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Lit Hub Daily

September 10, 2025

TODAY: In 1999, Fight Club, based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel, premieres at the Venice Film Festival.

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What does it actually mean that Bingley has “four or five thousand a year?” John Mullan examines the dramatic role of money in the works of Jane Austen. | Lit Hub Criticism

Nathaniel Moore examines the rising conservatism of contemporary literary fiction through the work of Patricia Lockwood, Rachel Yoder, and Charlotte Wood. | Lit Hub Criticism

“I’ve talked them off cliffs and out of rage-quitting. I thought I knew what to expect.” On when the agent becomes the author. | Lit Hub Memoir

Linda-Marie Barrett thinks that you (yes, you!) need to join a book club. | Lit Hub Criticism

Beth Kephart meditates on the art of constructing fiction from facts. | Lit Hub Craft

“Every night she tries to think of something that would / get him to spare the children.” Read “Night Terrors,” a poem by Sharon Olds from the 45th-anniversary edition of Satan Says. | Lit Hub Poetry

“A single white egg rattled around the bottom of a small pot. At the local Miyoshi Mart, a carton of ten cost 198 yen—the cheapest option around here.” Read from Natsuo Kirino’s novel Swallows, translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda. | Lit Hub Fiction

A “READ WITH JENNA” BOOK CLUB PICK

One town. Two families. A secret that changes everything. Patrick Ryan’s Buckeye is a captivating tapestry of the intimate lives of two midwestern families across generations, from World War II to the late twentieth century.

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PRAGUE: THE HEART OF EUROPE

Cynthia Paces offers a sweeping and comprehensive history of Prague—from its ninth-century origins to today—through its politics, art, architecture, and diverse voices. The only English-language book to trace the city’s full cultural and political evolution.

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Paisley Rekdal recounts the professional costs of criticizing the Trump administration. | The New York Times

“Perhaps the Post-NAFTA Novel will abandon its predecessor’s sometimes neurotic insistence on transnational legibility.” Nicholás Medina Mora on Mexican fiction, made in America. | The Baffler

Sara Giordano considers the myth of scientific objectivity. | The Conversation

Grace Byron examines how the most toxic marriages between politics and aesthetics are waging a war against trans art. | The New Yorker

“One can see an arc running from Spain’s conquest of the Americas to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.” Alexander Aviña talks to author and historian Greg Grandin. | Public Books

How a county in Oregon failed its public library. | Book Riot

NENE & IRA & DINA & KETO