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Literature
Love Days
After a hasty breakfast, of which she remembered nothing but that she had eaten it, Susanna found herself on the street car bound for college. She had indeed be…
Revisiting an Unsung 100-Year-Old Novel From an Intellectual New York Family
I recently visited a house on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Despite its hospitable interiors, I wasn’t invited inside. I wandered around in the dark, peering thr…
How Feminist Activist Robin Morgan Helped Preserve the Legacy of Sylvia Plath
On the Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend, my best friend Dani, also a writer, wrote to tell me that Robin Morgan, the landmark American feminist activist, o…
Lit Hub Daily: October 2, 2026
Assal Rad examines the parallels between the American media s treatment of the invasion of Iraq and the genocide in Gaza. Lit Hub Politics These five books are …
A Reticent Eloquence: Colm Tóibín on the Poetry of Thom Gunn
In August 1991, in a review of a new anthology of sixteenth-century poetry, Thom Gunn noted two poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt. These were poems that dealt directly …
September’s Best Reviewed Fiction
Marlon James s The Disappearers, Emily St. John Mandel s Exit Party, and Emma Cline s Switzy all feature among the best reviewed fiction titles of the month. Br…
A Prophetic Classic About the Dangers of Tech is Back in Print
Paulina Borsook saw there was something rotten afoot in Silicon Valley in the 1990s, and in her book Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp through the Terribly Libertar…
How Romance Novels Filled in the Gaps Left by Sex Ed
Chewed up gum, unraveled yarn, a flower stripped of its petals. Like so many in my generation, my introduction to sex was in pro-abstinence talks with my church…
Here’s the longlist for the 2026 National Book Award for Translated Literature.
Today, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2026 National Book Award for Translated Literature. These ten titles were selected from a poo…
Rabih Alameddine on Writing Humor In Times of Tumult and Tragedy
Rabih Alameddine, award-winning author of The Wrong End of the Telescope, celebrated the release of his new novel, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and…
Lit Hub Daily: September 4, 2026
Suzanne Roberts offers advice (and prompts!) for writing about sex. Lit Hub Craft How does time actually work? Jim Al-Khalili explores the flow of physics. Lit …
Anita Brookner by Hermione Lee review – an enigmatic literary great given her due
This exhaustive biography of the Booker winner brings her properly out of the shadows for the first time...
Switzy by Emma Cline review – this Booker-listed account of a man’s last days is profoundly moving
Struggling with Alzheimer’s, the central character sets out on his final journey to a euthanasia clinic...
James Joyce’s Baby Impressions and Other “Awkward Pleasures” of Literary Biography
“I believed I had a fair understanding of W. G. Sebald until I read his biography and saw the black-and-white snapshot of him as a young man standing thigh-deep…
The Disappearers by Marlon James review – a scorching exposé of homophobia in Jamaica
This Booker-listed epic set in Aids-era Kingston is a triumph – bitter, bawdy and ravishingly queer...
Lit Hub Daily: August 19, 2026
How environmentalism shows up in Ursula K. Le Guin s fiction. Lit Hub Criticism The vast majority of contemporary literature is not in fact published but submit…
Can Nothing Save Us? by Irvine Welsh review – US family saga is a late-career triumph
The Scottish author focuses on gun culture and generational conflict in this darkly satirical tale about a great power in decline...
From Marquis de Sade to Grand Theft Auto, a Brief History of Depravity
The prisoner’s hand ached. He sat hunched over his desk in a cold tower of the Bastille jail in Paris, writing in tiny letters on a very long roll of paper—near…
The Odyssey and cake are a winning combination | Letter
Letter: Carol Ross is part of a group of women who meet regularly to read the classics. She says the works have cemented friendships and enhanced lives...
What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in July
Max Porter, Daisy Johnson, Avni Doshi and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments...
Rite of Spring by Kris Kneen review – a woman’s sexual awakening lurks in the ocean’s depths
A couple sign up as lighthouse keepers on an isolated island off Tasmania. But Miranda is on the cusp of a transformation – and sex is everywhere...
The ten sickest burns in Emily Wilson’s Odyssey review, ranked.
Emily Wilson, the classicist behind the buzziest Odyssey translation of my generation, has finally weighed in on the film adaptation of her favorite poem. And s…
Fish Bad, Sugar Good… And Other Medieval Ideas About Food
Although medieval ideas about food were very different to our own, its importance was widely recognized. According to Galen, food “is probably the most importan…
Gaining Ground by Joan Barfoot review – Anne Enright celebrates a landmark feminist novel
Half a century on, this tale of a woman who abandons her children in search of her self remains thrillingly original...
Unsayable by Michael Cunningham review – The Hours author on the insecurities that powered his creative life
The American novelist and screenwriter’s memoir covers sex work, Virginia Woolf and Hollywood success...
Air by Christian Kracht review – a metaphysical jigsaw puzzle
A portal opens from our modern world of data centres and interior design into a medieval fantasy realm, in this playfully surreal tale from the author of Eurotr…
Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead review – final part of the Harlem Trilogy is freewheeling fun
The grit and grandeur of 80s New York drive this rollicking story of an underground wheeler-dealer...
Nostos, or Homecoming: Why I Keep Returning to the Odyssey
The first time I read the Odyssey, I was sixteen years old. The fantastical creatures, the alien cultures, and the wily hero’s desperate search for home were al…
The Cell Phone Novel Craze of Early 2000s Japan Did Not, in Fact, Destroy Literature
Once upon a Y2K, technology still felt like it could fulfill some human need: our drive for connection, perhaps, or just external recognition of our internal mo…
Lit Hub Daily: July 13, 2026
How cell phone novels became the iconic genre among young writers on the Y2k internet. Lit Hub Criticism To drink is to enter of a labyrinth of romantic, thrill…