Literary Hub3 min readPolitical Ideologies
The Fight for Conservatism Today
The coronavirus pandemic is dramatically disrupting not only our daily lives but society itself. This show features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the deeper economic, political, and technological consequenc
Literary Hub9 min read
On Bourbon, Books, and Writing Your Way Out of Small-Town America
For years I drove back and forth between Mississippi and Kentucky to spend time with the bourbon guru Julian Van Winkle III, sometimes for a day or two, sometimes just for a dinner. We talked about our families and about my business and his business
Literary Hub6 min read
The Bounce Song That Launched a Thousand Bounce Songs
The last semester of eighth grade, right before my thirteenth birthday, my life changed for two reasons. One, the first Bounce song came out. And two? Well, we’ll get to that. Dances were the only part of school I took any pleasure in. It was January
Literary Hub1 min read
WATCH: Reyna Grande in Conversation with John Freeman
Click below to watch the virtual meeting of the Alta California Book Club, which Books Editor of Alta Journal David Ulin describes as: an opportunity for us to rethink the book club as a kind of ongoing process involving events, involving posts and i
Literary Hub13 min readPsychology
On Struggling With Drug Addiction And The System Of Incarceration
There is a lie, thin as paper, folded between every layer of the criminal justice system, that says you deserve whatever happens to you in the system, because you belong there. Every human at the helm of every station needs to believe it—judge, attor
Literary Hub8 min read
How KISS Became a Rock & Roll Phenomenon
Beginning in August 1974, KISS recorded two albums in quick succession. Hotter Than Hell, made in L.A., where producers Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise had moved, was a difficult birth for a number of reasons. First, the band’s stockpile of songs had ru
Literary Hub4 min readCrime & Violence
What Jeffrey Sterling Wants Americans to Understand About Whistleblowers
Hosted by Paul Holdengräber, The Quarantine Tapes chronicles shifting paradigms in the age of social distancing. Each day, Paul calls a guest for a brief discussion about how they are experiencing the global pandemic. On Episode 138 of The Quarantine
Literary Hub2 min read
Edith Vonnegut On The Love Letters Of Kurt And Jane Vonnegut
On July 2, 1945, on the way from France back to Camp Atterbury, Indiana, Kurt stopped in Washington, D.C., to see Jane and convince her to break it off with her other suitors. They continued on to Indianapolis together, as Jane wanted to see her moth
Literary Hub25 min read
A New Story By Rachel Kushner: “The Mayor of Leipzig”
Cologne is where cologne comes from. Did you know that? I didn’t. This story begins there, despite its title. I had flown to Cologne from New York, in order to meet with my German gallerist—Birgit whose last name I can’t pronounce (and is also the na
Literary Hub8 min read
The Best Reviewed Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror of 2020
Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, N. K. Jemisin’s The City We Became, Karen Russell’s Sleep Donation, and Stephen King’s If It Bleeds all feature among the best reviewed Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror books of 2020. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s “Rot
Literary Hub3 min read
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o on the Time He Met Langston Hughes (and More)
Hosted by Paul Holdengräber, The Quarantine Tapes chronicles shifting paradigms in the age of social distancing. Each day, Paul calls a guest for a brief discussion about how they are experiencing the global pandemic. Paul Holdengräber is joined by w
Literary Hub3 min read
Does the Simon & Schuster Acquisition Signal an Antitrust Crisis in Publishing?
The coronavirus pandemic is dramatically disrupting not only our daily lives but society itself. This show features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the deeper economic, political, and technological consequenc
Literary Hub10 min read
Finding An Unlikely Literary Figure on Tinder: Kurt Vonnegut
“Yes!” I squeal. “Exactly! Bukowski. That’s good.” We are milling under a weak spring sun outside a breakfast diner, postfeast. I’ve been enthralling Luca by telling her something weird about Tinder. All married friends like a good Tinder story. They
Literary Hub4 min read
On Catholicism and Doomscrolling in Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter
Welcome to Lit Century: 100 Years, 100 Books. Combining literary analysis with an in-depth look at historical context, hosts Sandra Newman and Catherine Nichols choose one book for each year of the 20th century, and—along with special guests—will tak
Literary Hub7 min read
On the Particular Thrill of Visiting a Dead Writer’s House
It is always curious to see how other people live, their very particular paraphernalia. Who hasn’t, upstairs in someone else’s house, looking for the bathroom, nudged open a second door? So imagine being able to do this at your favorite author’s hous
Literary Hub13 min read
Real Talk: On Claudia Rankine’s Painful Conversations with Whiteness
Three quarters of the way through Just Us: An American Conversation, Claudia Rankine considers three different understandings of the word “conversation.” The first, from a Latinx artist (unnamed) discussing her reluctance to play oppression Olympics
Literary Hub5 min read
Obeying the Undeniable Call of Iceland
My first venture abroad was Iceland. It was 1975 and I was nineteen. My memory of the trip is dominated by weather. The sky, the wind, and the light all made a strong impression. Weather simply hadn’t occurred to me before then. In 1978 I received a
Literary Hub4 min read
Poet Sister Artist Comrade: In Celebration of Thulani Davis
Thulani Davis has been my poet sister artist comrade for nearly 50 years. We met in San Francisco one night in either 1971 or 1972—young poets with flash and sass, opinionated and full of ourselves. We were reading at the Western Addition Cultural Ce
Literary Hub6 min read
Lit Hub Asks: 5 Authors, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers
The Lit Hub Author Questionnaire is a monthly interview featuring seven questions for five authors. This month we talk to one author with a new book and four we missed the first time around in 2020: * Andrew DuBois (Start to Figure: Fugitive Essays,
Literary Hub3 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
How Can Machines Learn Human Values?
