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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.
No Joke, Mr. Beast and James Patterson Have Co-Authored a Book
It’s a thriller set around a competitive game not dissimilar to Squid Games–“Players fight to survive deadly tests held in dangerous locations around the world, as they battle to become ‘The One’”–and film rights are already on fire. Patterson is known to collaborate with celebrities including Viola Davis and Dolly Parton, and, while the books aren’t for me, I’d love to be a fly on the wall to witness firsthand what that process looks like. I suppose the pairing of two prolific commercial successes isn’t so out there–Mr. Beast is a YouTube creator with about 378M followers and helms a media empire that includes controversial Prime Video series Beast Games, and Patterson is the author of more than 200 books. My best guess is that Patterson’s co-authors act as ideas generators and the author of books you can’t escape at the airport filters and synthesizes those ideas until they look like a story, possibly with big help from collaborators/co-authors/ghostwriters/whatever you want to call them, possibly with less. In any case, studios are lapping up this newest collab and the partnership is likely to line their already overstuffed pockets. What a world we live in…
The Media News You Didn’t Know You Needed
Roxane Gay and Debbie Millman will be the new owners of major literary and culture magazine, The Rumpus. In an era of vast uncertainty for independent media, I’m glad to hear that good people are taking up the cause. Gay has an established relationship with the mostly volunteer-run mag as a founding essays editor, and Millman will bring a designer’s eye to the visual arts aspect of the magazine. As if this couldn’t be sweeter, Millman mentioned falling in love with Gay’s words through The Rumpus before falling in love with Gay herself (they’re married). In the announcement, current Publisher Alyson Sinclair who is transitioning leadership over to the pair said Gay and Millman “are committed to staying true to the magazine’s core mission of publishing both emerging and established risk-taking writers and artists whose work might not receive care or a large audience elsewhere.” I can’t wait to see what they do with the publication and wish it continued success.
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You Had Me at A24
I love what A24 is trying to do with film, so I was intrigued by this Simon & Schuster profile by The Cut, which asks if the Big 5 publisher can be the next A24. The profile focuses on S&S flagship publisher Sean Manning who’s characterized as a publishing outsider trying to do bold new things in an industry known for running at a snail’s pace. Remember the kerfuffle over the importance, or rather the uselessness, of blurbs? Manning was a big voice in that most recent conversation about the eternally contentious issue, kicking it off with a Publishers Weekly op-ed. He’s currently trying out something new with Bookstore Blitz, a Supermarket Sweep-style web series featuring authors on $100 bookstore shopping sprees. I’m genuinely curious about where this story will go and whether Manning’s experiments will pay off and be adopted by other pubs.
The Biggest BIPOC Books Out This Spring
Friends, we have so many great books to look forward to this season–I’m overwhelmed in the best kind of way. If you need someone to help you navigate the rich seas of publishing this spring, Erica’s got you with a list of big, buzzy BIPOC books hitting the shelves, including Ocean Vuong’s much-anticipated novel, The Emperor of Gladness.
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