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The Hub

News, Notes, Talk

Angie Cruz has won the 2024 John Dos Passos Prize.

This week, the 43rd John Dos Passos Prize was awarded to novelist and editor Angie Cruz (How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water; Dominicana; Let it Rain Coffee) by Longwood University. The Dos Passos Prize is the oldest Read more >

By Literary Hub

How librarians saved the day in World War II.

In her new book, Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II, scholar Elyse Graham explores the secret history of U.S. intelligence and lays out yet another reason why you should thank a Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Libraries are already contending with crappy, AI-generated books.

This week, 404 Media, which is publishing some really essential writing these days and is well worth your support, featured an excellent piece on the problem librarians are facing as their ebook collections start to fill up with AI slop. Read more >

By James Folta

The world of groundhog prognosticators is much weirder—and darker—than you thought.

Photo by AP Photo/Brynn Anderson via The Buffalo News Groundhog Day was over the weekend, an event I haven’t paid much attention to since I was a kid. But an odd detail from a news story — the existence of Read more >

By James Folta

Can you read cursive? Then the National Archives wants YOU.

If you—or, let’s face it, one of your retired family members—are looking for a historical side hustle, there’s a team in Washington who want to see you. A team of Top Men.  The National Archives is seeking volunteers to help transcribe Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Pride and Prejudice look like?">

Pride and Prejudice look like?">What should the cover of Pride and Prejudice look like?

This week, the book-reading internet was apparently in a mild uproar over six redesigns of Jane Austen novels, which will be published—with new introductions from popular contemporary YA romance novelists like Ali Hazelwood and Tessa Bailey—by Puffin, Penguin UK’s children’s Pride and Prejudice look like?">Read more >

By Emily Temple

Want to win Leonard Cohen's "magic writing cap?"

Well, all you have to do is bid big. Some of the late poet’s possessions are coming to auction later this February, via Julien’s LA-based auction house to the stars. The treasures on offer mostly come from the collections of Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Josephine Baker! Lidia Yuknavitch! Geraldine Brooks! Ali Smith! 26 new books out today.

It’s the beginning of a new month in a year that has already felt interminably long, and, for many of us, lugubrious. But amidst the chaos and devastation, there are still things to look forwards to, still things to bring Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

In a dazzling move, Simon & Schuster is dropping their blurbs requirement.

Image from the Library of Congress. Simon & Schuster publisher Sean Manning recently published a “gripping,” “spelling-binding,” “tour de force” of an essay for Publishers Weekly about blurbs, those little reviews we’re all obsessed with. Manning’s essay lays out the Read more >

By James Folta

The Giller Prize has (finally) cut ties with Scotiabank.

After fifteen months of protests, boycotts, and pressure campaigns (from Can Lit Responds, No Arms in the Arts, and other activist groups within the Canadian literary community), the Giller Prize—Canada’s most prestigious and lucrative literary award—has ended its decades-long partnership Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

All the literary adaptations at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

A stepsister tells her side of the story. Two friends talk of nothing at all. And the Grim Reaper holds court at a legendary dive bar. These are just some of the literary calling cards from this year’s Sundance Film Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Here are the finalists for the second annual Inside Prize.

This Thursday, Freedom Reads, the National Book Foundation, and the Center for Justice Innovation announced the shortlist for the 2025 Inside Literary Prize. The Inside Prize is the first-ever US-based literary award to be given by currently incarcerated people. Imani Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Here are the finalists for the 2025 Gotham Book Prize. 

Hooray, a spot of good news! The Gotham Book Prize, given annually to recognize a new book about New York City, has just released its list of finalists. Formed in 2020 by Howard Wolfson of Bloomberg Philanthropies and Bradley Tusk, who Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Publishers for Palestine calls for industry-wide boycott of the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Publishers for Palestine, a coalition of nearly 600 publishers across 50 countries, is calling for an industry-wide boycott of the world’s largest publishing event, the Frankfurt Book Fair, over the Fair’s “failure to address its ties to German state and Read more >

By Dan Sheehan

Keep important information about your rights close at hand with these bookmarks.

One of the scariest threats that the Trump administration has made are against immigrants and other people they are eager to kick out. A lot of organizations have been preparing by sharing information about what rights we have if ICE Read more >

By James Folta

Meet the 2025 United States Artists Writing Fellows.

Today, Chicago-based arts organization United States Artists announced their 2025 USA Fellows, a group of 50 artists, including seven Writing Fellows, each of whom will receive a cash award of $50,000. Recipients are encouraged to use this unrestricted grant “for any Read more >

By Literary Hub

25 books out in paperback this February!

It’s difficult, perhaps, not to feel that this past month has felt longer than a typical January, its natural disasters, sudden shifts, and political upheavals making this month seem as though a whole year or more had already rushed by. Read more >

By Gabrielle Bellot

Do you have millions and millions of dollars? Jackie Collins' house is on the market.

The late Jackie Collins left an eccentric legacy. In addition to the loving family, spicy reputation, and 32(!) bestselling bodice-rippers and crime dramas, there’s. This. House. Though perhaps “house” isn’t quite the right word for a bespoke multi-million-dollar mansion whose architect Read more >

By Brittany Allen

Why are we so obsessed with political cartoons?

On January 3rd, Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes left her post after charging her publisher with censorship. In a Substack letter, the artist explained her reason. Her editors unceremoniously dropped a piece poking fun at “the billionaire tech and media Read more >

By Brittany Allen

It's official: Research has found that libraries make everything better.

Science has backed up what many of us have long been saying: the library rocks. A study from the New York Public Library surveyed 1,974 users on how the library makes them feel and how it affects their lives, and Read more >

By James Folta