Each week, The Hollywood Reporter will offer up the best new (and newly relevant) books that everyone will be talking about — whether it’s a tome that’s ripe for adaptation, a new Hollywood-centric tell-all or the source material for a hot new TV show.
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Small Game by Blair Braverman (WME)
The author, who appeared on Naked and Afraid in 2018, channeled her experience on the reality show (and from her competitive dog-sledding past) into this twisty thriller about contestants on a survival series abandoned in the wilderness by a TV crew.
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The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler (WME)
Octopi are having a moment in pop culture, and in this work of literary fiction with shades of Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, a doctor hired by a tech firm travels to a remote archipelago to investigate a very smart, very dangerous new species of cephalopod.
Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades (Gotham Group)
Sort of a Now and Then for these times, this multi-narrative debut novel goes deep into the vibrant blocks of eastern Queens to trace the lives of five young girlfriends as they come of age in a city full of endless opportunity — and endless heartbreak.
Dickens and Prince by Nick Hornby (Casarotto Ramsay & Associates)
The author who brought us High Fidelity and About a Boy has a new obsession: what he describes as the cosmic link between Charles Dickens and Prince. Here, he explores their personal lives, their prolific creativity, and mutual flamboyance in material ripe for a documentary.
Recommended Reading
A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney
In January 2018, Rob Delaney’s two-year-old son, Henry, died of cancer. Now, nearly five years later, the actor-comedian has channeled his grief into words. The result is a memoir, in the vein of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, that allows the reader into the dark recesses of a mind that’s been nearly destroyed by the utmost tragedy. The reading experience is as painful as it sounds, but — especially in our current cultural state of overstimulation bordering on numbness — it’s an essential exercise in empathy.
Aesthetica by Allie Rowbottom
The plot of Rowbottom’s debut novel follows a 35-year-old former Instagram celebrity as she spends the night in a luxury hotel while getting ready to undergo a new surgery (called Aesthetica) that reverses her past cosmetic procedures and altercations. What the book really does is examine — and occasionally eviscerate — everything from social media consumption, to vanity, feminism, the city of Los Angeles and beyond.
