This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.<\/p>\n
Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.<\/p>\n
The 25 Best Dystopian Novels of All Time<\/p>\n
Do you remember your first dystopian book? My sixth grade teacher read The Giver<\/a> aloud to my class over the course of a week or two, and I\u2019ve spent the last thirty years trying to recover. I must not be alone because Lois Lowry\u2019s genre gateway drug is among Entertainment Weekly\u2018s 25 best dystopian books of all time<\/a>. It\u2019s a solid list with a wide variety of nightmare hellscapes and timelines to choose from and a welcome reminder that while the current political situation has sent dystopian stories back to the bestsellers list<\/a>, writers have been imagining the worst versions of society for centuries.<\/p>\n Win a 1-year subscription to Book of the Month<\/a>! Imagine this: every month, for a year, you get to choose from new releases, curated by the Book of the Month team. Enter today.<\/p>\n Bookshop.org Sales Are Soaring<\/p>\n Hold onto your butts. Bookshop.org has reported a 65% year-over-year increase<\/a> in sales in the first half of 2025. This would be an eye-popping number any time, but it\u2019s especially remarkable since industry-wide sales are down so far this year<\/a>. CEO Andy Hunter attributes $1 million of the additional revenue\u2014just 5% of overall sales\u2014to Bookshop.org\u2019s better-late-than-never ebook platform, which launched in January and another $1.5 million to its recent Anti-Prime Sale<\/a>. What\u2019s driving the rest of the growth? My best guess is that anti-Amazon sentiment and consumer boycotts <\/a>have hit a tipping point with the kind of left-leaning, middle- and upper-middle-class readers who are willing and able to pay a premium to avoid supporting companies whose policies conflict with their personal and political values. And it doesn\u2019t hurt that inflation and tariffs seem to have lessened Amazon\u2019s ability to offer deeper discounts and faster shipping than other book retailers. <\/p>\n Today In Books<\/p>\n Sign up to Today In Books to receive daily news and miscellany from the world of books.<\/p>\n The Percival Everett Glow-Up Continues<\/p>\n Sterling K. Brown, Da\u2019Vine Joy Randolph, and Winston Duke are in talks to star in a limited-series adaptation of Percival Everett\u2019s 2022 novel The Trees<\/a>, to be written by Marcus Gardley (The Chi, Foundation, The Color Purple). The Trees<\/a> is a crime thriller set in Money, Mississippi that addresses racism, police violence, and the history of lynching. The project has reportedly sparked a bidding war, which is great news for all of us who can\u2019t wait to see another Everett adaptation in the hands of real pros. The 2023 film American Fiction, which won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, was based on his 2011 novel Erasure. The Trees would be Brown\u2019s second appearance in a work inspired by Everett; he was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in American Fiction.<\/p>\n The Day\u2019s Best Ebook Deals<\/p>\n We round up the best ebook deals of the day<\/a> every day, and today\u2019s are extra tasty. The Round House<\/a> by Louise Erdrich for $2.99. Lincoln in the Bardo<\/a> by George Saunders for $1.99 (perfect timing to catch up before his new novel, Vigil<\/a>, a companion to Bardo, comes out in January). Demon Copperhead<\/a> for $2.99. Gulp<\/a> by Mary Roach for $1.99. Rust in the Root<\/a> by Justina Ireland for $1.99. It\u2019s too hot to function. Stock up your ereader and have yourself a nice afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Welcome…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[353,49,48,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-35684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}