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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.
Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground, will executive produce a series adaptation of S.A. Cosby’s All the Sinner’s Bleed. Cosby will also executive produce alongside Wakanda Forever‘s Joe Robert Cole who also serves as writer, showrunner, and director. But the newest news is that Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù (Gangs of London) will star as Titus Crown! Cosby’s 2023 mystery thriller follows Crown, one Virginia county’s first Black sheriff, as he investigates a serial killer in his hometown and runs up against a far-right group and Charon County’s grim history. This is sure to be a tense ride. A premiere date has yet to be released but the series will be streamable on Netflix.
As it chucked a rare and pristine copy of The Hobbit at your head. While this doesn’t exactly describe what rare books specialist Caitlin Riley experienced, she was no less astonished by the sight of such a gem amidst the detritus of an otherwise unremarkable house clean-out. The first-edition, first-impression copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic appeared fresh from the presses, which is, as Bayliss Rare Books owner Oliver Bayliss told The New York Times, “As rare as Smaug’s treasure, frankly.” Needless to say, it was the last thing Riley expected to see and it brought her to joyful tears. It might be that the owner knew C.S. Lewis and, through him, Tolkien. I’m as interested in the story of how this copy came into the possession of the Priestley family as I am about its current condition. Like, was it a ruefully accepted, regifted housewarming present from Lewis? The copy is currently at auction, so if you have £20,000 (as of writing this) to spare, you might be able to get your hands on this literary diamond and wonder at it in person.
Long Beach Public Library has joined Books Unbanned, the program started by Brooklyn Public Library providing teens access to books that might have been scrubbed from the shelves of their local libraries due to book banning efforts. Readers between the ages of 13 and 19 will be able to secure a digital library card for LBPL and borrow ebooks and audiobooks from their collections through Libby. “We just didn’t feel like, as a public library, we could just sit back and watch this happen,” Brooklyn Public Library spokesperson Fritzi Bodenheimer told the Long Beach Post, speaking on the motivation behind Books Unbanned. It’s heartbreaking that such a program has to exist in 2025 but heartening to know kids who might miss out on LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and so many other classic and groundbreaking books have options through this program.
If the S.A. Cosby adaptation news put you in a mystery/thriller adaptation mood, you’re in luck. We’ve got a roundup of the genre’s newest adaptations you can watch this month. Check them out here.
What are you reading? Let us know in the comments!
