Lit Hub Daily: August 11, 2026

THE BEST OF THE LITERARY INTERNET

TODAY: In 1937, Edith Wharton dies.

• Despite what some people might think, the short story is here to stay. | Lit Hub Criticism
• Téa Obreht talks to Jane Ciabattari about writing Sunrise: “I’m fascinated with the Western as a genre, as theatre, as propaganda, as a vehicle of nationalism.” | Lit Hub In Conversation
• “The universe—including the human corners of it—is enigmatic, queer, surprising, and endlessly fascinating. But we physicists are just people, no more, no less.” Steven W. Thrasher considers new books by Alfredo Carpineti and Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. | Lit Hub Criticism
• The 20 new books out today include titles by Téa Obreht, Richard Russo, Claire Carusillo, and more! | Lit Hub Reading Lists
• Why the art of writing an obituary is more about capturing life than death. | Lit Hub Biography
• Esther Kinsky explores the “element of dissonance” in Rosalind Belben’s novel, Is Beauty Good. | Lit Hub Criticism
• Naima Coster, Katy Simpson Smith, Stacey Yu, and other authors with new books answer our questions about literary life. | Lit Hub Craft
• “By the time Irv and Kath met, the Oberbach Corporation was ankle-deep in concrete, middle-manning the cheap Chinese labor the city needed to build its demonic underground highway along the river.” Read from Claire Carusillo’s new novel, The Responsible Party. | Lit Hub Fiction
• “I wish I were not so divided; I wish I could live mentally where I am physically. But that, evidently, is not my fate.” Karan Mahajan on writing about India from America. | The New Yorker
• Why writing detectors are contributing to more suspicion and paranoia around AI, not less. | The Verge
• Saeed Jones connects with a Lyft driver named Mister Anthony over history and race. | Oxford American
• Orlando Reade asks if epics actually need heroes. | The Nation
• Unlike in poetry, “the volta in a novel is a shift to visceral enjoyment.” | Public Books
• Charlotte Higgins offers some thoughts about why poetry is booming. | The Guardian

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