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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.<\/p>\n
Big Book Season Has Officially Begun<\/p>\n
The race for Book of the Year is R.F. Kuang\u2019s to lose. With its August 26 release date, Katabasis<\/a> is either the last heavily anticipated book of summer to hit shelves or the first Big Book of Fall\u2014why not both?\u2014and this wide-ranging New Yorker profile<\/a> confirms my suspicion that the 29-year-old author, who is publishing her sixth novel while she completes a PhD at Yale, is one of the most dynamic figures in the world of books and reading. Everything about Katabasis is interesting. It\u2019s a Dante-inspired adventure infused with magic, and it\u2019s a satire of academia. It\u2019s packaged like a BookTok romantasy hit<\/a> complete with stenciled edges and illustrated endpapers, but the writing leans literary and rewards some familiarity with the classical canon. If anybody has a shot at crossover success that pleases the algorithm and the literati alike, it\u2019s Kuang. This one\u2019s going to be fun to watch.<\/p>\n Wuthering Heights is Getting Weird<\/p>\n Hold onto your bustle. Saltburn creator Emerald Fennell\u2019s adaptation of <\/a>Wuthering Heights<\/a> hits the big screen on Valentine\u2019s Day, and test audiences are calling it \u201caggressively provocative and tonally abrasive.\u201d It also sounds extremely NSFW. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi star as Catherine and Heathcliff in the new \u201cdeliberately unromantic\u201d spin on Emily Bront\u00eb\u2019s gothic romance that will surely launch a thousand takes. I\u2019m rarely concerned about an adaptation negatively impacting its source material, and this is no exception. Bront\u00eb is going to be just fine, but I\u2019ll admit, it would be fun to have a reason to use \u201cWuthering Yikes\u201d as a headline.<\/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 A Pathway for Reading Pynchon<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve noticed, but there are too many books! So many! It\u2019s impossible to catch \u2019em all, but sometimes it\u2019s fun to play catch-up. If, like me, you\u2019re newly interested in Thomas Pychon<\/a> because One Battle After Another looks pretty great, here\u2019s a guide to getting into him.<\/p>\n New Mysteries to Read This Fall<\/p>\n We\u2019ve got murder at a Chicago soul food cafe. We\u2019ve got a YA graphic novel about the It Girl who is found dead after opening night of her high school production of Romeo and Juliet. We\u2019ve got works in translation and an Indigenous YA tale. Here are a bunch of great mysteries to keep you captivated this fall.<\/a><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t