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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.
Have We Reached Peak Celebrity Audiobook Narration?
I was browsing the finalists for the Audies and was struck again by the line-up for the most recent audiobook version of 1984: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, Tom Hardy, Chukwudi Iwuji, Romesh Ranganathan, Natasia Demetriou, Francesca Mills, Alex Lawther, and Katie Leung.
I have never seen/gotten a straight answer, but I pose it once again: just how much damn money does this cost? Ok, so maybe it’s a couple of days work, but seriously, what in the hell? Do these pencil out? Now, this one might be the exception on the upside because it had a social media moment with people doing some questionable shipping of the characters read by Garfield and Scott, but they can’t have known that going into this? The first time I remember raising and eyebrow is when Rosario Dawson narrated Artemis by Andy Weir. Spotify and Audible have been in a voice-race to differentiate their audiobook offerings, so maybe I have my question there. Part of the value for an “only on platform X” celebrity cast is that people know there are celebrity/fancy/exclusive versions and don’t want to switch.
It was a town’s only Black-owned bookstore. It is now a refuge for those displaced by the California fires.
I was just in Pasadena over New Year’s to visit the Huntington Library and was reminded that it was Octavia Butler’s haunt. This story about Nikki High using her bookstore, Octavia’s Bookshelf, as a helping center is worth reading in full, but here is a snippet to encourage you to check it out:
“We packed up all of our books off the shelves and put them in the attic,” High explains. The books were replaced by the items people gave to victims of the fire. The donations poured in from as far away as Portland, filling the store with supplies like toothpaste, diapers, cat food and water. Volunteers from the community, including loyal customers, stepped in to help organize and distribute the items.
Amazon Threat to De-List Bloomsbury UK Titles Seems to Hasten New Deal
In a blast from an Amazon past moment, the biggest bookseller to have ever existed threatened to de-list Bloomsbury UK’s titles, rattling the publisher’s stock price and reminding all of us of what Amazon can do when it wants. A new deal was struck shortly after this announcement, and I cannot help but wonder if Bloomsbury signed a deal less favorable than they would like because the public threat was so potent. The two sides have been in negotiations for months, so a quick deal after a saber-rattle seems something more than coincidental. I haven’t heard of publisher/Amazon animosity in some time. That could either be a sign of publisher adaptation or the not-so-quiet hegemony I think we all know Amazon wields.
Book Trends to Watch in 2025
Over on First Edition, I did a reaction podcast episode to a piece we ran here on Book Riot about book predictions for 2025. First Edition continues to be an experimental space, and I found this to be pretty interesting to try. Check it out if you are so inclined.