Lit Hub Weekly: October 26 – 30, 2026

TODAY: In 1795, John Keats is born.

• From Psycho to Christine, a highway is something “altogether different when they appear in the horror genre: there they expose themselves as highways to hell.” | Lit Hub Film
• Fake news, far-right propaganda, exaggerated crowd sizes, a squabbling left. Sound familiar? Welcome to 1930s Berlin. | Lit Hub History
• The story behind Nighthawks, Edward Hopper’s most famous painting. | Lit Hub Art
• Why the road to American fascism was paved by Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. | Lit Hub Politics
• “The Haredim argued that mitzvot—good deeds performed to fulfill a Torah commandment—cannot be replaced by machines.” Grace Byron explores the Jewish case against AI. | The Nation
• Kaitlyn Greenidge and Samantha Irby talk sexy monsters, guilty pleasures, and Wicker. | Harper’s Bazaar
• Simon Torracinta explores the enduring urgency of John Berger’s work: “It was precisely this rejection of the separation between life and politics that made Berger’s criticism of art so powerful.” | Dissent
• “The element of chance is what prevents us from filling in the gaps with the things we already expect to see.” Amelia Soth on Carlo Ginzburg’s archive roulette. | n+1
• Kevin Ng considers the music of Yiyun Li’s Music Against the Night and Barbara Kingsolver’s Partita. | The Baffler
• Substack didn’t save the state of writing on the internet. It’s just adding to the attention economy.  | The New Yorker
• Léo Keler documents the cahiers de doléances, notebooks “made available in more than 16,000 town halls across France so that people could put their concerns and frustrations into words”—which then faded into obscurity (trans. Katie Assef). | The Dial
• When indie publishers die, we lose “the heartbeat of the industry, offering the few spaces to truly develop authors across their careers and take chances on projects.” | Chicago Review of Books
• Annie Ernaux on the student protests, her Nobel Prize, autofiction, and more. | Vulture
• “The dream, even for a nonmonogamist like myself, is The One, the book that makes all others disappear, that enchants you completely and exclusively until the last page boots you back out into the world.” Maggie Shipstead on her omnivorous reading habits. | Longreads
• The life and death of a workplace AI assistant (or, a publishing horror story). | Wired
• The spookiest boom: Horror bookstores are cropping up everywhere. | The New York Times
• Andie Eisen talks to some of the women taking the reins of the death industry. | Los Angeles Review of Books
• This 19th-century death train will haunt you all Halloween weekend. | JSTOR Daily
• Jesse Wright explores the ghosts of Route 66 in the age of AI. | Current Affairs

Also on Lit Hub:

Why boys actually need boy bands • Matthew Sitman talks to Brandon Taylor about Minor Black Figures • Maria Edgeworth, economist? • Anika Fajardo connects with her Colombian heritage through magical realism • Why your creative hobby is political • Who chooses the poems featured on the New York City subway? • Writing about amateur women artists in fiction • A day in the life of a baby Tyrannosaurus rex • The assassination of iconic socialist Jean Jaurès • Heliand, Beowulf, and  the development of musical notation • Adapting poetry to the kitchen • Romance and horror in Hitchcock’s most iconic films • Gulliver’s Travels still has so much to teach us • Choosing the writing life means taking a risk • How writing post-apocalyptic fiction can reveal what really matters • European art loves tiny dogs • Mindy Misener applies the lessons she learned as a preacher to her craft • Josie Adams on co-writing a book with her father, Tony Shalhoub • Working in the emergency department and learning about death • Maris Kreizman considers the conundrum with debut novels • Traci Brimhall explores odes, elegies, and writing through grief • Why are so many biographies of women written from the perspectives of men? • Rebecca Perry’s TBR • How humans made the Loch Ness Monster • Why we need unions more than ever, in higher education and beyond • This week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for fiction and nonfiction • 5 book reviews you need to read this week • Why the history of photosynthesis seems like magic • A future that rips the body out of body horror • October’s best book covers • Perfectly eerie poems for Halloween • On undead labor and the uncanny digital afterlife of Salvador Dalí • October’s best reviewed books • Why writers should have sympathy for ghosts • The literary film and TV you need to stream in November • How writing is like nursing • In praise of Blade Runner