Here’s what’s making us happy this week.

By Brittany Allen

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May 23, 2025, 3:22pm

Happy spring, fellow travelers. This week we’re back to basics with the good stuff. Physical books supplied by physical people are bringing us lots of joy. And when the pages don’t compel, we’re moving our bodies around.

In the wake of #AIBooksellerGate, our own Drew Broussard put out a live bookseller’s call for recommendation requests. This BlueSky post now has up to 400 responses (and counting)—and our hero plans to answer at least half of these with bespoke suggestions.

These range so far from contemporary page-turners like Julia Armfield’s Private Rites to César Aira’s “‘flight forward” B-sides. “Just nice to see people genuinely responding to human curation,” says the architect.

James Folta is also enjoying real interactions with homo sapiens this week. He rolls into the weekend recommending a cumbia dance class taken at a friend’s wedding, as well as a beloved Austin bookstore. James spent a nice few hours “poking around and having a coffee” at the iconic First Light Books, a neighborhood hub.

I, Brittany Allen, spent some time loading up in another indie bookstore across the pond: Livraria Snob, of Lisbon. This wonderfully fusty stop, with its apt-but-in-on-it name, sent me plane-ward with a fat stack of Pessoa novels and a renewed appreciation for the flâneuse. (Because Pessoa, sure, but also because it was a real hike to find this store, in the winding hills of an old city.)

Now I’m rolling into the weekend pondering what’s so very literary about walking down unfamiliar streets. And like Drew’s followers, I seek recommendations. If you have a favorite flâneur novel, please advise below.

If we’re not perambulating, happily aimless, we’re digging up old joy. Molly Odintz belatedly discovered this SNL weekend update sketch, in which Bowen Yang plays Truman Capote commenting on Women’s History Day. I was glad to revisit this one, too. It’s exactly the kind of niche content that only one, specific, mad human could pull off.

Wishing you all a weekend of long walks, deep laughs, and surprising reading.

Your week in book news, in Venn diagrams.

By James Folta

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May 23, 2025, 1:46pm

Another big week in book news, with new releases and faux releases. Don’t get caught unaware if anyone asks you what you thought of Tidewater Dreams by Isabel Allende or The Last Algorithm by Andy Weir.

Have a great long weekend!

One great short story to read today:
Jessi Jesewska Stevens’s “Honeymoon”

By Brittany Allen

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May 23, 2025, 9:30am

According to the powers that be (er, apparently according to Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network), May is Short Story Month. To celebrate, for the third year in a row, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending a single short story, free* to read online, every (work) day of the month. Why not read along with us? Today, we recommend:

Jessi Jesewska Stevens, “Honeymoon”

This sly short from one of my favorite collections last year—Jessi Jesewska Stevens’ Ghost Pains—has a simple enough set-up. We follow one half of a couple on her Tuscan honeymoon, and watch as the bride’s chipper internal monologue starts to vacillate between wistfulness and exasperation. Stevens’ voice is the hook here. Our narrator is erudite, fussy, charming, and impressively articulate about her own (sometimes contradictory) desires. Every-so-slyly, her asides start to capture the paradoxes inherent to permanent partnership, tourism, and ceremonial rites of passage. The room with the view may be beautiful. The honeymoon and the man wonderful. (On paper, at least.) But sometimes you yearn for the familiar alone.

If you groove with Elaine Dundy, Barbara Trapido, or Marlow Granados, I think you’ll like this one.

The story begins:

For our honeymoon we went to Tuscany. This got a big sigh from me. I love my job, this city, my life. At home, in our apartment, the kitchen tiles are a deep maroon, a chessboard for girls. I was sitting on them, like a squat little knight, unwrapping a casserole dish, when my husband wheeled a suitcase into the room. One of the most difficult things about being married, I find, is that those thoughts you choose not to say out loud don’t register at all. No one reads your mind. He gently snapped two fingers near my face.

Read it here.

*If you hit a paywall, we recommend trying with a different/private/incognito browser (but listen, you didn’t hear it from us).

Michael Crummey’s The Adversary has won the 2025 Dublin Literary Award.

By James Folta

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May 22, 2025, 2:09pm

Today, Canadian writer Michael Crummey’s “dark, enthralling novel about love and its limitations” was announced as the winner of this year’s Dublin Literary Award. Selected from a shortlist of six novels, The Adversary took home the top prize.

The Dublin Literary Award only accepts nominations from public libraries: authors, agents, and publishers can disqualify their books if they try to get involved. Crummey was nominated by the Canadian Newfoundland and Labrador libraries, and sweetly thanked them in his acceptance speech:

I would not be here today without the Buchans Public Library, the library in my hometown. It’s like a small mining town, maybe 1,500 people down 70km of a dead end road. But the library was the place where I found the world outside my town, and it just gave me such a sense of possibility.

Sponsored by the Dublin City Council, the Dublin Literary Award has been around for 30 years. With a prize of €100,000, it’s the highest paying annual award for a single book in English.

The Adversary is set in remote Newfoundland, and follows the aftermath of a wedding gone awry, which kicks off “a battle between the man and woman who own Mockbeggar’s largest mercantile firms, each fighting for the scarce resources of the north Atlantic fishery, each seeking a measure of revenge on the person they despise most in the world.”

Crummey joins recent winners Mircea Cărtărescu’s Solenoid, translated by Sean Cotter; Katja Oskamp’s Marzahn, Mon Amour, translated by Jo Heinrich; Alice Zeniter’s The Art of Losing, translated by Frank Wynne; Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive; and Anna Burns’ Milkman.

One great short story to read today: Osamu Dazai’s “Shame”

By James Folta

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May 22, 2025, 9:30am

According to the powers that be (er, apparently according to Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network), May is Short Story Month. To celebrate, for the third year in a row, the Literary Hub staff will be recommending a single short story, free* to read online, every (work) day of the month. Why not read along with us? Today, we recommend:

Osamu Dazai, “Shame”

There’s nothing better than a story that starts with “Oh my god, I’ve done something horrible.” You know you’re in for a fun one. This piece by Osamu Dazai starts with just such a regretful bang, and turns into a combination of “The Purloined Letter,” British farce, and Kristen Arnett’s “Am I The Literary Asshole.”

There’s a lot of shame sloshing around this story, fittingly, but Dazai puts his finger on two very specific fears of mine: giving another writer a terrible note, and looking like a fool in front of someone you admire.

I’m not really making the sale here, but trust me, you’re going to enjoy this story. Just know there’s a reason it’s called “Shame.”

The story begins:

Kikuko, I’ve shamed myself. I’ve shamed myself terribly. To say it feels like my face is on fire, is not enough. To say I want to roll in a meadow screaming my lungs out, doesn’t do this feeling justice. Listen to this verse from 2 Samuel in the Bible: “And Tamar put ashes on her head, and rent her garment of divers colours that was on her, and laid her hand on her head, and went on crying.” Poor Tamar. When a young woman is shamed beyond all redemption, dumping ashes on her head and crying her eyes out is a proper response. I know just how she felt.

Kikuko. It’s exactly as you said: novelists are human trash. No, they’re worse than that; they’re demons. Horrible people. Oh, the shame I brought on myself! Kikuko. I kept it secret from you, but I’ve been writing letters to Toda-san. Yes, yes, the novelist. And then, eventually, I met him, only to bring this horrible shame upon myself. It’s so insane.

Read it here.

*If you hit a paywall, we recommend trying with a different/private/incognito browser (but listen, you didn’t hear it from us).