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| It’s Oscar season, Friend, and even the bookish aren’t immune. Catch up with the books behind this year’s Best Adapted Screenplay and other nominations, and check in with a writer whose works would make truly terrifying movies. Plus, happy birthday to our fave farm boy. |
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Critical Love
Kelly Barnhill’s fairytale retelling was one of Buzzfeed’s Most Anticipated Books of 2023, and Publishers Weekly says it lives up to the hype, writing that readers will be “enthralled.” Booklist agrees, calling it “a fast-moving, lush story.” |
 | | The Crane Husband | | A 15-year-old girl attempts to protect her younger brother as her unreliable mother is drawing deeper into a relationship with a crane in this dark fantasy. | | Add to reading list |
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The Big Debut
Author Melinda Moustakis was a National Book Award Foundation 5 under 35 honoree. Her debut hits shelves this week with raves from critics, including Kirkus, which calls it “evocative [and] well-drawn.” |
 | | Homestead | | After the briefest courtship, a young couple throw themselves into homesteading in the Alaskan wilderness in the 1950s. As they face the reality of surviving the beautiful but harsh climate, they also face how little they truly know about each other. | | Add to reading list |
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 | Bookworld |
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🎄 The…the…the… GRINCH is getting a sequel 65 years after its first publication.
🎈 Stephen King’s It prequel series Welcome to Derry is coming to HBO Max.
🍸 James Bond books to get a modern makeover after sensitivity reviews.
🏆 See the finalists for the Audie Awards’ Audiobook of the Year! |
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 | The Introduction |
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| Breaking the Mold of Horror’s “Final Girl” Trope |
The Book
In this tense and bloody sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw, Jade Daniels is back in the small town where she barely survived her senior year. Unfortunately for Jade, she’s not the only new arrival in town—convicted serial killer Dark Mill South has escaped from prison, and he’s determined to finish what he started: revenge for the murder of 38 Dakota men hanged in 1862.
The Author
Stephen Graham Jones is a New York Times-bestselling and award-winning writer who Esquire called “a genuine horror superstar.” He talked to fellow bestseller Rebecca Roanhorse about Don’t Fear the Reaper.
Rebecca Roanhorse: Jade has a problem even believing that she is a ‘final girl’ in the first book. What is a final girl for those who don't know?
Stephen Graham Jones: The final girl is the only one who has the power, the resolve, the tenacity, to stand up to the slasher. And over the decades the final girl has been put on successively taller pedestals until she's basically out of reach. We can no longer identify with her because we're not that perfect, which is what Jade's dilemma is. I mean, she's not a white girl for one, and she doesn't fit what she sees as a mold—this perfect, perky cheerleader. What I hope to do with this trilogy is establish that being a final girl is not about what's on the outside, it's about what you got on the inside. It's about your heart.
RB: Can you talk about how you bring native resistance and resilience into the idea of the final girl?
SGJ: I do think this idea of a single champion is a product of the Westernization of the world a little bit. It's not about a single wolf rising up and being the champion of everyone. It's about everybody working together. I would like to see that back into the world if I could. Maybe it'll make us take care of each other and the world better. I mean, that's a lofty goal for fiction, but if you don't aim high, you probably are not aiming anywhere.
Stephen Graham Jones Recommends: |
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 | | Come Home, Indio | | SGJ: “I’m so impressed with this book. It’s easy to read a comic book real fast, but I’m trying to make it last, I don’t want it to be over.” | | Add to reading list |
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 | | Maeve Fly | | SGJ: “The best book I’ve read that’s coming out soon. People are comparing it to American Psycho because it gets pretty intense and gory. But, it’s really just so finely written.” | | Add to reading list |
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 | The Highlight |
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| “Ah yes, a certain degree of rebelliousness is expected from youth. It is why we have stories of treasure-seeking princesses and warrior women that end with the occasional happiness.” |
 | | The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi | | A legendary pirate comes out of retirement to rescue a girl (and earn a hefty sum), but the rescue goes awry in this playful, action-packed series starter. | | Add to reading list |
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 | 20 Words: Guess The Novel |
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| A writer offers extensive footnotes and commentary to the abridged tale of a princess, a pirate, and a farm boy. | |
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| Answer in footer |
 | The Stack |
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| The Books Behind the Nominees |
| Every Academy Award season brings a new crop of movies based on books. Some are loose adaptations, others offer faithful recreations of every story beat. From century-old classics to contemporary award-winners, these are the books behind this year’s Oscar-nominated films. |
 | | All Quiet on the Western Front | | This classic, originally written in German and translated into English, follows a group of German boys who enlist to fight in WWI. The adaptation is nominated for nine Academy Awards. | | Add to reading list |
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 | | Women Talking | | A group of women in an isolated Mennonite community grapple with the best response to repeated attacks. Sarah Polley’s adaptation is nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. | | Add to reading list |
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 | | The Death of Ivan Ilyich | | A man facing a sudden terminal illness grapples with the way he has spent his life. Living, which is nominated for two Oscars, is a remake of a 1952 Kurosawa movie Ikiru, which was inspired by Tolstoy’s classic. | | Add to reading list |
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 | Page to Screen |
|  | | Carmen | | Oscar nominee Paul Mescal and Scream VI breakout star Melissa Barrera shine in the new teaser for the modern adaptation of Prosper Mérimée’s French novella Carmen. | | View Trailer |
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