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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.
Harlequin Is Ending Its Historical Romance Line After Nearly 40 Years
Even as romance has become the dominant genre in modern book publishing, not all segments have benefitted equally. If you would have told me these two things 10 years ago, I would not have been able to comprehend what you were talking about. First, that romance would be as huge as it is today. Second, at the same time, Harlequin would be shutting down its historical romance line. And the reason for my amazement would be romantasy’s rise combined with the ascendance, to the tune of cultural juggernauts, of commercial romance. This also feels like I time that, if I could, I would buy historical romance on the dip. Maybe it is because Wuthering Heights is projected to do very well at the box office this weekend and maybe it is because I can’t shake my priors about how many readers have loved historical romance.
Hamnet Doing Great Business at the Box Office….and at the Bookstore
Hamnet has already doubled its $35 million production budget at the box office, with the majority coming from international markets. The spillover effect for the book has been even more signficant, with sales increasing more than 700%. Hamnet had already entered paperback-favorite territory, so this is even more fuel to the fire. And, as we got into at length, the book deserves it as it is very, very good.
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Orhan Pamuk’s First Adaptation Comes to Netflix this Weekend
It is a testament to the size and fragmentation of the streaming landscape that I, someone who both likes the work of Pamuk and also follows book news for a living, did not know that an adaptation of The Museum of Innocence was releasing on Netflix this weekend. A signal adaptation can do wonders for a writer’s profile, but this piece about the long road to get to this adaptation made shows that Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature, cared more about having a good adaptation rather than just getting one out at all. You can check out the trailer for The Museum of Innocence here.
Rebecca and I power rank the 10 most important, influential, and otherwise impactful books of 2016. How things have changed.