Literary Hub » mortality

The Craft of This Mortal Coil: Jonathan Gluck on Writing a Different Cancer Story

The Craft of This Mortal Coil: Jonathan Gluck on Writing a Different Cancer Story

Terry McDonell in Conversation with the Author of “An Exercise in Uncertainty”

By Terry McDonell | June 11, 2025

Of Malady and Mortality: Five Books to Read When Your Spouse Is Diagnosed with Cancer

Of Malady and Mortality: Five Books to Read When Your Spouse Is Diagnosed with Cancer

Ariel Gore Recommends Audre Lorde, Barbara Ehrenreich, Teva Harrison, and More

By Ariel Gore | April 21, 2025

Matters of the Heart: On Daily Life With a Defective Yet Vital Organ

Matters of the Heart: On Daily Life With a Defective Yet Vital Organ

Jeffrey L. Kosky: "My heart was defecting—as if it were not really mine—and the defector threatened to tear me apart."

By Jeffrey L. Kosky | February 26, 2025

What Illness Can—and Cannot—Tell Us About Ourselves

What Illness Can—and Cannot—Tell Us About Ourselves

Graham Caveney on Cancer, the Body and the Philosophy of Mortality

By Graham Caveney | May 30, 2024

Why the Elderly Make the Best Customers: On Bookselling in an Aging Town

Why the Elderly Make the Best Customers: On Bookselling in an Aging Town

“I’ve grown to appreciate how aware of time I am, in a way that I wouldn’t be elsewhere.”

By Samantha Ladwig | April 18, 2024

How Stress Creeps Through Social Inequity to Shorten Lives

How Stress Creeps Through Social Inequity to Shorten Lives

Dr. Arline T. Geronimus on Stress and the Human Biological Canvas

By Arline T. Geronimus | March 31, 2023

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Books of the Week

Why Conventional Wisdom About Cancer Can Be Misleading

By Nick Lane | August 1, 2022

Sixty Years of Tracking Publications... and Rejections

By Jay Neugeboren | March 18, 2021

Can You Bring a Tiny Robot Into an Exclusive Austrian Sanatorium?

By Frédéric Beigbeder | April 16, 2020

Writing Through Extreme Grief Helped Me Become Myself Again

Writing Through Extreme Grief Helped Me Become Myself Again

Margaret Renkl on the Unexpected Catalyst for Writing Her First Book

By Margaret Renkl | July 19, 2019

<em>We're Doomed. Now What?</em> <br>Roy Scranton on Climate Change

We're Doomed. Now What?
Roy Scranton on Climate Change

In Conversation with Peter Nowogrodzki

By Peter Nowogrodzki | June 21, 2019

Philip Roth on Mortality:

Philip Roth on Mortality: "It's a Bad Contract, and We All Have to Sign It"

John Freeman's 2006 Interview with the Late, Great Novelist

By John Freeman | May 23, 2018

How the Irish Teach Us to Die

How the Irish Teach Us to Die

Kevin Toolis in Praise of a Good Wake

By Kevin Toolis | February 27, 2018

Why We Keep Waiting for Godot

Why We Keep Waiting for Godot

On the Enduring Popularity of a Bleak and Difficult Play

By Shannon Reed | August 30, 2017

How Many Books Will You Read Before You Die?

How Many Books Will You Read Before You Die?

Spoiler: It depends on how old you are right now

By Emily Temple | March 22, 2017

A.S. Byatt: I Have Not Yet Written Enough

A.S. Byatt: I Have Not Yet Written Enough

At 80, the Iconic Writer Reflects on Brexit, Mortality, and the Literary Life

By Julie Phillips | February 9, 2017