Lit Hub Weekly: June 22, 26, 2026

TODAY: In 1912, E. R. Braithwaite is born.

Maggie McKinley considers Joan Didion’s “future-oriented” nostalgia. | Lit Hub Criticism

“I would never blame them. But being around Americans while this country is bombing mine is the last thing I can do.” Iranian writer Shohreh Laici on war and her mother. | Lit Hub Memoir

Maris Kreizman recommends 40 great books you might have missed (that you should read instead of JD Vance’s memoir). | Lit Hub Reading Lists

How is queer history “admitted to the historical record?” Demetris Papadimitropoulos on Tennessee Williams, Daniel Ciba’s Blue Roses and the ambiguity of proof. | Lit Hub History

Maria Stepanova looks at Russia’s new generation of political exiles, translated by Sasha Dugdale. | Equator

Ariana Reines and Eileen Myles talk about poetic kinship and life after death. | Broadcast

Some schools are hiring student content creators to make public education look cool. | The Nation

David Denby explores the long history of failed adaptations of The Odyssey (and wonders if Christopher Nolan can break the streak). | The New Yorker

Imogen West-Knights touches down at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament to investigate our current crossword boom. | Slate

Craft rant: Lincoln Michel on the multiplicity of fictional POVs. | Counter Craft

“You can’t have pie-in-the-sky optimism, but an optimism rooted in fact and history and the politics of change is something all of us, particularly young people, desperately need.” Dave Zirin and Andrew Holter discuss Howard Zinn’s legacy. | Boston Review

Fewer public libraries are doing Pride displays, for reasons that are unfortunately (politically) obvious. | 404 Media

Should writers read? Should cartoonists be critics? Hagai Palevsky considers these discourses and more while examining Sethphemera, essays and interviews by the cartoonist Seth. | The Comics Journal

“I’ve always assumed that the language’s oral nature has contributed to its concrete, factual diction. There are things you write that you almost never speak aloud.” Eythana Miller on working to preserve Pennsylvania Dutch. | The Dial

PSA: It’s always a great day to break up with Amazon. | Halmail

J.J. Anselmi collects an oral history of opposition to data centers. | The New Republic

“He has deftly escaped these pigeonholes, in part by insuring that each of his books is radically different from the last.” Julian Lucas profiles Colson Whitehead. | The New Yorker

Emily C. Hughes on The Omen, Roe v. Wade, and diabolical motherhood. | Defector

“I think it kind of exemplifies what I try to do with my work, which is to take something quite ordinary and elevate it in a way that you wouldn’t have considered, so in that sense that story is a perfect example of what I think I do as a writer.” Susan Orlean talks to Brendan O’Meara. | Longreads

Also on Lit Hub:

On the time George Sand got dapper • The Chicago Manual of Style should rethink its stance on capitalization • How Barry Windsor-Smith reinvented Marvel’s Wolverine • Creating tension when your characters can’t do much • An American in the Soviet Union on the morning communism fell • It’s cool when animals move fast • Recovering from a creative slump • This week in literary history, Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” is published • The labor history and complicated racial solidarity of mid-century Minneapolis • Queer life in the Arabic world • F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most overlooked story collection • Terria Smith​recommends anti-colonial travel stories • The case for​slowing down and noticing nature • Conspiracy theorist Carl Oglesby’s​idea of Yankees versus Cowboys • The elder Millennial women’s experience of American life • Time travel stories don’t need to be cautionary tales • On archiving as family duty • The first (and only) book ban case heard by the Supreme Court • 40 great books you might have missed • TV writer and novelist Rasheed Newson talks to Spiro Skentos • This week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for fiction and​nonfiction • 5 book reviews you need to read this week • Men’s fashion trends in early American history • Namwali Serpell and Cathy Park Hong discuss Toni Morrison’s Jazz • Ye Hui on the relief of finishing a poem • The long, strange linguistic history of the letter W • Serena Chopra’s TBR • Why a novel isn’t a machine • BIPOC-centered historical fiction • June’s best reviewed bookse.