Literature & Essays

Fiction, criticism, literary journalism

Australian poetry classics: Kenneth Slessor’s Five Bells gives Sydney Harbour back its darkness

Five Bells is an elegy for Kenneth Slessor’s friend Joe Lynch, an artist who drowned in Sydney Harbour in 1927 after falling from a ferry.

Bronwyn Lea, Professor in Australian Literature and Writing, The University of QueenslandAug 5, 2026

Literary Hub

Awake Awake

All is recollection save for the slender membrane of now. Every present thought, every present feeling, collides with a league of their familial ghosts. And if our lives in this moment seem flimsy, that is because they are. We dwell

Lit Hub ExcerptsAug 5, 2026

Literary Hub

Rumpelstiltskin is My Unlikely Writing Companion

A few years ago, scrolling through social media when I should have been writing, I came across a photo of the Lady Bird edition of Rumpelstiltskin. Struggling to remember the specifics of the story, I googled it. There, in the

Louise NealonAug 5, 2026

Literary Hub

Beneath the Wallpaper: On Art, Photography and Hidden Everyday Violence

From the linen a squall rises and the bones of Norman horses line the channel. The storm, like the needle, has a round and guiding eye. WILLIAM’s fleet lands at England’s southern shore, short a couple ships. Here the Normans

Sarah MinorAug 5, 2026

Literary Hub

Generational Storytelling: Writing For My Grandmother and My Daughter

When my Icelandic grandmother, my amma, was in her early eighties, my mom took her to the doctor for a check-up. By then, Amma was hard of hearing and had Alzheimer’s. She didn’t catch what the doctor said. “He says

Margrét Ann ThorsAug 5, 2026

Literary Hub

How Harlem and Jamaica Inspired the Music of Harry Belafonte

The cultivation of sweet-tasting foodstuffs has shaped Caribbean history for five hundred years. And in the late 1800s, after slavery’s end in the British islands, sugar was joined by another cash crop for which a market was fast emerging up

Joshua Jelly-SchapiroAug 5, 2026

Literary Hub

10 Great Nonfiction Titles to Read This August

From the hard, hard courts of professional tennis to the mean screens of social media to the life and times of an iconic indie rock songwriter, this month has something for everyone. * Matthew Futterman, The Cruelest Game Even the

Literary HubAug 5, 2026

Literary Hub

On the Poetics of Canine Narration

They tread a landscape existentially threatened by human wreckage yet are drawn to their fellow species, intriguing and strangely self-destructive. They decipher human scents, collaborate with people to survive, protectively sleep at their bedside and sometimes attack. But above all,

Erik GleibermannAug 5, 2026

Literary Hub

Lit Hub Daily: August 5, 2026

Maybe you just need a writing date with Rumpelstiltskin. | Lit Hub Craft On Etna, The Call of the Wild, and the enduring appear of the canine narrator. | Lit Hub Criticism Here are ten great nonfiction titles to read

Lit Hub DailyAug 5, 2026

The Conversation

Provocation, ruin and empire: your guide to the 2026 Miles Franklin shortlist

These Miles Franklin shortlisted novels offer six very different answers to the question: what can Australian fiction be – and do?

Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of SydneyAug 4, 2026

Public Books

“Melodrama with a Modern Sensibility”: A Conversation with Megan Cummins

How do the families and friends of those struggling with addiction perceive that addiction, cope with it, and try (or fail) to love that person anyway? The post “Melodrama with a Modern Sensibility”: A Conversation with Megan Cummins appeared first on Public Books.

Megan CumminsAug 4, 2026

The Paris Review

Last Days at the Aqueduct: New York’s Rundown Racetrack

“Everyone in a hat—we called them fedoras back then. You probably never heard of a fedora.”

Max CallimanopulosAug 4, 2026

Africa Is a Country

The price of potential

Joseph O’Neill’s new novel follows a Pittsburgh writer chasing a West African wonderkid. It’s also a story about who profits every time the world goes looking for the next Eusébio.

Matthew KirwinAug 4, 2026

The Dial

Seven Literary Sins — The Dial

Bad habits and secret pleasures.

13 min read

The Conversation

Ted Lasso returns: why its story of kindness owes so much to ‘orphan girl’ fiction

Using orphan girl novels to study Ted Lasso brings certain themes into sharper focus – particularly its concern with fatherhood.

Joe Sutliff Sanders, Associate Professor in Children's Literature in Education, University of CambridgeAug 4, 2026

Literary Hub

Tracy Borman Recommends Books To Make You Fall In Love With the Tudors

It’s been a joy imagining the world of Anne Boleyn and her family for my new novel, The House of Boleyn. I loved immersing myself in their beautiful home, Hever Castle—the place where they retreated to plot their next move, celebrate

Tracy BormanAug 4, 2026

Literary Hub

Complicating the Marriage Plot: A Reading List

For the past six years, I’ve been working on a project that I describe to strangers and casual acquaintances as “a book about flowers,” and to friends and family as “a book about flowers and my not-marriage.” Though the book’s

Alysia Li Ying SawchynAug 4, 2026

Literary Hub

The City With a Stroller: Why Babies (and Mothers) Are the Best Flâneurs

In Edgar Allan Poe’s 1840 short story “The Man of the Crowd,” an unnamed narrator sits in a café and watches a busy street. He notes small details about the people passing by, and he categorizes them. The men are

Emily McBrideAug 4, 2026

Literary Hub

The Student Activists Campaigning For Public Education in Chile

On a crisp March day in 2013, the beginning of the antipodal fall, Sofía Brito walked through a wrought iron fence, up a short ﬂight of stairs, and between the slender salmon columns leading into the University of Chile’s Law

Meaghan BeatleyAug 4, 2026

Literary Hub

Lit Hub Daily: August 4, 2026

Why mothers with babies are the ultimate flâneurs, even if “there aren’t a lot of mother-flâneurs in literature.” | Lit Hub Craft Tracy Borman recommends books by C.J. Sansom, Hilary Mantel, Stephen Alford and more to shape your Tudor obsession. |

Oliver ScialdoneAug 4, 2026

Literary Hub

Orna Guralnik on LIstening for the Unconscious

Welcome to Season Four of The Critic and Her Publics: The Art of the Interview. This season, host Merve Emre talks with professional interviewers of all kinds about how they get the answer they’re looking for, what makes a good

The Critic and Her PublicsAug 4, 2026

Literary Hub

Paul Yoon, Meaghan Beatley, Claudia Rankine, and more: 22 new books out today!

The first week of August brings a windfall of heavyweight literature: a novel by Paul Yoon, a searing nonfiction book of essays by Meaghan Beatley, and a much anticipated work by Claudia Rankine. This is just the beginning: read on

Julia HassAug 4, 2026

Literary Hub

Etna

Look! See the dogs . . . * I was born near water. I was born on a farm where many other dogs and other animals were born and cared for and lived. I would never learn what the farm

Lit Hub ExcerptsAug 4, 2026

The Paris Review

My Year of Tests and Arbitration

“Let me be clear: I don’t ever want to see this story again.”

Tarpley HittAug 3, 2026