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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.
Tell me, O muse, of the man of many devices
Hot off his Oscar win for Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan is going back to the well to tell another story about a Great Man on a really big mission. His next film is an adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey, set for release in July 2026. The “mythic action epic” will be shot around the world using new IMAX technology. Details are scant, but dig the cast: Zendaya, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Matt Damon, Lupita Nyong’o, and Robert Pattinson are all attached, and one can only assume the lineup will get even more bonkers. Mark your calendars for Hot Odyssey Summer now.
The Biggest Book Business Stories of the Year
Publishers Weekly is rounding out the year with a collection of round-ups. There’s the top 15 children’s and YA stories of 2024, the top 10 library stories of the year, and—most relevant to our purposes here at Today in Books—the top 10 book business stories of 2024. Casual observers of the industry may be surprised to see that distribution challenges outranked the influence of AI, but the reality is that discourse about AI has been far more disruptive than AI itself has been…yet. Will this flip in 2025? With trade wars on the horizon as Donald Trump returns to office, I’m betting on no. If anything, book production and distribution, a significant amount of which are done in China, will become even more difficult. It won’t be the first time Trump’s policies negatively impacted book sales, not to mention the price increases consumers can expect to see if the incoming administration actually follows through on its tariff threats.
From Bad Sisters to a Bookish Project
In an interview with Bustle, Bad Sisters creator and star Sharon Horgan revealed that she is planning to work on an adaptation of the novel Vladimir by Julia May Jonas. Horgan, who broke out in 2015 with the Amazon Prime original series Catastrophe (so good!), consistently cuts sharp feminist commentary with perfectly-timed humor, and I don’t need to know anything about this novel to know that I’m excited to see what Horgan will do with it. Which is a good thing because I didn’t know the novel existed until about five minutes ago. Now that I know it’s about a pair of married college professors who run into challenges with their agreement about extra-marital adventures when the husband is accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a student and the wife, who narrates the story, falls for a young and very married writer visiting the school, I am IN, baby.
New Year, New You?
Tis the season for resolutions and self-help reading. From bibliotherapy to perimenopause and beyond, here are some self-improvement trends to watch for in 2025.
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