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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.
Give ‘Em Something to Tok About
If you’re interested in BookTok and social media trends and you aren’t yet reading Alyssa Morris’s terrific Substack Romancing the Phone, get to clickin’. In a new dispatch, Morris checks in on the state of romantasy, offering a look at the tropes and trends that are popping on BookTok, the newest additions to the romantasy canon, the latest indie authors to get picked up for traditional publishing deals, and more. How much longer can romantasy rule online reading culture? Morris notes that, “Whereas previous books might’ve had faeries, many of these books have faeries and vampires and zombies and more. And they’re also crossing genre lines…” Kitchen sink maximalism isn’t always a bad sign, but it can be a canary in the coal mine. Is the genre headed for a shark-jump?
Vampire Diaries Author L.J. Smith Dies at 66
L.J. Smith, best known for her blockbuster series The Vampire Diaries, has died at the age of 66. The13-book series, of which Smith wrote the first seven, debuted in the post-Twilight teen vampire craze. Part-romance, part thriller, the series begins when a teenage girl discovers that her crush is a vampire and he’s been wrongfully accused of carrying out recent attacks in their town. The Vampire Diaries spawned a passionate fandom in the early days of social media and was ultimately adapted into a TV series that ran for eight seasons. Smith’s fans are expressing an outpouring of appreciation for her work all over the internet. She will be missed.
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It’s a Zoo Out There
Helen of Troy launched a thousand ships, and Helen MacDonald launched a whole genre. H is for Hawk, MacDonald’s stunning 2014 memoir that is ostensibly about training goshawks but is really about grief, pain, connection, and beauty, wasn’t the first to go outside the lines of Marley & Me-type stories about humans’ relationships with animals, but it was the one that took root. The Times‘s Alexandra Alter explores the wide—and widening—world of memoirs about humans who connected with wild animals, considering the collective yearning they allow us to express. It’s a terrific piece.
The Ugly, Effective Reading Setup You Need
Finding the right reading setup is all about form over function, at least for Danika Ellis, who has no regrets about the ugly (and expensive!) new arrangement that has saved her aching neck.