Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
A Bittersweet Farewell
Francine Pascal, a legend of millennial YA literature, has died at the age of 92. If you’re under the age of 30 or so, you came of age in a book world with robust YA offerings, and I sincerely love that for you. For those of us who grew up in the late ’80s and early ’90s, though, young adult literature wasn’t really a thing. Back then, the library had a “teen” section, and it was mostly populated with thrillers by Lois Duncan and R.L. Stine (where my Fear Street girlies at?) and Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley High series, which was what you graduated to reading when you decided you were too old to admit that you still loved The Baby-Sitters Club.
Pascal created the SVH series “after a friend remarked to Pascal there was no teen version of 1980s soap “Dallas.”” Teen readers ate it up. The extended SVH universe, which grew to contain hundreds of titles including spin-off prequel and sequel series, ultimately sold more than 200 million copies (that’s about 10x Colleen Hoover’s total book sales, for scale), inspired a 4-season TV series, and arguably paved the way for a generation-defining wave of teen entertainment like Beverly Hills 90210 and Dawson’s Creek. For this elder millennial, Sweet Valley High was a bridge between kids’ books and adult fiction and fodder for dreaming of a near-future filled with adolescent shenanigans, cool friends, kissing, and adventure. We should all be so lucky, even if we grow up to realize that no one is actually cool until at least their mid-thirties. Thanks for the memories, Francine Pascal. Fare thee well.
The Booker Prize Longlist is Here
The longlist for the Booker Prize, which honors “the best sustained work of fiction written in English and published in the UK and Ireland,” has been revealed, and American writers are repping hard. Judges chose the 13 titles from a pool of 156 books published between October 1, 2023 and September 30, 2024—I am once again pleading with literary awards to please for the love of god sync your calendars with the actual calendar—and 6 of them are by authors from the US. I’m pulling hard for James by Percival Everett and would be equally delighted to see Tommy Orange recognized for Wandering Stars, which seems to have gotten a bit lost in the year’s discourse. The shortlist will be announced September 16, and the award will be given on November 12. Who’s your money on? Sound off in the comments.
The Trojan Horse Approach to Diverse Reading
Casey McQuiston rocketed to the top of bestseller lists and and best-of compilations in 2019 with their debut, Red, White & Royal Blue, and they haven’t slowed down since. Refusing to pigeonhole themselves to one lane, McQuiston followed the breakout gay romance between a British prince and the son of the American president with “sapphic mass-transit time-traveling romance” One Last Stop and I Kissed Shara Wheeler, a novel about growing up queer in a conservative Christian community in the south. Now, with The Pairing (coming out August 6), McQuiston is aiming to expand readers’ ideas about trans romance. In a fun and far-ranging interview with Vulture, they discuss the big tent of contemporary romance readership and their desire to cater not just to the white-hot center of romance fandom but also to more casual, mainstream readers who might pick up the new book at Target and have no idea the characters are queer.
“You’re gonna be 60 percent of the way in before you know that’s what you’re reading, and I have now Trojan-horsed you into reading a trans romance,” they say. “I’m really interested in those people, too. I think they have often been underestimated.”
More like this, please.
Horror is Heating Up
I’m a weenie, so I probably won’t be reading any of these 10 new horror books coming out in August, but if you’re made of sturdier stuff, you should check out that list.