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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
Liz Pelletier Named Publishers Weekly Person of the Year
Pelletier had an excellent case to be named PW’s Person of the Year in 2023, as Fourth Wing burst into the reading world (though hard to argue with last year’s honorees either). The citation offers a bit of a profile of Pelletier, as well as some good backstory to Yarros’ romantasy titan. (If you like stuff like this, my interview with some of the folks at Red Tower on First Edition might be worth a listen). Colleen Hoover’s 2-3 year run atop the sales charts didn’t have much in the way of coattails; what has made Fourth Wing different is that has given rise not just to more books like it, but whole new imprints, series, packaging, and careers.
The 50 Biggest Literary Stories of the Year
Lit Hub ran down the 50 literary stories that mattered most this year, and I have no issue with the top handful. One oddity and one oversight. Colleen Hoover’s adaptation of It Ends with US makes the list, but there is no mention of Romantasy’s (see the above story) on-going reign (this is the oddity). Sally Rooney’s publishing a new novel appears at #7, and while clearly Intermezzo was one of the events of the year, Percival Everett’s alley-oop-to-himself, career-victory-lap-cum-modern-classic James is no where to be found.
What’s in a Brow?
To my mind, this kind of piece is a wonderful use of a personal/professional newsletter. The main event is Diamond’s terrific profile of Mikhail Baryshnikov in The New York Times magazine, but he uses is own newsletter to expand on what he came away thinking about. In this case, I happen to feel similarly–I have no pangs of loss for the actual high/middle/low brow art conversation, but notice keenly that the environment in which such a conversation was alive is gone.
Book Riot’s 2025 Read Harder Challenge is GO
It’s that time. Read Harder is our signal annual event, and this year’s challenge again asks you to push your reading in ways that perhaps you wouldn’t on your own.