Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are the biggest headlines from last week, including the new trailer for The Odyssey, Oprah’s next book club pick, and more.
Watch the Official New Trailer for The Odyssey
Last month, we were hearing about all the adaptation trailer sneak peeks at CinemaCon. Now, some of them are finally releasing, including the official new trailer for The Odyssey. It stars Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, and Robert Pattinson, among many other stars, and the YouTube comments on the trailer are having a field day with the Spider-Man and Bryce Wayne jokes.
Five Publishers and Scott Turow Sue Meta and Mark Zuckerberg
It’s likely that as soon as you read the headline, you can guess what the lawsuit is about. Publishers Hachette, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, Elsevier and Cengage, alongside bestselling author Scott Turow, are suing Meta and Mark Zuckerberg for copyright infringement, claiming that the company and its founder illegally used works to train its artificial intelligence program, Llama. As an author, I welcome this kind of action and hope we see a resolution akin to what happened with Anthropic. We teach children in school that you can’t copy and paste someone else’s work without attribution because that’s called plagiarism, but AI companies don’t seem to heed that very simple standard.
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250 for 250 Booklist
Many an outlet–ourselves included–have embarked on “best of the century so far” style lists over the last year or two, but Brooklyn Public Library’s gone one step further. In honor of colonized America’s 250th anniversary, they’ve curated a list of 250 of the best books for 250 years. It’s a monster of a list, and it’s a damn good one, too. You can play around with various filters and genres, too. I dig the “beautiful covers” filter, and I appreciate how thoughtful the short reasons why the title was included are.
And Oprah’s Next Book Club Pick Is…
It’s that time: Oprah’s Book Club has selected John of John by Douglas Stuart for her next pick. This one isn’t necessarily a surprise, as Stuart’s book has been highly anticipated. But in a sea of possible book club options for May, perhaps it’s not the one many thought she’d go with–Kathryn Stockett’s first book since her 2009 debut, The Help, called The Calamity Club, came out, too, and seemed prime for this (and other) celebrity book clubs.
Judge Rules Trump Administration’s Cancellation of Humanities Grants Was Unconstitutional
In the last couple of months, numerous cases filed against the Trump administration in the wake of gutting agencies and programs have seen rulings come down. We saw the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) come out on top in the case filed by 21 state attorneys general, and we saw the second case about the IMLS, filed by the American Library Association and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, be settled out of court.
Cleveland Libraries Offer Free Gun Safes, and More Library News
We’ve got another roundup of library, censorship, and publishing updates. Among the stories are the Top 10 Banned Books of 2025, Cleveland libraries offering free gun safes and locks, and a battle over funding for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Let’s jump in.
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