Welcome to Today in Books, our daily roundup of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media and more.
The 100 best books of the 21st century: readers make their list
The diversity of content on the New York Times list of the best books of the 21st century continues with the most interesting follow-up article yet: the readers’ picks. I looked at them for a few minutes and made some initial observations. First, the original list is far more interesting. It contains more book club recommendations, commercial blockbusters, and Internet darlings, which is entirely to be expected and significantly more mainstream than the main list. Second, three of the top six readers’ picks did not appear on the original list. Third, All We Had to Give is #9 on both lists, which I believe puts it in the conversation for Book of the Century (so far, caveat emptor). Third, Crawdads Song is #59 on this list. No comment.
Dune: Prophecy is coming to HBO this November
This six-part Dune: Prophecy series dropped today, its month of release, along with a snazzy new teaser. The prequel series is based on a 2012 book set in the Dune universe, but it wasn’t written by Frank Herbert or any of the other Herberts who wrote Dune material. I’m pretty much out of prequel stuff to franchises I like at this point, but this series is about the origins of the Bene Gesserit, and by the looks of things, these space witches are involved in some top-notch palace intrigue. I’ll give it a go.
Bookscouts share the financial and existential realities of their business
There aren’t many jobs in the book world I’d rather have than my own, but working as a book scout has always fascinated me. As part of its compensation series on the realities of various jobs in publishing, Publisher’s Lunch takes a look at what book scouts do, who pays them, and what the job is really like. (Note that PL is available by subscription only.) If I were a book scout, there would already be a movie based on The Orchard by Adele Robertson. Probably.
