Advertise on podcast: The Lit Hub Podcast

It was foretold... and now it is here! Yes, that's right: some audio most-anticipated action, featuring some Lit Hub staffers on books that they're super-duper excited about for the back half of 2026. Hope you're all having a nice summer! Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2026, Part Two (Lit Hub) "The End of Reading is Here" by Rose Horowitch (The Atlantic) The Lit Hub Podcast is a production of Literary Hub Hosted and produced by Drew Broussard Theme music by Dani Lencioni See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tomorrow is Independent Bookstore Day! (If you're listening to this on release day, anyway.) So, in the spirit of heading out to support your local indie(s), we have a very indie-forward episode for you this month. First, Philomena Polefrone from the ABA stops by to explain HR 7661 (the national book ban bill) and why supporting indie bookstores and libraries is more important now than it has ever been! Then, Meg Reid of Hub City Press drops in to chat about more affordable options for hardcovers (namely: paper-over-boards!) and more thoughts on book design from the frontlines of publishing AND bookselling. And finally, Drew delivers a little recommendation corner as well as an update on the future of the pod. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Slop-pocalypse now! Oh yes, folks, the AI nonsense continues to accelerate and Drew has some feelings about it and why you (yes you!) should also be a stick in the mud about it. Then, Sara Yasin joins James Folta to talk about launching The Key, the new lit magazine produced by the Palestine Festival of Literature. Calvin Kasulke also drops by to chat with Drew about Lit Hub's post-Pamela-Paul-corrective of thirteen book reviews that should have run at the NYTBR during the noted transphobe's tenure. To close it out, Casey Scieszka (author of The Fountain) reads her essay "When the Fountain Runs Dry" and Oliver Scialdone recommends diving into Filthy Loot Press. IN THIS EP: * "Horror Novel "Shy Girl" Cancelled Over Suspected AI Use" * "The People Getting Falsely Accused of Using AI" * The Key * "What Was Lost: A Queer Accounting of the New York Times Book Review, 2013-2022" * "Good-bye Pamela Paul" * "When the Fountain Runs Dry: On Aging, Immortality, and the Illusion of Everlasting Youth" * Filthy Loot Press See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's the end of February already! Thank goodness! Drew's reporting in from Pittsburgh, at the annual conference hosted by the American Booksellers Association, and boy oh boy do we have a lot of bookish goodness for you, including... * the weirdness of early-year reading * a conversation between Lit Hub's Brittany Allen and Colette Delawalla (CEO of Stand Up for Science) about the Trump Administration's ongoing attempts to gut NASA's research library * Drew chatting with bookseller Fisher Nash (of Carmichael's in Louisville KY) about the state of bookselling and the wildness of Winter Institute (the aforementioned conference) * a voicemail from Adam Colman sharing insights into the new season of The Cosmic Library (hint: it involves Proust!) * Michael Welch on "What We Lose When Our Independent Bookstores Close" * and a book recommendation from Lit Hub's James Folta! See you in March! ----- The Lit Hub Podcast is hosted and produced by Drew Broussard The Lit Hub Podcast theme was written and performed by Dani Lencioni of Evelyn The Lit Hub Podcast is a production of Literary Hub and a part of the Lit Hub Radio network See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When we launched The Lit Hub Podcast in 2024, we promised you a weekly dive into the behind-the-scenes of the literary world—and what a series of weeks it has been! But 2026 looks a lot different than 2024, in so many ways, and so we're going to try something new. Starting this month (February!) we're shifting the podcast release schedule to monthly, on the last Friday of the month.  It'll be the same vibe you've come to know and love, but you can expect longer episodes, with more staff voices and in-depth explorations—a monthly, instead of weekly, digest of what's been happening at the site and in the larger book-world.  Thanks so much for listening so far, and we'll see you at the end of the month! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

No episode this week, in solidarity with what we genuinely hope will be something approaching an actual widespread general strike. May you get up to some good trouble—take care of your neighbors, be good to one another! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Nick Ripatrazone joins Drew to talk about how generative AI is taking away the very dignity of life and why the process is the point of art-making. Then, Aaron Tracy stops by for a chat about his new show, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, and what it has been like to revisit the beloved childhood author as a grown-up. Also, golly it's a weird bad time still! It's okay if you're having a hard time with it all, because honestly we are too. PS: it is time to get the bread & milk!!! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Happy new year! Or, at least, happy new year-of-books! To kick off the year, which is due to be a truly colossal one on the reading front, members of the Lit Hub staff are here to bring you some choice excerpts from our 300+ title Most Anticipated list! SO MANY BOOKS! (oh hey also: f**k ICE, xoxo)  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Squeaking in one more episode for the year, and we promise it's a real treat! Kat Abughazaleh (Democratic candidate for the IL-09) talks with Lit Hub's James Folta about why, if elected, she wants to be sworn in on Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower and the absolute joys of reading science-fiction, particularly (but also very much not limited to) Becky Chambers and Pierce Brown. Then, a holiday tradition is cemented: Jonny Diamond reads "A Visit From St. Nicholas" by Clement-Clarke Moore! Happy end-of-year, welcome Yule, see you in 2026—may it be better and brighter than 2025! