August 18, 2026 · Mesha Maren

No Reason to Hide It

Over the past few years, a new trend has been growing in independent trade publishing, one that might serve as a healthy antidote to this explosion of market-oriented books. A coterie of small publishers—McNally Editions, Hagfish Books, Hub City Press—has stepped up to join the likes of New York Review Books, Dalkey Archive Press, and Semiotext(e) in reissuing out-of-print books. In January, writer Emmeline Clein put forward the argument in Cultured that publishing houses that focus on such reissues are “the hottest new thing in lit.” But the act of reissuing itself is, of course, not new. It may be tempting to view the publishing world of the past through rose-colored glasses, but aesthetically oriented, risk-taking books have always struggled.