Lit Hub Daily: July 17, 2026

TODAY: In 1901, Polish poet, novelist, and playwright Bruno Jasieński is born.

• Henry Power tackles an age old question: How many Homers were there, actually? | Lit Hub History
• “The Odyssey is as relevant as ever it was. And I, for one, cannot wait for the next rendition of this story.” Rose Smith remembers growing up alongside the Odyssey (and returning to it over and over again). | Lit Hub Criticism
• Emily Doyle questions everything you think you know about realism. | Lit Hub Craft
• Who were those girls Renoir kept painting? Catherine Ostler unearths the stories of the Cahen d’Anvers sisters. | Lit Hub Art
• Sigrid Nunez’s It Will Come Back to You, Lauren Collins’ They Stole a City, and Julie Buntin’s Famous Men all feature among the best reviewed books of the week. | Book Marks
• What writing a book about Bobby Kennedy taught Carson Markland about gender and power: “And yet I wasn’t only writing the public persona; I was also writing the private man, and his power stemmed from almost the exact opposite traits.” | Lit Hub Biography
• Former president of PEN America Dinaw Mengestu on the organization’s legalistic sleight-of-hand in avoiding its responsibilities to all writers. | Lit Hub Politics
• Why Seicho Matsumoto’s A Quiet Place is a dark fairy-tale of post-war Japan. | CrimeReads
• Why the collaborative effort of editing is the ultimate reward (especially when your anthology is about community). | Lit Hub Craft
• After You Watch The Odyssey, try reading these feminist reimaginings of myth by Pat Barker, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and more. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
• “I was in no state to meet anyone when Korine arrived. I sat on a chair in my sublet on Aldersgate Street, central London: an epic Hail Mary. Outside it was tipping down.” Read from Isabel Waidner’s novel, As If. | Lit Hub Fiction
• “The onus is not on the readers. The onus is on publishers and prize committees and all the other forces that determine which books remain visible over time.” How Doubleday’s new reissue series, Outsider Editions, is expanding the canon. | Language Arts
• Pasquale Toscano examines the Odyssey through the lens of disability (and American politics). | Public Books
• Why table top role-playing at a bookstore is actually a great parenting tool. | Virginia Quarterly Review
• Geraldine Brooks on the genesis and impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. | Smithsonian Magazine
• How Vienna’s cafés and Belgrade’s kafanas clashed in wars of art, literature, and politics. | Aeons
• What do you do when you find an AI slop biography about yourself? Investigate it. | The New York Times