On his third night in detention in Cairo, crammed with sixty other prisoners into a four-by-five meter cell, Abdelrahman ElGendy heard the song for the first time. Belly full after being starved for three days, one of his cellmates began

In the fall of 1991, Rev. Billy Graham, the American evangelist, received an unexpected invitation from Pyongyang. “It will be a great joy to welcome you to our church,” read the letter, which was sent by leaders of North Korea’s

The Before Evie eased onto the thin goose‑feather mattress and set her mouth to tell her man that it had been a good day, a good night, but Atlas whispered to her first. “Man in Monroe want to buy the

On a sticky Saturday morning in July, I stepped out of the air-conditioned car, and the Alabama summer hit me like a wet blanket. The brick pathway at my feet passed through a small ornamental fence, crossed some scrubby grass,

I’m fascinated by relationships between writers and always have been. They are often at turns intimate, competitive, toxic, and gratifying. Just as their own fictions bend and weave tales, so too do their own lives and rivalries. I am fortunate

When I walked toward the Roman statue of the Three Graces in The Metropolitan Museum of Art last month, my eyes began to water. I clocked the familiar details in person for the first time: The contrapposto stance of three

The winners of the 2026 Hugo Awards

A group of Jewish artists, writers, creative professionals, faith leaders and thinkers—including Emma Seligman, Gabor Maté, Hannah Einbinder, Ilana Glazer, James Schamus, Larry Charles, Joel Coen, Miranda July, Molly Crabapple, Sarah Sherman, Tavi Gevinson, Todd Haynes, and Tony Kushner—have signed

Welcome to season four of The Critic and Her Publics: The Art of the Interview. This season, host Merve Emre talks with professional interviewers of all kinds about how they get the answer they’re looking for, what makes a good

When I entered the Zoom call with Marlon James, he had just put rice on the stove—cooking for a niece and nephew who are, by his own account, “totally unimpressed” by whatever their uncle does. Booker Prize, Time 100, American Book Award, doesn’t matter, they just want to be fed. So 30 seconds into our […] The post For Marlon James, Being Incurious Is a Writer’s Biggest Sin appeared first on Electric Literature.

Poet Nyla Matuk’s debut novel, Leila and Khaled, centers the reality of being Palestinians under Israeli occupation and in diaspora. It is a story of discovering love and beauty amidst dispossession, and how that can be an act of resistance. Leila is a Palestinian Canadian film scholar who visits Occupied Palestine as part of an […] The post A Story of Love and Resistance Amidst Dispossession appeared first on Electric Literature.

The best new LGBTQ books out in September 2026 include new titles from Marlon James, Ashley Herring Blake, Aiden Thomas, K. Ancrum, and more.

I used to work at a library that changed up the theme in the children's department every year, and for the first few years, the themes involved animals.

Fairy witches, cyberpunk hitmen, vengeful wolves, demon hunters, and more: check out the new sci-fi and fantasy books out in September 2026!

We're diving into a great American novel about the modern anxieties of plugging in, selling out, and turning into your parents.

R. F. Kuang is the author of Yellowface, The Poppy War, and Babel. Check out an excerpt from her new novel, Taipei Story, out today.

Anna Heyward, author of Living with Freddie: How a Dog Taught Me to Be Human, discusses the significance of dogs in literature.

September is my birthday month, so this latest crop of sci-fi, fantasy, and speculative books feel especially like presents for me, but also for you! Fantasy heists, magical spy thrillers, dystopian abortionists, parallel-universe marriage stories, deepfake Dorian Grays, houses dying

The best books out in September follow queer men in 1980s Jamaica, grapple with identity and coming of age in Taipei, and more.

Tuesday, August 12. My photo assistant Chika and I arrive at the Santa Fe Institute, Cormac’s home away from home, and load equipment into the library. Cormac is early, chatting up the kitchen staff. We introduce ourselves. Cormac is perhaps

The start of every school year feels full—too full—of haircuts and back-to-school nights, last-minute trips to the store for sneakers that aren’t a size too small, and last-gasp-of-summer ice cream cones. My kids are meeting new teachers, trying new activities,

Readers, this month in publishing is lousy with poets, including terrific poets who I didn’t have space for and poets who I made space for but who deserve more than a few hundred words snapshotting their work. This could have

Early last summer I happened to observe the huge landslide site in Oyarei, Shizuoka prefecture, known as Oya-kuzure. I was shocked to see its effects. When I found out that the Abe river, whose source flows from the collapsed area,

September 1st marks, emotionally at least, the beginning of fall. And with it comes that reliable onslaught of literature for which we have been waiting all year. The month starts with a bang, delivering a new Marlon James, Chloe Benjamin,

When she got home, Damaris was as happy to see the dog as the dog was to see her, and she petted her for a long time, only stopping when she looked down at her hands and saw they were

The Hugo Awards are one of the biggest and longest-running sci-fi and fantasy awards. Here are the 2026 Hugo Award winners.

