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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.
Hamtopia?
The visual stunner that was Nomadland (adapted from Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder) turned me into a big Chloé Zhao fan, so it is with great enthusiasm that I announce news for Zhao’s upcoming film–another adaptation–Hamnet, based on the book of the same name by Maggie O’Farrell. Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley are now attached to star in the film as William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes, respectively, in the story fictionalizing the untimely death of their son and the creation of Hamlet. Irish actors are fire right now. O’Farrell and Zhao worked together on the screenplay for the internationally bestselling book. Hamnet‘s limited release begins November 27 around the release of Zootopia 2 ahead of a nationwide release on December 12.
More Casting News But Make It Games of Hunger
Let’s keep it easy-breezy this Friday with the fun stuff: we have Sunrise on the Reaping casting news! The Hunger Games prequel can’t stop won’t stop making headlines and it is kinda wild that we’re already getting casting news for the adaptation of a book that hit shelves a mere month ago. Anyway, the rumors were wrong about Haymitch Abernathy and Lenore Dove Baird. Joseph Zada will play Abernathy and Whitney Peak will play Haymitch’s girlfriend. It sounds like Zada and Peak both are in the early stages of their careers; starring roles in a franchise as big as the Hunger Games can really put an actor on the map, so congratulations to them! The Hollywood Reporter story doesn’t include any other casting notes, so we’ll see if the rumors play out with Coriolanus Snow, Drusilla, and other familiar names.
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Diary of a Wimpy Kid Author Will Donate SO MANY Books
Here’s a nice one to end your week on. With the 20th book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series nigh, the books’ author Jeff Kinney has announced that he’ll donate 20,000 books a month, every month until he hits 160,000 books donated nationwide, in partnership with the nonprofit First Book. The books will go to underserved communities across the country. Read all about it here.
The top five most read books on Goodreads this week look pretty familiar, and that’s because they’re the same as last week, just with #2 and #3 swapped. To make it more interesting, I’ve added in the top five most popular books on the StoryGraph this week, too. This isn’t a one-to-one comparison, because the most popular books on the StoryGraph includes titles that have been added as want to read, not just the most read. There is overlap between the two, but there are also some differences.
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