Cover Revealed for R.F. Kuang’s New Book

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Cover Revealed for R.F. Kuang’s New Book

Jeff O'Neal

February 5, 2025

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

Cover Revealed for R.F. Kuang’s New Book

And here it is:

With Onyx Storm already out, I think this might take the title of the most anticipated book of the year? Between The Poppy War, Babel, and Yellowface , Kuang has a very interesting and successful track record. This looks pretty squarely in the Bardugo/Susanna Clarke zone, which threads a sales and recognition adroitly: “”adark academia fantasy in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul—perhaps at the cost of their own.”

I will say this, if we were playing Madden 2025 but for publishing, I would very much consider taking Kuang #1 overall in franchise mode.

PEN/Faulkner Award Longlist Announced

The ten finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award were announced this week, and it is a mix of 2024’s award-season stalwarts and a few titles making I think their first appearance on a top-tier awards list (I have the PEN/Faulkner at #4 in my personal power ranking of awards given to a single book that Americans are eligible for). James here, unsurprisingly, along with Creation Lake and Colored Television. I would have predicted more mentions for The Mighty Red at this point, so its inclusion here bucks its relative shutout trend. Ghostroots is here and I am glad to see it. There are four or five titles here that would not have been on my top 50 guesses, and that’s always interesting to see.

NYPL’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism

I do this for a living, and yet I am still discovering cool book prizes. The Helen Bernstein finalists for Excellence in Journalism are not going to be the most fun reads of all time, but book-length works of journalism are just terrifically important. Of particular interest to Today in Books readers might be They Came for the Schools: One Town’s Fight Over Race and Identity, and the New War for America’s Classrooms by Mike Hixenbaugh.

Human Writing, LLMs, and the Challenges and Opportunities of Living in the Age of AI.

Really enjoyed talking with John Warner for First Edition about his new book, More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI . I relate to the suspicion, but find myself more interested in what LLMs reveal about what the use of writing, versus just production of text, are for thinking, creating, and just being a person. Listen here, or find First Edition wherever you get your podcasts.

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