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Lit Hub Weekly: May 18 – 22, 2026

“I never imagined reading books and turning them into movies was a job.” It is, and if you can read a book every two days (and write a book report about it), it could be yours… | Lit Hub Film

Lit Hub Daily·May 23, 2026

Literary Hub

Reconsidering Mary McCarthy’s Iconic Friendship Novel The Group

Just after my novel, Talking to the Wolf, was accepted for publication, I picked up Mary McCarthy’s novel, The Group for the first time. In my own novel, a friend breakup and untimely death changes everything for four women. These

Rebecca Chace·May 22, 2026

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On Homecoming (and Leaving), Jakarta to New York

Scenario 1 I land in Jakarta just in time for Chinese New Year. I can smell the cigarette smoke and rain before the plane even touches the tarmac; my body retrieves memories faster than my mind can process them. I

May Teng·May 22, 2026

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Manil Suri on Visualizing Your Book’s Narrative Structure

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. Here’s a nifty tool I’ve devised which authors might want to try out for themselves. It’s free, easy to use, and reveals the underlying narrative structure of a book, much

Manil Suri·May 22, 2026

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“I Hope to Die Laughing.” On Tom Drury’s The End of Vandalism

Roughly a decade ago, shortly after I moved from Seattle to a nearby suburb, I slid into a bipolar mixed episode for a period of a month or so before it descended into straight depression. During mixed episodes, a person

Ross McMeekin·May 22, 2026

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What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

Ali Smith’s Glyph, Ayelet Waldman’s A Perfect Hand, and Emily LaBarge’s Dog Days all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s home for book reviews. * Fiction 1. Glyph by Ali

Book Marks·May 22, 2026

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Villains Are Just More Interesting Than Heroes (and More F*ckable, If We’re Being Frank)

The first character I ever became obsessed with was Captain Hook. I couldn’t have been more than three or four, though I was already weird; I saw the 1953 Disney version of Peter Pan and immediately fell in love in

Natalie Zina Walschots·May 22, 2026

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Is Alien Life Hiding in Plain Sight, Right Here in Our Solar System?

The grandeur of Saturn is stunning to behold when viewed through a telescope. Possibly the most iconic and easily identifiable member of our solar system, this “ringed planet” has a volume equivalent to 760 Earths and such astonishingly low density

Sarah Alam Malik·May 22, 2026

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Does Xi Jinping Really Think China is Athens and the US is Sparta? And is Trump Getting Any of This?

At his recent meeting with the US President Donald Trump, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping asked: “Can China and the United States transcend the so-called ‘Thucydides Trap’ and forge a new paradigm for major-power relations?” While it might come as

Andrew Bayliss·May 22, 2026

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Lit Hub Daily: May 22, 2026

Everyone is an AI cop now, even if they don’t know it: a past Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner weighs in on the recent scandal. | Lit Hub Criticism Does Xi Jinping really think China is Athens and the US

Lit Hub Daily·May 22, 2026

Literary Hub

Everyone is an AI Cop Now: What Happens When an AI-Generated Story Wins a Prestigious Prize

In the early hours of Sunday, May 17th 2026, I stumbled on a tweet by Nigerian literary critic and essayist, Chimezie Chike, accusing Jamir Nazir, the newly minted 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Winner (Caribbean Region), of winning the coveted

Innocent Chizaram Ilo·May 22, 2026

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The Burning Side

June 10, 2022 The night their house goes up in flames, April stumbles out the front door with her baby in one arm and a book in the other. Otto points his little finger over her shoulder at the house,

Lit Hub Excerpts·May 22, 2026

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Lit Hub Daily: May 21, 2026

Katherine Packert Burke considers eight different attempts at explaining the purpose of trans literature. | Lit Hub Criticism Why you shouldn’t feel guilty about the books you haven’t read. | Lit Hub Craft On the new podcast Passages: On Morrison

Lit Hub Daily·May 21, 2026

Literary Hub

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Nonfiction

Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for nonfiction, based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide, generously provided by the American Booksellers Association. Compiled, designed, and distributed by The Independent Publishers Caucus. * 1. The Gales

Literary Hub·May 21, 2026

Literary Hub

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Fiction

Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for fiction, based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide, generously provided by the American Booksellers Association. Compiled, designed, and distributed by The Independent Publishers Caucus. * 1. The Calamity

Literary Hub·May 21, 2026

Literary Hub

5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week

Our favorite criticism of the week includes Anand Giridharadas on Theo Baker’s How to Rule the World, Hamilton Cain on Ali Smith’s Glyph, Thomas Mallon on Lois Romano’s An Inconvenient Widow, Kate Preziosi on Paige Lewis’s Canon, and Alex Tan on

Book Marks·May 21, 2026

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My Writing Group Forgot My Birthday: Are They the Assholes?

