Literature

August 4, 2023, 12:04pm Michael Chabon—the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Wonder Boys, and The Yiddish Policeman’s Union—spent his Covid quarantine taking a trip…through time! Well, not literally, but in an emotional and curatorial sense, the speculative fiction maestro can now be considered a time traveller. Yes, as reported

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Prominent themes in Hughes’ poetry include: nature, especially the struggle for survival that is inherent within nature, as well as myth (he was a devotee of Robert Graves’ 1948 book The White Goddess, which argued for a mythical basis for poetic inspiration,  centred on the triple goddess of maiden-mother-crone)

August 4, 2023, 1:02pm We are in the countdown to the Joyce Carol Oates documentary (September 8, for those playing along at home), and JCO has given the Financial Times, of all people, a neat dose of her thoughts on life, the cosmos, and Xitter. Among the various gems nestled into Madison Garbyshire’s profile, one

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The 60 Minute Zoom’, a 1976 short story by the British author J. G. Ballard (1930-2009), belongs to his middle period, when he was becoming more interested in the psychology of the camera eye and the relationship between sex and videotape (‘lies’ optional). ‘The 60 Minute Zoom’: plot summary

August 3, 2023, 10:00am Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Uche Okonkwo’s debut short story collection A Kind of Madness, which Tin House will publish in April 2024. Here’s a bit more about the book from the publisher: Set in contemporary Nigeria, Uche Okonkwo’s A Kind of Madness is a collection of

August 3, 2023, 10:15am The quote in the above headline is part of the last line of Rainer Maria Rilke’s famous sonnet, “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” as translated by Stephen Mitchell. It’s a haunting line, among the most recognizable second person directives in all of poetry. Each time I read the poem, I find it

August 2, 2023, 12:49pm Hi Barbie! Are you looking for a good book to read? Maybe to take to the Beach? And/or to bring with you when you go to the movies this weekend? I promise, it’s going to be right up your alley. And also pink, for outfit coordination purposes, of course. You’re welcome.

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Of all of the tracks on Taylor Swift’s 2020 album Evermore, ‘Marjorie’ is perhaps the most tenderly personal. The lyrics honour someone very dear to the singer: someone who was a singer herself. But the ‘Marjorie’ of the song’s title also has another important link with Swift. ‘Marjorie’: song

August 2, 2023, 12:52pm James Baldwin is widely considered to be one of the finest writers and public intellectuals this country has ever produced. A brilliant novelist, essayist, and social critic, his explorations of homosexuality, racism, and class struggle in America have had a profound influence on the work of a generation of socially conscious

August 1, 2023, 7:41am Mexican author Guadalupe Nettel has been named as the latest recipient of the prestigious El Grand Balam award, a $150,000 prize awarded in three annual tranches and intended to support mid-career writers. The award, sometimes referred to as the “Borchard Prize,” is bestowed by the Borchard Foundation Center on Literary Arts

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Jabberwocky’ is one of the most beloved poems in the English language, perhaps not least because it does such interesting things with that language. A masterpiece of nonsense verse, ‘Jabberwocky’ actually addresses some very real issues and reflects some serious and important themes. Let’s take a closer look at

August 1, 2023, 10:43am The freshly announced “Booker’s dozen” of titles longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize is making its way around the literary internet, so let’s see what the morning tides have brought in. There are four debut novelists on the list, and Irish writers nabbed a record four out of the 13 nominations

July 31, 2023, 11:50am There’s no escape hatch from the current climate-deranged heat dome we live in quite like a goooooood fantasy novel or historical romp through the killing fields, a new ThriftBooks and OnePoll survey of 2,000 Americans has found. ThriftBooks asked respondents about how reading can change their mood, and about the types

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Here’s a quiz question for you. Who was the first high-profile writer to use the phrase ‘mad as a hatter’? How about we narrow it down a little more, and ask: which high-profile Victorian writer first used the phrase ‘mad as a hatter’? And let’s make it a little

July 31, 2023, 12:32pm Today marks the 79th anniversary of the disappearance of French writer, journalist, and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. On July 31, 1944, Saint-Exupéry took off in an unarmed P-38 on his ninth reconnaissance mission for the Free French Air Force from an airbase on Corsica, and never returned. His most famous work, The Little Prince,

TODAY: In 1848, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft elope to France.    “A small, vengeful man.” Masha Gessen chronicles how Vladimir Putin began his iron-fisted reign in Russia. | Lit Hub Politics A friendship for the ages: On the relationship between Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, two believers in American exceptionalism. | Lit

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) When is it a good idea to be nobody? There are some situations where it certainly pays to be Nobody, or rather, to claim to be ‘No One’. And one of the most famous episodes involving wily Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known to the Romans) bears this

July 28, 2023, 6:30am It’s just about the end of July, and that means many things: that you still have time for those vaunted summer fun or vacation plans, if you haven’t done them yet; that the cooler (and perhaps welcome after all these heatwaves) weather of fall is approaching; that that my birthday month