Hub Associate Editor Katie Yee join hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about Lit Hub’s 38 favorite books of the year as chosen by the staff. The list spans genres from historical to memoir to post-digital post-capitalist manifesto to lesbian Sasquatch novel. Each

The short stories of the American writer Kate Chopin (1850-1904) are important precursors to twentieth-century modernism, and can be viewed as forerunners to the short fiction of Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, and other high modernists. Where other nineteenth-century writers tended to privilege plot over character, and action over introspection, Chopin focused on interiority and the

The union of Catherine’s parents had been a cause for celebration in the castle of Amboise, one of the most prestigious French castles that belonged to Francis I of France; the marriage of Lorenzo and Madeleine represented the alliance between France and the Papal States that Francis had desired for years. On September 7, 1518,

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… All right, it was mostly still the worst of times. Looks like we’re stuck in the dark timeline, guys. Sorry about that. Still, things happened this year, and some of them happened to books, or book people, or book Twitter (RIP?). For the

‘The Bloody Chamber’ is the title story in Angela Carter’s 1979 collection of fairy tales rewritten from a feminist perspective. In the story, the longest in the collection, a young bride recounts her marriage to a Marquis whose previous three wives all died in mysterious circumstances, and the grisly discovery she made in a ‘bloody

In the autumn of fourth grade, when I was ten years old, I swore on the playground. Although I vividly remember what followed, I cannot directly remember what I said. The class was at recess in late morning, it was a gray day, and I am pretty confident I said, “Goddammit.” This is where my

In the early days of pandemic isolation, I found solace in TV. It was entertainment, of course, and perhaps a distraction, but it also became a meaningful source of connection for me. I want to study the craft of that connection, but not just for my writing life. I want to use the strange magic

I spend my winter holidays shopping at favorite indie bookstores, and curling up with books, hot chocolate, and loved ones. Lauren Oster’s terrific Smithsonian article this week about the Jólabókaflóðið—Christmas (Yule) Book Flood—helped me realize I’m not alone in centering my holiday around books. In Iceland, Christmas is synonymous with books. In Jólabókaflóðið, families and

I was just out killing time, sitting at the bar of one of my favorite watering-holes in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin (Population: 14,778). I would gladly share the name of this tavern, but for reasons that will soon become obvious, I won’t, at least not here. Happy Hour had just concluded, and the place was packed

Remember the scene in You’ve Got Mail in which Kathleen Kelly tells Birdie that she’s going to close the shop? Don’t let that happen to your neighborhood treasure! Visit an indie bookstore, and pick up one of these books—for yourself or for a loved one. Big thanks to the booksellers at Sweet Pickle Books (New York,

The following is an excerpt from A Left-Handed Woman: Essays by Judith Thurman, and first appeared in Lit Hub’s The Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. * What does it mean to write like a woman? Ferrante posed that question, partly to herself, thirteen years ago, in an interview with the Italian magazine Io Donna.

‘Mindful’ is a popular poem by Mary Oliver (1935-2019), an American poet who has perhaps not received as much attention from critics as she deserves (and who has been criticised by some of those who have paid her attention). But it’s been estimated that she was the bestselling poet in the United States at the

TODAY: In 1823, the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (more commonly known as “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”) is first published, anonymously, in the Troy Sentinel (NY). Though the poem has long been attributed to Clement C. Moore, controversy remains over the true author.    Also on Lit Hub: Judith Thurman considers the work of

‘The Agony and the Sweat’ is the title sometimes given to one of the most memorable Nobel Prize acceptance speeches: the American novelist William Faulkner’s acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature at Stockholm in 1950. In his speech, Faulkner makes his famous statement about the ‘duty’ of writers: that they should write about ‘the

Noah Baumbach’s crackerjack, whizbang adaptation of Don DeLillo’s White Noise is one of the year’s great surprises. Not because Baumbach isn’t a superb writer and director, but because DeLillo’s 1985 novel, a satire of the “endlessly distorted, religious underside of American consumerism,” is one of the great un-filmable books, a rhetorical playground for the most

Often, at the beginning of the semester, a crow flies through the classroom. This is usually after the introductions—I ask my students what brings them to the poetry workshop I am teaching, then about what they understand as the “poetic”; and, just before the class is about to end that day, a few of them