October 27 – 31, 2025

THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET

TODAY: In 1935, Edward Said is born.

• “Del Toro loves monsters—misunderstood, sympathetic monsters—and Shelley’s Creature is the primogenitor of this tradition.” Olivia Rutigliano praises Guillermo Del Toro’s new adaptation of Frankenstein. | Lit Hub Film
• Ron Rosenbaum breaks down Bob Dylan’s reaction to receiving his Nobel Prize. | Lit Hub Music
• Chelsea G. Summers and Jessica Stoya discuss John Cleland’s Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, one of the earliest pieces of English prose erotica: “There is this strange writerly fixation on the very limits of trying to tell these kinds of stories and trying to do this narrative work without getting dirty.” | Lit Hub In Conversation
• Joseph J. Ellis explains how little faith America’s Founding Fathers had in democracy. | Lit Hub History
• “The scenario was incoherent. Yet it could not have happened differently on this earth. If it could have it would have.” Joy Williams on the last days of Gene Hackman. | Harper’s
• What can be done about the literacy crisis? Johanna Winant and Dan Sinykin weigh in: “Give them Hamlet. Give them My Antonía. Give them Sense and Sensibility. Give them Song of Solomon. Give them these books—unabridged!—time to read them, and space to confront difficulties.” | Slate
• How Marjorie Ingall learned to find joy in scary children’s books. | The New York Times
• “We are the testing ground. Every single state needs to be paying attention.” Jennifer Smith Richards reports on why the rise of Christian nationalism in Oklahoma schools models the far-right’s vision for education in America. | ProPublica
• Manvir Singh traces the modern history humanizing of monstrosity. | The New Yorker
• “What do all the fragments add up to, beyond fulfillment of the fantasy of publication?” Greta Rainbow on the state of the braided essay. | Dirt
• How Elon Musk’s AI-powered Wikipedia clone reveals the incredible humanity of the internet’s free encyclopedia. | 404 Media
• Rhian Sasseen considers Ron Padgett’s meditations on mortality. | The Nation
• “It’s easier to put your hand in the next guy’s pocket if he’s illiterate.” Noah McCormack on literacy and class. | The Baffler
• Jesmyn Ward explores her connection to hip-hop, and home: “We’ll make art that celebrates and insists on our being.” | Orion
• Jon Day explores the ghoulish appeal of haunted houses. | London Review of Books
• “In Notley’s work especially, punctuation gives shape to that self-awareness.” Will Harris meditates on The Descent of Alette.
• Adela Pinch considers Rebecca West’s The Fountain Overflows, “a tour de force of child narration.” | Public Books
• Donald Quist considers Stone of Hope, (mis)representations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and standing in the shadow of a legacy. | AGNI
• Here’s something that should make authors feel better about their sparsely-attended readings: Elisabeth Bumiller reports on Karine Jean-Pierre’s nightmare of a book tour. | The New York Times

Also on Lit Hub:

A Pizza Margherita recipe fit for a queen • The wannabe pop star with a FarmVille-inspired Ponzi scheme • The kobold, an unclassifiable household creature of fantasy • Ann Tashi Slater on her grandmother’s Tibetan Buddhist funeral • Essential books for understanding choice • The 19th century scientist who connected solar storms to life on Earth • The dangerous fine print of creative contract law • Space warfare, spy satellites, and espionage’s new era • The dramatic twists of a 2008 whaling research expedition • An influential illustrated book and microscopic marine organisms • Audley Moore’s fight for reparations • Chronicling COVID in literature • Why writers should give their books away for free • What we can learn about tyranny from Henry VIII • Documentary poetics in the shadow of institutional power • Illustrated affirmations for the canines in your life •The woodsmen who watch over England’s Chiltern Hills • Life, death, and poverty in Alabama Village • Overthrowing the British Raj from America • October’s best book covers (and bonus covers from September!) • Why do so many book covers have sheep? • You’re still the asshole if you use AI to write your novel • 5 book reviews you need to read this week • Literary film and TV coming to a screen near you in November • The most anticipated audiobooks of the upcoming month • Happy Halloween from the Lit Hub Podcast! • The 80-year evolution of the iconic Wednesday Addams • Catherine Newman finds some humor in the unexpected • Anne Sexton’s “imperfect and thorny” rejected horror stories • When it comes to Jack the Ripper, how do we separate fact from fiction? • The bond between food and our memories of the dead • How the origin of zombies relates to historical anti-Blackness • Cultures that hold space for when the dead walk among us • October’s best reviewed books • Habitats of the blood-sucking (but not so fiendish) vampire bats • A human history of burial rituals

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