The coronavirus pandemic is dramatically disrupting not only our daily lives but society itself. This show features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the deeper economic, political, and technological consequenc
Literary Hub35 min read
On James Dickey and the Truths That Matter
Here he is, 26, forever young, team leader of Flight C in the 549th Night Fighter Squadron of the VII Fighter Command of the Seventh Air Force, on Iwo Jima, in either the spring or summer of 1945, half turned, gazing straight at whomever is documenti
Literary Hub14 min read
Your Week in Virtual Book Events, Dec. 7th to Dec. 13th
Zong! Global Monday, December 7th – Wednesday, December 9th M. NourbeSe Philip continues the first online global iteration of the annual durational reading of Zong!, her acclaimed book-length poem from November 30th, 2020 to December 9th, 2020. The 1
Literary Hub3 min readPersonal Growth
Tina Turner on the Lessons We Learn Overcoming Adversity
Musical icon Tina Turner’s Happiness Becomes You, billed as a guide to “changing your life for good,” is available now. * Lit Hub: Are there any specific lessons from your spiritual practice that you’ve drawn on in this year of unusual adversity? Tin
Literary Hub8 min read
On Cairns, Hoodoos, and Monoliths: What Happens in the Desert Shouldn’t Always Stay in the Desert
You cannot walk straight through the Utah desert. “Start across the country in southeastern Utah almost anywhere and you are confronted by a chasm too steep and too deep to climb down through, and just too wide to jump,” Wallace Stegner wrote in Morm
Literary Hub5 min read
Doreen St. Félix on June Jordan’s Vision of a Black Future
An aerial blueprint of an alternative future disoriented readers of the gentlemen’s magazine Esquire in April 1965. Three rivers—Harlem, Hudson, and East—carve this divergent Harlem as they carve the known Harlem, producing its shape, that maligned a
Literary Hub4 min read
Why I Bought a Bookstore at 29
My local bookstore is long, narrow, and outlined in wooden bookshelves. It’s wedged in an old Victorian building that sits across from the Salish Sea, where orcas, seals, and otters are frequently sighted. It smells like paper and salt water, and hol
Literary Hub7 min read
The Best Reviewed Memoirs and Biographies of 2020
Natasha Trethewey’s Memorial Drive, Barack Obama’s A Promised Land, Helen Macdonald’s Vesper Flights, Craig Brown’s 150 Glimpses of the Beatles, and Heather Clark’s Red Comet all feature among the best reviewed memoirs and biographies of 2020. Brough
Literary Hub4 min read
Lauren Martin on Realizing Writing Advice Applies to Life, Too
I do believe . . . that everything you need to know about life can be learned from a genuine and ongoing attempt to write. –Dani Shapiro, Still Writing * To study this mood, I didn’t need to seek out experiences that made me anxious. I didn’t need to
Literary Hub12 min read
On Translating the Little Known Italian Novel That Anticipated the Anthropocene
The planet is tentatively coming back to life, now that mankind has suddenly vanished. Mountain goats romp on abandoned railroad tracks; birds don’t just sing, they’re making an unholy racket. Two owls hoot out a tender duet all night long. “Their in
Literary Hub8 min read
Aubrey Gordon on Dealing With Aggressive Fatphobia
I am walking home from work when I catch a stranger’s eye. She stares openly, slack jawed, looking my body up and down, over and over again. “Excuse me,” she shouts. “Are you big enough yet?” I keep my head down, eyes fixed on the pavement, walking s
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