Literature

Previously, we picked ten of the best poems about flowers, to create a kind of anthology: the word ‘anthology’ stemming, we might recall, from the Greek for ‘collection of flowers’. Now, it’s the turn of that most emblematic flower: the rose. Roses are a common feature of love poetry, and are often associated with romance

July 8, 2022, 12:16pm Yep, as the guy in your MFA already knows, turns out reading literary fiction is better for you than reading other kinds of fiction—especially if you grew up doing it. In a new paper published this week in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, scholars Nicholas Buttrick, Erin C. Westgate, and

July 7, 2022, 12:21pm If you’ve been on Twitter over the past couple of days, you’ve likely seen a lot of random, cool art. Especially if you’re following Brandon Taylor. The source of it all is DALL•E, an “AI model generating images from any prompt!” …Any prompt you say? Just for fun, I decided to run a

The Battle of Jericho was the first battle fought by the Israelites during the course of their conquest of Canaan. Joshua leads the people of Israel in an attack on the ancient walled city, bringing the colossal walls of Jericho down with the sound of trumpets, according to the Book of Joshua from the Old

July 7, 2022, 12:31pm In June, award-winning indie publisher Graywolf Press announced the retirement of Fiona McCrae, who had served as Director and Publisher of the Minneapolis nonprofit for twenty-eight years. Since then, the rest of the wolves have been on the lookout for a new pack leader, and it now appears that they’ve found

July 6, 2022, 9:38am It is with delight and despair that I draw your attention to the modern-day hermit “discovered” over the weekend in a cave in Sichuan province, China, just hanging out, reading books, and smoking cigarettes. I am delighted, of course, that people are still just dropping out of this garbage-fire of a

Poets often write about fate and how the world around us seems governed by some kind of Providence: we can call it God or destiny or merely a sense that things seem predetermined, whether because of our own unconscious drives or desires or because of a concatenation of circumstances which make certain things – falling

July 6, 2022, 11:02am This week, a new dual English and Sanskrit edition of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote will be presented at the Instituto Cervantes in Delhi, after the original translation languished untouched for almost sixty years in a Harvard University library. The translation had been part of a trove of items given to

July 5, 2022, 12:34pm Fun fact: toward the end of his life, William Faulkner’s favorite television show was an NBC sitcom about two very silly cops, Gunther Toody (Joe E. Ross) and Francis Muldoon (Fred Gwynne AKA Herman Munster), tasked with patrolling the fictional 53rd precinct in the Bronx, despite the cra-a-zy shenanigans that its

‘The Wife’s Story’ is a short story with a twist. Published in 1982, it’s a short tale whose narrator, at the end of the story, turns out to be different from what we have been led to believe. One of Ursula Le Guin’s best-known tales, ‘The Wife’s Story’ is story narrated by a wife, who

July 5, 2022, 1:30pm Unionized workers at HarperCollins have voted by an overwhelming majority to authorize a one-day strike against their employer as contract disputes continue. More 99 percent of the bargaining unit—which belongs to Local 2110 of the UAW and is comprised of more than 250 employees at HarperCollins across multiple departments—voted to authorize

When I first speak with novelist William Brewer, he is wearing a blue-black trucker’s hat that reads Gene’s Beer Garden, Morgantown WV and is insisting that he did not set out to write the Great West Virginia Novel. “I think any attempt to write the Great Anything is a bad idea. It’s a distinctly American

John Keats (1795-1821) is one of the greatest poets in the English language, and one of the most famous Romantic poets. In just a few years prior to his untimely death from tuberculosis, aged just 25, in 1821, Keats wrote some of the most memorable poems about everything from art to autumn to melancholy to

On today’s episode of The Literary Life, special guest Amanda Keeley is joined by Ottessa Moshfegh to discuss her latest novel, Lapvona, out now from Penguin Press. From the episode: Ottessa Moshfegh: Why do I write about such darkness? I guess my first my first thought is … I kind of see myself as part

TODAY: In 1902, the Romanian-language literary review Luceafărul begins publication in Budapest.  What do Jane Austen, Michael Pollan, and Mean Girls have in common? They’re all part of the literary film and TV streaming in July. | Lit Hub Film & TV 19 new paperbacks to stuff (nicely) in your tote bag. | The Hub

July 1, 2022, 9:30am Paperbacks—so lightweight, so convenient, so perfect to accompany you to the beach or wherever you’re off to this summer. Here are a few of those we’ll be toting this month: * Rachel Yoder, Nightbitch(Anchor Books, July 5) “[W]hat makes Nightbitch stand apart from the usual early motherhood stories, teeth and all,

July 1, 2022, 11:22am Salman Rushdie—the former PEN America President and Booker Prize-winning author of Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses, and Joseph Anton—just sold a new novel, and it sounds like a doozy. Billed as a translation of an ancient Indian myth, Victory City—Rushdie’s fifteenth novel, his first since 2019’s Quichotte—is the story of “a

TODAY: In 1971, Canadian poet, memoirist, and novelist Evelyn Lau is born.  “Legislating reproductive rights remains a hallmark of authoritarian and fascist governments.” Siri Hustvedt on the malign philosophies—and bad history—behind the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. | Lit Hub Politics Looking to Beowulf and other myths to understand the origins of early medieval England. | Lit Hub History “This sounds