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Ease into Sunday with a look at the stories Today in Books readers were most interested in this week.
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?
To Act Justly and to Love Mercy
The Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde made headlines when she urged President Trump to “have mercy” during the sermon she gave at the National Prayer Service in January of this year. The sermon, which quickly went viral, was inspired by ideas in Budde’s 2023 book, How We Learn to Be Brave. Penguin Young Readers announced this week that it will publish two adaptations of Budde’s work for children. The first, a YA edition called We Can Be Brave, was adapted by novelist Bryan Bliss and is due out October 25. A picture book called I Can Learn to Be Brave will follow in summer 2026. May these efforts succeed.
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Iowa’s Book Ban Bill is Blocked, Again
A federal judge has once again blocked Senate File 496, the Iowa bill that would require “all public school materials be “age appropriate” with no “descriptions or depictions of sex acts.” SF 496 would also require schools to remove any materials that do not fit their intentionally, maliciously vague definitions of “age appropriate” from shelves. Though the block is a win, Kelly Jensen notes that, “this is the third decision made in courts over the bill that has left schools scrambling and thousands of public school students in the state without access to books in their classrooms and libraries.”