The winners of the 2026 Hugo Awards—one of science fiction and fantasy’s most prestigious awards, decided by popular vote of all eligible WorldCon members—were presented this weekend at the 84th World Science Fiction Convention in sunny Los Angeles, CA. A

“Phillip Whitney” by Anna Reeser His life as Phillip Whitney began with a stitch in his chest the night Charlotte said she wanted to focus on her poetry. There she was, his daughter, in a silky button-down shirt and long earrings, sitting across the dinner table. A froth of something around her—youth?—as she talked through […] The post His Daughter’s Poetry Is His Midlife Crisis appeared first on Electric Literature.

The worldbuilding in these science fiction and fantasy novellas is unparalleded. Travel to a mythical Asian, a steampunk Egypt, and more.

These Latine picture books pay homage to all aspects of Latine life and culture, from food and car culture to naming traditions and more.

Everyone has an opinion about AI—but is it an informed one? Read these books on AI and social media to ground your opinion in the facts.

Stream these mystery and thriller adaptations this month, from a PI mystery set in Florida to a spy thriller series full of MI5 rejects.

Kurt Vonnegut describes the train arriving in Dresden at five o’clock that afternoon: “The boxcar doors were opened, and the doorways framed the loveliest city that most of the Americans had ever seen. The skyline was intricate and voluptuous and

Says a narrator in Marlon James’s freshly Booker-nominated The Disappearers, “I’ve made such a terrible mess out of being a homo.” The novel’s protagonists are all gay men in ‘80s and ‘90s Jamaica; each makes similar proclamations. “But the statement

It will be the Year of Perfect Skin, I told myself. I had arrived at my mid-forties, and the mirror suddenly gave me a face crosshatched with creases. I was Portrait of a Woman Aging. I was a cubist composition,

This conversation between two authors who happen to share the same name: BBC and Channel 4 broadcaster Samira Ahmed, whose A Hard Day’s Night in Bloomsbury’s BFI Film Classics series just released this month in the US/Canada, and Little, Brown’s bestselling author

I’ve heard my grandfather’s voice just once. It was on a 1949 episode of the NBC radio show This Is Your Life, recounting his escape from occupied France after a German night fighter shot down the plane he was flying

Nanette and Josie finished praying and walked toward the bus stop. Josie pulled out her phone. She wanted to show Nanette a group she’d found on Instagram: @NunsAgainstGuns. “This one is fire,” Josie said. Nanette looked at a photo of

September is here, and with it comes a bevy of new books. Below, you’ll find twenty-five delightful reads to consider, each in a fresh paperback edition, including debuts, sophomore releases, rich translations, and new works from established authors. You’ll find

This morning, fans of both Patricia Highsmith and Dame Helen Mirren have cause to rejoice. The trailer for Anton Corbijn’s new Ripley-adjacent film, A Taste for Murder, is out now. The film stars Alden Ehrenreich, Olivia Cooke, and an almost

From gritty noir to grit-your-teeth suspense, these thrillers will get your heart racing.

There was a proverb I came across once that’s stuck with me: “If brothers were such a good idea, God would have given himself one.” Harsh, but not untrue. At least as far back as Cain and Abel, the relationship between brothers has proved to be a complicated one, full of petty resentments, jealousies, and […] The post Brothers, for Better or Worse appeared first on Electric Literature.

As you might imagine, we read a lot of books here at EL. Followers of our Instagram may be familiar with our long-running What We’re Reading series, where we post every other week about what staff members have been reading and loving. Recently, we decided it was time to make this tradition a little more […] The post 15 Books We Read and Loved This Summer appeared first on Electric Literature.

A look at where and how freedom to read bills fail to address prison censorship and how advocates can help end carceral bans.

Who doesn't love a creepy summer camp?

A look back at the 9/11 issue of Amazing Spider-Man 25 years later.

With the popularity of books like THEO OF GOLDEN, it's worth exploring some excellent uplifting books to read year-round.

In these first few years of the AI era, tens of thousands of published writers have received emails that begin something like this: “Dear Fred, “I’ve long admired your novels, but feel that Windsong Malaise is the best yet. You

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. Consider these opening lines. Their source is far from obscure, so there’s a good chance you’ll recognize them right away. Take a moment over them anyway: “So now get up.”

Claire Stapleton’s Don’t Be Evil, Kimon de Greef’s The Ego Trip, and Dave Ziren’s The People’s Historian all feature among the best reviewed nonfiction titles of the month. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s home for book reviews. *