Happy Halloween! I haven’t seen enough fun literary costumes in real life or on social media—what are the book people going as this year? The closest I’m getting is my niece dressing up as a black cat this year, which

Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War by Lyndal Roper, an excellent new history of one of the largest popular uprisings before the French Revolution, won this year’s Cundill History Prize and its $75,000 prize. The award, which

First off—apologies, readers. I failed to report our nice things last Friday, so we have a combo week. Gratitude is abundant this Hallow’s Eve. So what’s been making us happy? In a word? Soups.  Oliver Scialdone made a killer butternut

Medieval dramatizations of the confrontation between the Virgin Mary and King Herod offered a symbolic resistance to tyranny. The post A Fierce Devotion to the “Empress of Hell” appeared first on JSTOR Daily.

Happy Halloween from the Lit Hub Podcast! Drew Broussard reads you “The Cask of Amontillado”  as a treat. | Lit Hub Radio Jess deCourcy Hinds traces the 80-year evolution of the iconic Wednesday Addams. | Lit Hub Film Catherine Newman

The Frankenstein director tells WIRED the real Victor Frankensteins are tyrannical politicians and Silicon Valley tech bros.

A weekly behind-the-scenes dive into everything interesting, dynamic, strange, and wonderful happening in literary culture—featuring Lit Hub staff, columnists, and special guests! Hosted by Drew Broussard. It’s Halloween! Drew’s favorite holiday! And so in lieu of a proper episode this

Musk has recently used Tolkien references to push anti-immigration messaging, as has the Department of Homeland security. They've got it all backwards.

“I do not believe in ghosts (very much)” –Anne Sexton, “Leaves that Talk” * In her 1959 letter to Frederick Morgan, one of the founding editors of The Hudson Review, Anne Sexton beamed: “I wrote this short story in Sept.

When my 13-year-old daughter announced she was going to be Wednesday Addams for Halloween this year, my first question was, “Which Wednesday?” After Charles (Chas) Addams first drew Wednesday in a 1940 New Yorker cartoon, the pale, morose, dark-braided girl

I. Vestigial Tale As Old As Time I intend to speak of bodies changed to new forms. I intend to speak of transformation, of metamorphosis, of mutation. I intend to speak of the self othered from itself. I intend to

How can whole societies come to believe that the dead walk among them? Understanding that requires moving beyond theoretical approaches and engaging with tangible human communities and their world-views. We will first visit two very different societies in which the

In 1907, Robert Hertz, a French sociologist of religion, published an influential essay called “A Contribution to the Study of the Collective Representation of Death.” He argued that in most human cultures, death unfolds in two stages. First is the

From my letter, “The Art of Messing Around”: Priya [Parker] asked me if my newsletter had a title (it doesn’t) but the more I think about it, it’s funny that her book is called The Art of Gathering, because a title for this newsletter could be, The Gathering of Art. (At least, that’s what I’m

Weapons, Hereditary, and Sorry, Baby are just a few of the movies you should be watching on HBO Max this month.

At a time when nuclear threats feel more alarming than ever, Netflix’s doomsday film falls frustratingly flat. A 1964 masterpiece tells a much better cautionary tale.

For medieval scribes, mistakes couldn’t be easily shrugged off, as Tutivillus, the stickler demon, was always looking over their shoulders. The post Tutivillus Is Watching You appeared first on JSTOR Daily.

Dredging and pollution devastated the once-bountiful reefs. Careful science may help bring them back. The post Shucking the Past: Can Oysters Thrive Again? appeared first on JSTOR Daily.

Kids everywhere know her voice—if not her name. WIRED talks to the former SM trainee about her rise to global superstardom with her hit song “Golden.”

1. Who is the countess living in the Port of Missing Men? On the edge of Scallop Pond in Southampton, an 85-year-old noble holds court in a hunting lodge dating to the Jazz Age that she is determined to protect. Photographs by Thomas Loof.