What to Read Right Now: Timely Books With Hollywood Appeal

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Each month, 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.

Rights Available

Small World by Laura Zigman (WME)

The author follows the cohabitation of two sisters forced to reunite after their respective divorces; they reckon with traumatic childhoods and navigate their anxieties in a tender, funny novel that proves the smallest stories can have the biggest heart.

Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan (Susanna Lee Associates)

Set in 1980s Sri Lanka, the story centers on young protagonist Sashi, whose dream of becoming a doctor is derailed amid civil war. Her morality is tested as she joins a group of activists documenting human rights violations.

Vintage Contemporaries by Dan Kois (The Gernert Company)

This novel about a young, broke literary assistant who becomes a successful book editor (and a new mother struggling for balance) muses on the politics of friendship, what we owe people from our past, and sacrifices we’re forced to make to live a creative life.

The Reunion by Kayla Olson (Root Literary)

This frothy novel offers up the fictional behind-the-scenes of a cast reunion we didn’t know we needed — here, it’s the stars of a once-popular teen drama series coming back together — with a bit of fan-fiction love story thrown in the mix.

The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes (WME)

Reese Witherspoon’s first book club pick of 2023 is, somehow, still up for adaptation grabs — it’s a spooky story about a woman who is forced to return to her Berkshires hometown to reinvestigate the long-ago death of her high school best friend.

Recommended Reading

Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey

Heisey, a comedian who has written for Schitt’s Creek, opens her novel first with a Louise Glück poem and then with a chapter devoted to listing the reasons her protagonist’s marriage ended (selections include “because he liked electronic music and difficult films about men in nature” and “because I was clingy at parties” and “because I was a coward whose work did not actively seek to dismantle the state”). From there, the story of a young woman’s attempt to figure herself out as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée (her words) unfolds with prose that ranges deliciously from slapstick to sentimental and back again. It almost — almost — makes a person want to get divorced just for the incredibly good story.