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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.
And the Giller Prize Goes to…
Souvankham Thammavongsa for a book I really want to read. Thammavongsa is now a two-time winner of the Giller, Canada’s prestigious literary prize awarding C$100,000 for excellence in Canadian fiction. The author’s most recent win is for her buzzy new novel, Pick a Color, while her 2020 win was for her short story collection, How to Pronounce Knife. As Publishers Weekly points out, numerous authors declined to have their books considered for the prize due to sponsors’ ties to Israeli arms manufacturing, defense, and settlements. Read more about the protests and the uncertain future of the Giller.
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Keep Charlotte’s Web Out Your Mouth
Martha White, the granddaughter of Charlotte’s Web author E.B. White, clapped back at the Trump administration after the Department of Homeland Security announced the launch of “Operation Charlotte’s Web” in North Carolina. In case you were confused, this operation is not an unlikely DHS kids reading program but a series of raids in Charlotte launched by federal immigration officials. A border patrol official quoted the following passage from the kid lit classic: “Wherever the wind takes us. High, low. Near, far. East, west. North, south. We take to the breeze, we go as we please.” Talk about spinning silver into crud. Martha White responded in a statement shared with CNN, saying her grandfather “certainly didn’t believe in masked men, in unmarked cars, raiding people’s homes and workplaces without IDs or summons. He didn’t condone fearmongering.” Hear hear.
A New Sense and Sensibility
I’m an Emma Thompson fan so Ang Lee’s 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility will forever be my one true adaptation, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to put the upcoming Daisy Edgar-Jones version on my calendar. Edgar-Jones, also of that other notable adaptation, Normal People, will be our Elinor in the version directed by Georgia Oakley and scripted by Diana Reid. Call me basic, but I can’t get enough of the ubiquitous awkward advances and class friction in Austen’s most popular works, including this one. This story sits right up there with Pride and Prejudice for me. We’ll have to wait until September 2026 to see it in theaters, but I look forward to impending trailers. In the meantime, I leave you with this, because I don’t like to suffer alone: the Thompson Sense and Sensibility celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.
Picking the best books of the year was no easy task, but we sure had a lot of fun doing it. This year brought us romances that left us swooning, horror that made us sleep with the lights on, and magical stories that swept us away. It gave us memoirs that moved us, nonfiction that expanded our worldview, poetry to ground us when we needed it most, and so much more. We present you with our picks for the best books of 2025!The Best Nonfiction Books of 2025
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