Lit Hub Daily: June 25, 2026

TODAY: In 1903, George Orwell is born.

• Anthony Aycock looks back at Island Trees v. Pico, the first (and only) book ban case ever heard by the Supreme Court. | Lit Hub Politics
• Maris Kreizman recommends 40 great books you might have missed (that you should read instead of JD Vance’s memoir). | Lit Hub Reading Lists
• TV writer and novelist Rasheed Newson talks to Spiro Skentos about the differences between writing for the page and the screen. | Lit Hub TV
• Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for fiction and nonfiction. | Lit Hub Bookstores
• “Vance’s hypocrisy alone makes Communion nearly unreadable. You don’t need me to tell you this, but he is not a good Catholic.” 5 book reviews you need to read this week. | Book Marks
• Chloe Chapin explores the meanings behind men’s fashion trends in early American history. | Lit Hub Style
• This week on the podcast PASSAGES: On Morrison, Namwali Serpell and Cathy Park Hong discuss Toni Morrison’s Jazz. | Lit Hub In Conversation
• The long, strange linguistic history of the letter W. | Lit Hub History
• “Before you are anything, you are a daughter.” Read from Cay Kim’s debut novel, The Future Perfect. | Lit Hub Fiction
• “I’ve always assumed that the language’s oral nature has contributed to its concrete, factual diction. There are things you write that you almost never speak aloud.” Eythana Miller on working to preserve Pennsylvania Dutch. | The Dial
• PSA: It’s always a great day to break up with Amazon. | Halmail
• J.J. Anselmi collects an oral history of opposition to data centers. | The New Republic
• Kaveh Akbar, Eileen Myles, and more queer American writers choose their favorite queer American books. | The Guardian
• “When a difficult masterpiece becomes, to a literary culture, more embarrassing than prestigious, the diagnosis falls not on the book but on the culture that has decided difficulty is socially inconvenient.” Ebadur Rahman has some thoughts on The Canon. | Los Angeles Review of Books
• Ben Philipps considers the complex poetic legacy of J. H. Prynne. | n+1