Literature & Essays

Fiction, criticism, literary journalism

“Narrow Escape,” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Fiction by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in English for the first time: The police lieutenant appeared to be writing down exactly what Gleb was telling him, but relying upon completely different words.

Aleksandr SolzhenitsynSep 27, 202614 min read

Literary Hub

Lit Hub Weekly: September 21 – 25, 2026

During the season of big books, how do you choose one to read? With a flowchart, obviously. | Lit Hub Ed Simon explores the limits of language to understand why “pain makes poor poets out of all of us.” |

Lit Hub DailySep 26, 2026

Literary Hub

Booksellers are sounding the alarm over Trump’s anti-antifascist presidential memo.

A group of concerned booksellers recently sent an open letter to the American Booksellers Association and the American Booksellers for Free Expression raising an “urgent concern” about the Trump administration’s NSPM-7 anti-antifascist memorandum. The presidential security memo issued last year

James FoltaSep 25, 2026

The Paris Review

“Do You Think This Conversation Is Going Well?” and Other Pickup Lines

“The dating app has engineered what one might call an Enneagrammatical system of bookish star signs.”

Gemma SieffSep 25, 2026

Literary Hub

Have They Ruined Our Beloved Scholastic Book Fair?

Oh, Scholastic Book Fair. If you made your way through a public school in North America anytime during the past half-century, you should recall that shiny catalog. That sudden, circus-like presence in the school library. On Monday, the critic Michelle

Brittany AllenSep 25, 2026

Literary Hub

Shrine: A Little Book About Paul Thek

There is a photograph of Paul walking on a lawn and carrying a life-sized version of the cross. It appears to be quite heavy, made of wood. It can be seen to rest upon his shoulders. This is somewhere in

Lit Hub ExcerptsSep 25, 2026

Literary Hub

Elizabeth Alexander on Finding Life in the Second Spring of Middle Age

If I could have been a dancer, a real dancer, beyond those years at St. Mark’s, I probably would have done it. But my gifts were not that lavish, and my considerable drive was directed toward more than just dance.

Elizabeth AlexanderSep 25, 2026

Literary Hub

“Regular, rigorous, and Reliable.” How to Keep Fighting for a Better World

We can cultivate qualities that help us to stick around in struggle. This is something that came up when I spoke in 2023 with Philadelphia activist Suzy Subways about her decades of movement experience. “Don’t compare yourself to others in

Chris DixonSep 25, 2026

Literary Hub

“Ode to a Leaf Blower,” a Poem by Jill Bialosky

Leaves tangled & braided in limp limbs of the still surviving perennials, our yard a battlefield of trees towering at least seventy feet high, squeezing out the sun, & slowly letting go of their dead. I suited up in jeans,

Jill BialoskySep 25, 2026

Literary Hub

Remembering Grazia Deledda, the Sardinian Nobel Prize-Winner We Should All Be Reading

“Cross the sea,” a young Grazia Deledda wrote in a poem to Americans in 1893, “and tell everyone that the island of Sardinia is still waiting to be discovered and known.” On the 100th anniversary of her Nobel Prize for Literature, the powerful legacy

Jeff BiggersSep 25, 2026

Literary Hub

Got Writer’s Block? Go to the Theater!

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. I love art that seems like it came from outer space, that seems unrelated to anything else in the Zeitgeist, that makes me wonder how the artist ever came up

Amy FusselmanSep 25, 2026

Literary Hub

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

Gloria Steinem’s An Unexpected Life, Naomi Alderman’s The Strangers, Chuck Klosterman’s Rock*, and Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s Said the Dead all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s home for book reviews. *

Book MarksSep 25, 2026

Literary Hub

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 Libertarian Culture of High Tech, she set out to document and understand a peculiar mindset

Paulina BorsookSep 25, 2026

Literary Hub

Lit Hub Daily: September 25, 2026

After 26 years, Cyberselfish, Paulina Borsook’s prophetic look at big tech, is more relevant than ever. | Lit Hub Technology “To win in significant ways, we will have to build and sustain movements, propelled by urgency, that move at a pace

Lit Hub DailySep 25, 2026

The Conversation

Australian poetry classics: Les Murray’s The Broad Bean Sermon is inexhaustible food for contemplation

The Broad Bean Sermon, while not his best-known poem, shows why Les Murray is considered by some to be Australia’s preeminent poet.

David McCooey, Professor of Writing and Literature, Deakin UniversitySep 24, 2026

Public Books

The Last Graduate Students?

“I began writing this as a record of what it felt like to be a student then, as collective attachments to values—long recognized as fraying, with the knell of the next scapegoat, or horrifying spectacle—face the final chopping block: public good, responsibility to others, democracy itself.” The post The Last Graduate Students? appeared first on Public Books.

Imani RadneySep 24, 2026

The Paris Review

John Berger, Death’s Secretary: A Conversation with Tom Overton

“The first letter I sent to him was about a print that he’d made, which was in the archive—a Chagall-inspired Virgin Mary standing on a donkey.”

Scott SchomburgSep 24, 2026

Literary Hub

What Doireann Ní Ghríofa is Reading Now, and Next

In her new book, Said the Dead, Doireann Ní Ghríofa is “the Reader,” a third-person protagonist. “In the asylum edgelands, she stumbled on a ghost story,” Ní Ghríofa writes. Following clues of happenstance and augury, she seeks the details of

Doireann Ní GhríofaSep 24, 2026

Literary Hub

I’m Having a Hard Time Saying No: How Can I Be More of a Literary Asshole?

Well, hello there! Welcome back, friends. You’ve arrived at the very best destination in town. That’s right, everyone’s partying at Am I the Literary Asshole?, an advice column that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but DOES take a wedge of

Kristen ArnettSep 24, 2026

Literary Hub

Sanna Wani on Crafting a Poetics of Daughterhood

I have always been a writer that draws on my personal life in my writing. The two—my creative practice and my life—often travel often side by side, one after the other, each taking turns leading. So when I am asked

Sanna WaniSep 24, 2026

Literary Hub

Sam A. Miller on YouTube Storytelling and Choosing Science Fiction

Fiction writer and popular YouTuber Sam A. Miller joins co-hosts Christian Barter and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about his debut story collection, Still Lost: Tales from the Year 2080, as well as his educational and comedic videos. Miller reflects on

Fiction Non FictionSep 24, 2026

Literary Hub

The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Nonfiction

1. Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature by Emily Wilson (Liveright) 2. The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State by Jill Lepore (Liveright) 3. Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World

Literary HubSep 24, 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 HubSep 24, 2026

Literary Hub

Beautiful Distance

The azaleas growing by the new hospital’s gates are in full bloom, a bright pink that makes my eyes sore. May is my wife’s favorite month. She’s always said that May evening skies are the most beautiful, with their layers

Lit Hub ExcerptsSep 24, 2026