Howdy! We meet again! Welcome back to the most exciting corner of the internet. That’s right, it’s once again time for Am I the Literary Asshole?, an advice column about drama that sometimes boils down to a misused comma and

Kristen Arnett·May 21, 2026

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How Donald Trump and His Allies Seek to Remake American Schools in Their Own Image

Trump announced the 1776 Commission in 2020 to promote “patriotic education,” identifying critical race theory as “a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire

Alison Kinney·May 21, 2026

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An Exile’s Guide to Losing a Country

Nation of Strangers is the conclusion of a decade-long odyssey. My ten-year saga began in 2016 when I wrote a book called Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy. Before the book, I’d enjoyed a successful career in my native Turkey

Ece Temelkuran·May 21, 2026

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It’s All Just Torture Porn: A Record of Failed Attempts to Explain What Trans Lit is “For”

First Attempt I stumbled across a delightful 4chan post a few weeks ago. It read: “basically every trans book I’ve read felt like the author shaking me by the shoulders going ‘DON’T DO IT ITS NOT WORTH IT MY LIFE

Katherine Packert Burke·May 21, 2026

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What Happens When Billionaires Control the Media?

While living in a lavish hilltop castle on the California coast, a wildly rich media mogul recruits charismatic foreign dictators as columnists, criticizes one of his own reporters for being too anti-Nazi, and tries to interest America’s president in a

Nick Romeo·May 21, 2026

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Why We Shouldn’t Feel Guilty For Not Being Extremely Well Read

David Lodge, in his 1975 campus novel Changing Places, imagines a cocktail party game that makes fiendish use of imposter syndrome. Visiting professor Phillip Swallow introduces the faculty of fictional Euphoric State University to “Humiliation,” a game whereby every participant

Ed Simon·May 21, 2026

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Namwali Serpell and Tracy K. Smith Discuss Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

Namwali Serpell kicks off the tour for her new book On Morrison at the First Parish Church in Cambridge, MA, in conversation with poet Tracy K. Smith. Together, they read the opening of The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison’s debut novel, and discuss

Passages: On Morrison·May 21, 2026

Literary Hub

CEO James Daunt says Barnes & Noble will stock AI-generated books.

The joke around the proverbial water cooler goes that this is apparently the week all the bigwigs in lit world got together and decided to embrace their own destruction. [Insert sad trombone sound.] James Daunt, the CEO of Barnes &

Brittany Allen·May 20, 2026

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Why Everyone is Talking About Salome These Days

The couple at the table next to me at the restaurant in rural Tuscany were fighting over their dinner. Arms flew around in exasperation, and the woman left the table for such a long time that the large dog lying

Leslie Baird·May 20, 2026

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Lit Hub Daily: May 20, 2026

Everyone’s talking about Salome right now, and Leslie Baird has some answers about why. | Lit Hub Politics How the critical approaches outlined in George Saunders’s A Swim in a Pond in the Rain can apply to audio narratives, too. |

Lit Hub Daily·May 20, 2026

Literary Hub

Magician

In the realm of carnivals, theirs was a small one. While other carnivals boasted thrill rides, bounties of festive food and a multitude of games with fantastic prizes beneath multicolored tents, theirs had only a handful of these things, rides

Lit Hub Excerpts·May 20, 2026

Literary Hub

How George Saunders’s Analysis of Russian Masters Provides a Critical Language for Audio Narratives

In 2022, George Saunders published A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, a book that shared his technique and structure for critical reading and analysis of critical works by a quartet of Russian masters, offering a guide not only to would-be novelists and

Sarah Montague·May 20, 2026

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A Pawnshop of the Mind: In Praise of Object-Based Writing

“What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” –TS Eliot, from “A Little Gidding” from The Four Quartets * Franca owned a

Emily Rapp Black·May 20, 2026

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Why, As Writers, Do We Cut the Things We Love?

Here are a few details from past drafts of my latest novel that ended up on the cutting room floor: the family babies, a brother-and-sister duo marooned from their older siblings by an age gap, branch off from their folks,

Kayla Rae Whitaker·May 20, 2026