Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
George RR Martin to Reveal What’s Gone Wrong with HOUSE OF THE DRAGON
I think it is time to admit that George RR Martin is messy. As if the plot of Song of Ice and Fire weren’t enough, his shots at the Game of Thrones series end, his own decade-plus “I promise I am writing for realskies” updates, and now a tease on his blog: “I do not look forward to other posts I need to write, about everything that’s gone wrong with HOUSE OF THE DRAGON… but I need to do that too, and I will.” The best hope for HBO and HotD execs is that this promise comes to fruition on a timetable similar to The Winds of Winter.
Sales, Earnings Rose at Penguin Random House in the First Half of 2024
It’s not clear to me exactly why the average reader might/should care about how publishers are doing, but if you are interested in the industry overall, it definitely matters. And if PRH’s results for the first half are indicative, the book industry has well and truly turned the corner from the malaise of 2022 and 2023. Sales are up and so are profits. And the best-selling PRH tiles of the year? First Lie Wins (thank TikTok for that one). And if you didn’t know, Dr. Seuss is a golden goose, with more than 5.5 million copies sold.
PRH UK’s ‘Lit in Colour’ Book-Vending Machine
In partnership with a trust dedicated to racial equality, PRH UK has installed a Lit in Colour book vending machine in a Scottish school. It has more than 70 different titles, and PRH has contributed more than 900 books for it. (I cannot tell from the article if these are free or discounted, or what). The most interesting tidbit in this piece, though, is this statistic from a study about the (non)presence of books by writers of color in schools: a survey found that less than one percent of GSCE students had studied a book by a writer of color.