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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.
Amazon’s Best Books of the Year
In a year without a novel like James owning headlines and bestseller lists, the field has been wide open for end-of-year lists. At the top of Amazon’s newly revealed Best Books of 2025 list is Patrick Ryan’s Buckeye, which was also the September selection for both Read With Jenna and Barnes & Noble’s book club. Other highlights among Amazon’s top 20 include Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy, which was Amazon’s #1 pick in the mid-year checkin, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite, Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs, and King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby. Both of this summer’s blockbusters, Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid and Katabasis by R.F. Kuang also made the top 20. See the full list and Amazon editors’ selections in nonfiction, mystery/thriller, and many more genres.
Curioser and Curiouser!
Sabrina Carpenter is set to star in an adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to be produced by Universal Pictures. Carpenter reportedly approached Universal with the idea last year. Lewis Carroll’s story is a lot more out-there than most folks remember, and an adaptation with a pop star in the lead could go a lot of ways. Will it be sanitized and family friendly, an attempt to pick up where Wicked leaves off, or will Carpenter lean into the chaotic nonsense? One clue: Lorene Scafaria, who wrote the movie Hustlers and directed several episodes of Succession and the recent pilot of I Love L.A., currently airing on HBO, has signed on to write and direct. Ms. Scafaria, if you’re reading this, please make it weird.
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Amazon MGM Picks Up Rebecca Yarros Romance Novel for Adaptation
Before she became the reigning queen of romantasy, Rebecca Yarros wrote good old-fashioned romance novels. The Last Letter, originally published in 2019, was reissued earlier this year and has just been picked up for adaptation after an “intense, high-value bidding war.” Amazon MGM won the rights with an offer “in the $200,000 range and a potential $2 million purchase price and hefty backends,” which The Hollywood Report‘s Borys Kit notes is “an impressive deal for something that is intended to be a mid-budget adult drama.” Smart money says we’ll see this adaptation well before Amazon’s TV adaptation of Fourth Wing sees the light of day, if it ever does.
Dark Academia Horror for the Girlies
I’ve had my eye on Olivie Blake’s Girl Dinner for a while now, but I’ve been hesitant because my experiences with other BookTok faves—yes, I’ve read It Ends With Us and Fourth Wing—has been, let’s just say, not great. A thoughtful recommendation like this from a smart person whose taste I trust is exactly what I’ve been waiting for.