Every week, The Hollywood Reporter features the best new (and newly relevant) books that everyone will be talking about — whether it’s a tome ripe for adaptation, a new Hollywood-centric tell-all, or the source material for a hot new TV show.
Available rights
The book of the goose by Yiyun Li (The Wylie Agency)
The prolific author’s latest novel takes a bit of atmosphere and background from Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels (two girls growing up in a European city eventually become estranged), but adds a juicy secret about literary fraud at the center of the story. story.
Creep: a love story by Lydia Day Penaflor (Grandview)
This YA thriller follows the golden couple of a private high school, Laney and Nico – beautiful, popular and seemingly in love – from the perspective of an interlocking fellow student whose admiration quickly turns into a dangerous obsession.
The best friends by Kamila Shamsie (A. M. Heath)
Moving from Karachi to London, this lighthearted, sweet novel begins as two teenage girls witness the historic election of Benazir Bhutto and follow their relationship through adulthood. What seems like a simple friendship story keeps you guessing.
Stay honest by Hua Hsu (UTA)
The New Yorker staff writer has nearly achieved rock star status with his 1990s coming-of-age memoir: His Brooklyn launch party this fall drew more than 400 fans, an honor befitting his beautiful, heartbreaking story about a young friendship that ended tragically.
The hero of this book by Elizabeth McCracken (Dunow, Carlson & Lerner)
McCracken is known for her wonderfully unusual novels and short stories (like the one from 2019 bowling alley)but she gets a little more sincere in this story of a woman who returns to her mother’s favorite city after her death in an attempt to reconcile her grief and explore a life lived.
Recommended literature
Our missing hearts by means of Celeste Ng
The last of the Little fires everywhere The author reads, at first, surprisingly dystopian. It takes place in an unspecified year when a nasty combination of nationalism, xenophobia and anti-Asian sentiment has created a law known as the Preserving American Cultures and Traditions Act – it bans books and other forms of independent thinking and outright encourages racism against anyone who appears to have ties to China—like the young son of a disappeared dissident poet flees to New York in search of her. But within that framework, Ng returns to her roots with a story about a family love and all the ways it can last.
Create a scene by means of Constance Wue
The Crazy Rich Asians actress writes revealing essay collection of entries about a children’s drama class, young love lost and her much-discussed time Hot off the press. Read Wu’s own words about the book in her interview of THR.