The best of literary internet Today: 1915 Jean Stafford is born. Get ready for part two! These are the 258 books we’re most looking forward to in the second half of 2026 Lit Hub Reading Lists We’re begging you to let Maggie Gyllenhaal adapt bell jar. | lit hub film Why Soledad Acosta de Samper
Today: Elizabeth Barrett Browning died in 1861. Natalie Adler and Sarah Shulman talk about the history of AIDS and interrogating agents with the phrase “dam about town”. | Lit Hub in conversation Why readers still fall in love with Mr. DarcyEven after 200 years. | lit hub criticism “What I could not say, Satrapi finally
The best of literary internet Today: 1817 Branwell Brontë is born. “How is queer history incorporated into the historical record?” Demetris Papadimitropoulos on Tennessee Williams, Daniel Siba blue roses and ambiguity of evidence. | lit hub criticism “I don’t remember the exact content of the poem, but it was the first time I saw someone
The best of literary internet Today: 1903 George Orwell is born. Anthony Aycock looks back island tree vs pico, The first (and only) book banning case heard by the Supreme Court. | Lit Hub Politics Maris Kreizman recommends 40 great books you might have forgotten (that you should read instead of J.D. Vance’s memoir). |
Today: In 1909, Sarah Orne Jewett is born. Andrew McKenzie-McHarg explores iconic conspiracy theorist Carl Oglesby’s idea of a Yankees vs. Cowboys war. | Lit Hub History Maggie McKinley reflects on Joan Didion’s “future-oriented” nostalgia. | lit hub criticism “I would never blame them. But being around Americans is the last thing I can do
The best of literary internet Today: In 1592, an epidemic of bubonic plague caused London’s theaters to close for nearly 16 months. Why the aging millennial experience of American life is a cycle of getting your hopes up and disappointed. | Lit Hub Memoirs Justin Ellis explores the labor history and racial solidarity of mid-century
Today: 1898 Erich Maria Remarque is born. “She doesn’t lack sex. The clothes she wears are just one of the ways a woman chooses to play by her own rules.” When the time came, George Sand became smart. | lit hub biography Why the Chicago Manual of Style Should Reconsider Its Stance on Capitalizing “Earth”
The best of literary internet Today: In 1982, Djuna Barnes died. Through layers of loss and grief, Fatemeh Shams remembers Marjane Satrapi: “Marjane reminded me, as her work often does, that in the most desperate times, art, writing and human connection are radical acts of repair.” Lit Hub Deb Olin Unfurth explores the necessity of
Today: In 1938, T.H. White’s sword in the stone is published. Why Robert W. Service’s “The Cremation of Sam McGee” is a good poem for bad fathers. | Lit Hub Craft Aaron Boehmer considers the future of ethnic studies and academia to be in crisis: “Although no amount of protests, demonstrations, or organizing can revive
The best of literary internet Today: 1816, at Villa Diodati, Lord Byron reads Phantasmagoriana Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont and John Polidori then challenge each guest to write a ghost story, with Mary Shelley writing the novel at the end. frankensteinJohn Polidori is writing the short story “The Vampire” and Byron is writing the