New celebrity book clubs launching this year, the most read books on Goodreads, plus news from the world of SF/F, libraries, YA, and more.
In early 2026, children’s author Chris Barton learned that his author visit with Alamo Heights Independent School District had been canceled. This happened after three parents complained that one of his books explored the history of glitter. The book included references to LGBTQ+ people, which was enough to prompt cancellation. Barton wasn’t going to be speaking about that book, nor about queer people through history. But the mere existence of that book in the author’s bibliography was enough to deny him and 1,600 students the visit. It was later revealed that the administration lied about the reason for the cancellation.
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Netflix attributes the popularity of their adaptations across the globe to the books themselves–good source material is key to producing a great adaptation. What’s tricky about adaptations, of course, is that what someone envisions as they read differs from reader to reader. What a producer and team do when developing an adaptation is create an interpretation of the book and build a story from that. There are constraints in the visual medium that don’t exist in the book format. That’s why some favorite scenes or secondary characters aren’t present in the film or television version; it’s also why other scenes or secondary characters take on more prominence.
And for All Access members, here are all the interesting links we bookmarked that didn’t make the cut for full Today in Books coverage.
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