Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
Free George R. R. Martin from The Winds of Winter
As part of “Spicy Takes Week” at Polygon, Maddy Myers takes a new angle on the unprecedented situation George R.R. Martin finds himself in. Rather than urge Martin on or call for infinite patience, she says it could be that Martin just doesn’t want to finish the book (or can’t or doesn’t know how)—in short Martin is in a literary cage of his own making, but rather than have to make his own key to escape in the form of publishing the next book, he can simply recognize that he can walk out any time. And the most radical bit of Myers’ argument isn’t that Martin should consider it, but rather that we should accept, and possibly even encourage it—not just to free Martin but also to prevent a half-hearted or half-baked or some other half-intended book to come out, which would serve neither Martin nor readers. I suspect that the stakes are too high—economically, personally, and professionally—for this to happen, but it is thought I had not seen expressed before now.
Girl Dad Press, Focusing on Trans Authors and Artists, Launches
The first project will be a rerelease of 2 Trans 2 Furious: An Extremely Serious Journal of Transgender Racing Studies that the Girl Dad Press co-founders, Niko Stratis and Tuck Woodstock, self-published last year. In addition to supporting trans creators, Stratis and Woodstock want to support their work that is especially “genre-defying.” Seems they are off to a good start.
Shogun Leads TV Contenders with 25 Emmy Nominations
It’s the best TV show I’ve seen this year, and I really can’t think of a category in which it is nominated that it doesn’t have a strong chance of winning—all 25 of them. if it wins for Best Drama Series, would it be the first TV show to do so where most of the dialogue is in a language other than English? The other notable adaptations getting nominations are The Three Body Problem and Slow Horses. I like all three, but Shogun, man. Shogun.