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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.
ACOTAR Hulu Series is a No-Go
What’s the Valentine’s Day equivalent of a lump of coal? A wilted carnation? A piece of chocolate excavated from under the couch cushions? Whatever it is, that’s what arrived for fans of Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses who were looking forward to the Hulu series adaptation. Vulture reports that news of the series’ cancellation broke over Valentine’s Day weekend, and Variety‘s news story doesn’t offer much more by way of details. All we know for now is that the show has been in development for years with hardly a peep about production. Considering Maas was working on scripts with the creator of the highly successful Outlander TV series and the increasing popularity and broad appeal of romantasy, I would have predicted a fast-track rather than a scrapping. But it is true that streaming platforms have seen recent big failures with big budget, high profile epic fantasy series (see Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Shadow and Bone, and this interview with Brandon Sanderson). This is speculation, of course, and there may have been any number of reasons it got the short end of the stick, but Variety got word that Maas is planning to shop TV adaptation rights around once they expire with Disney so this may not be the last we hear of ACOTAR onscreen.
Reclaiming Indigenous History
There are so many great Indigenous books by Indigenous authors out and forthcoming, and because these books aren’t always published by the big houses and/or don’t get extended a robust marketing budget it’s well worth checking out this Publishers Weekly piece highlighting some of these excellent titles. In the PW article, Indigenous authors speak out about the histories, both personal and cultural, they’re working to retain and reclaim. From a spiritual presence at a reservation casino to “investigative journalism on historical trauma and appropriation of Native lands,” and considering the colonizer-friendly version of Native history many of us are taught in the classroom, there’s much to learn from these authors.
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When That Literary Celeb Picks Your Book
There’s a proliferation of author interviews out there, and because of the overwhelm it’s rare I read them unless it’s of a beloved, reclusive author or the interview focuses on an interesting question. I haven’t read Marissa Stapley’s work, but I was quick to click over to Book Gossip for insight from Stapley about the aftermath of having your book chosen by one of the big book clubs. It’s a question that, in my mind, has been quickly dismissed with the answer of one word: success. Whether for a moment or the length of a career, success is the obvious answer. But what’s most interesting the story of Stapley’s writing career before and after her fourth novel, Lucky, was picked by Reese’s Book Club, is the insight about what it’s like to be in the publishing game and win. These are the stories I never get tired of even though I know the answer can also be distilled into a single word: hard. So freaking hard. It can be discouraging to hear luck reiterated as a main feature of success in selling a book (and there are demographics that find “luck” more often than others), but it’ll certainly ring true after reading the interview.
Iowa Rushes, Advances Librarian Criminalization Bill
Iowa has quickly advanced a bill in a show of partisanship that “would erase protections that public libraries and educational institutions have related to ‘obscene’ materials.” Learn more about this bill, including why it was rushed and the harmful impact it would have, in this Literary Activism piece.
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