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's the end of the year! Which means: best-of lists, abounding. Maybe you've seen our Favorite Books of 2025 list, or our Best (Old) Books We Read in 2025 list, or the 100 Notable Small Press Books of 2025 list spearheaded by Miriam Gershow? Whether or not you've combed the lists, we've got some staff here to share some of their favorite reads from 2025 and then a chat with Miriam about putting together this ambitious Small Press list! (If you want to participate in the 2026 Small Press list, more details at Miriam's site here!) A very happy holidays to all of you from all of us — what a great year in reading, and what an even better year we've got coming up in 2026! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's the holiday season! The season of advent! And if you're listening to this, then you probably need a Short Story Advent Calendar in your life. Enter Michael Hingston and Natalie Olsen, proprietors of Hingston & Olsen, the very cool Canadian small press that does (among other neat projects) just such an advent calendar! They stop by to chat about the origins of the project and the press, why they're switching it up this year with a Kevin Wilson-curated "12 Days of Stories" instead, and Drew fully geeks out about it. Then, Brittany Allen, Calvin Kasulke, and Olivia Rutigliano join Drew to acknowledge the passing of the great Tom Stoppard, playwright and screenwriter extraordinaire. Come for the stories of their first Stoppard experiences, stay for the heartwarming musing about Stoppard's impact on their lives! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's a Thanksgiving-week episode, which means—hey, we're thankful for you! Thanks for listening to the show, thanks for being a part of the Lit Hub community and the bookish community and the community that (hopefully?) gives a damn about leaving the world at least a little better than you found it. We're also thankful for the great arts organizations that support our communities, whether that's something pretty local like WaveFarm and WGXC and Northern Spy Reading Series in the Hudson Valley or something national like Authors Against Book Bans. Our first guest this week is from the former (it's our own Jonny Diamond reading from George Orwell as part of last week's "Fall of Freedom" programming across the country) and our second guest is from the latter (Maggie Tokuda-Hall, one of the national leaders of AABB). It's always the right time to support the organizations across the country that do good work, but it's the end-of-year giving season and if you've got the scratch to help out, you could do a lot worse than an organization like Authors Against Book Bans — so donate! And if you've got a bit left after that, become a Lit Hub member, so we don't ever have to do a full-on pledge drive episode (although maybe we will someday, for fun)... See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A time of celebration is now upon us: the literary awards year has closed, which means that it's basically gravy from here til the end of the year. That's right, with the National Book Awards this week, we really see the end of the road for 2025 and now we can all just chill out a bit. Right? Right?? (plus a shout-out to the Goldsmiths and Cercador Prizes, two lesser-known prizes that you should all be following.) Anyway, in the spirit of celebration, James Folta and Oliver Scialdone drop in to talk about the latest Literary Bracket ("What Was Literary Twitter?", running now through next Tuesday) and to eulogize those heady days of Lit Twit. Then, Peter Coviello chats with Drew about his piece for the site "Maybe Don't Talk to the New York Times about Zohran Mamdani" and expounds on why it is we need to be much more wary of the things elite institutions are trying to sell us.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We're heading towards the end of the year, inexorably and completely — but it ain't over yet! There's still reading time, certainly... but there's also still creativity time. Anna Hogeland drops by to talk about her recent piece, "Creating Without Inhibition: In Praise of Making Bad Art" and then Celia Mattison tells Drew all about the burgeoning trend of sheep on book covers, which she covered in her aptly titled piece: "What's With All the Sheep on Book Covers?" Plus: Ryan Chapman calls in about this year's Booker Prize winner! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The world is ending... the world is ending... but if the world is ending, that means it hasn't ended yet.  After seeing The Seat of Our Pants at The Public Theater (running thru at least the end of the month!), it's never been clearer that Thornton Wilder is America's great under-appreciated literary trickster. His keen playful writing combines magical realism, genre-busting humor, literary zip—and there are few people better suited to adapting Wilder than Ethan Lipton. He joins us this week alongside Jeremy McCarter, Wilder's literary executor, for a look into the man's genius, this play's still-vital themes, and why human art will always be the best thing about humanity. Speaking of humanity: contracts! Aron Solomon explains some of his recent piece, "Writers Beware: On the Dangerous Fine Print of Creative Contract Law" — and then Dayna Totorici of n+1 calls in to tease this year's Bookmatch quiz! (It's open now, you should do it, you should let Drew know what books you got.) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.