Literature

Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now. In this episode, Andrew talks to Jordan Crandall, the author of Autodrive, about the imminent age of superintelligence in which we will won’t be

This summer’s Official Online Brand may be up in the air (may I suggest “Long Nap Summer”?), but one thing is for sure: there are many, many books coming out. Which one deserves space in your beach bag or air-conditioned brain? We at Literary Hub have our opinions, but perhaps you simply want to make

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Call Me Maybe’ is the best-known song by the Canadian singer-songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen. This 2011 song began life as a folk song, written by Jepsen and Tavish Crowe. It’s about a girl who sees a boy she likes; she gives him her phone number and tells him to

June 6, 2023, 10:31am Not infrequently, in the course of my work here at Literary Hub, I find myself scouring through Adobe Stock Photos, looking for images to use or adapt. Luckily, there are plenty of cool and useful literary stock photos and illustrations in the Adobe library. There are also some deeply deranged ones.

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Tyger’ is one of the best-known poems of the poet and engraver William Blake (1757-1827), but in many ways it is a mysterious, even inscrutable poem which views the tiger with both awe and horror. A number of lines in the poem carry the force of an incantation,

Festival season has officially been kickstarted with the Cannes Film Festival, a glamorous 11-day event held in the South of France where thousands of celebrities, filmmakers, industry members, and cinephiles gather every May to celebrate the most anticipated titles of the year. Among the hundreds of films programmed across several sections, a handful are based

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) The word ‘busy’ is commonly used to describe hectic or frenetic activity: someone who is busy has a great deal to do, perhaps too much. They are actively engaged in something and conducting a great deal of activity. The word is from a Germanic root meaning ‘useful’ or ‘occupied’,

Strictly speaking, it would be inaccurate to describe Shirley Hazzard as neglected. All her work is still very much in print, and few who’ve read any of it would dare deny that they’re encountering a formidable talent. She’s also been awarded a number of impressive accolades: her third novel, The Transit of Venus (1980), won

June 2, 2023, 8:25am U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón has been called up for active duty in the NASA Europa Clipper space mission! Limón wrote a poem (which you can hear her read over at this jump) that will be engraved on the spacecraft journeying to explore the moon Europa in Jupiter’s orbit, one of

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Summer Day’ is a lyric poem by the American poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019), a poet who has perhaps not received as much attention from critics as she deserves. It’s been estimated that she was the bestselling poet in the United States at the time of her death, so

TODAY: In 1968, Valerie Solanas, the author of SCUM Manifesto, attempts to assassinate Andy Warhol. The kids are OK: Kelly McMasters on the ethics of family memoir. | Lit Hub “Shall these horrors await our future generations?” How WWI inspired Black Americans to fight for dignity at home. | Lit Hub History Cat Sebastian on the unexpected power of Mary

June 2, 2023, 11:08am yes I said yes [you] will Yes. 80 days to read the Big One? That’s only 6 to 8 pages a day. Piece of piss. Sure, you could knock those out each morning in less time than it takes stately, plump Buck Mulligan to have a shave, even if you’ve always

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) What has a defunct British publication got to do with the genesis of one of Coldplay’s signature songs? ‘Yellow’ was very much the band’s breakthrough hit in the summer of 2000, and is perhaps the best-crafted song on their debut album, Parachutes. But why ‘Yellow’? What is the meaning

June 2, 2023, 10:54am Working with the Booker Prize Foundation, Dua Lipa recently visited HMP Downview, a women’s prison in Surrey, to get a firsthand glimpse of Books Unlocked, a program set up by the BPF and the National Literacy to foster a culture of reading for incarcerated people. Lipa, who recently launched a book

June 1, 2023, 11:10am I didn’t see it coming, but I’m open to it: E. Jean Carroll announced today in her Substack, post-legal victory over Donald Trump in her civil sexual abuse case, that she is writing a serialized romance novel with Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, on Substack. It will be a bit of an

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) What is a ‘banana republic’, and where does the phrase come from? The origins of this phrase can be found in the work of a popular American writer, although his role in coining this phrase and giving it to the world is not as well-known as it should be.

June 1, 2023, 9:34am As the sun climbs, people are folding their linens into packing cubes and squaring a nice good beach read on top—something to sink into in the glare of the Caribbean sun, or squint at through oversized sunglasses. Get yer sizzling beach reads! yells the internet (us included, needless to say our

May 31, 2023, 11:01am In the past few months, it has become increasingly clear that something is very wrong with book criticism. As the editor of a literary website, I believe that a robust literary discourse can only make the industry stronger and more vital. Unless, of course, the discourse involves things that people don’t