Happy Friday, dear nonfiction readers! Between the weather and the news and life in general, it’s really been A WEEK for just about everyone in my immediate circles. But we’re so close to the weekend, let’s get some nonfiction news and just power through. This week we’ve got more adaptations, more fact-checking, and charming Grammy win. Let’s go!
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I feel like we’ve been hearing chatter about an adaptation of Eric Larson’s The Devil in the White City, but we finally got some concrete news this week. The adaptation is coming to Hulu as a series produced by Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio! According to IndieWire, DiCaprio has been involved since rights for the project were picked up in 2010, but this is the most solid news yet.
The plagiarism and fact-checking storm around Jill Abramson’s new book, Merchants of Truth, had another twist late last week. Abramson initially denied the accusation, suggesting on Twitter that those who were critical were just mad about how their organization was portrayed. Shortly after, Abramson issued a statement to the Associated Press admitting some fault. She noted there are some issues with the page numbers in the notes section, and that “some sources ‘should have been cited as quotations in the text.’” More to come, I assume.
If you still want more about Elizabeth Holmes and the scandal around her company, Theranos, Refinery29 has been doing some interesting reporting on the story, including this look at what her ex-boyfriend and former COO, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, is doing now. And, of course, I will never stop recommending Bad Blood by John Carreyrou.
You have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of this Vulture article to get to the good stuff: Comedy Central is developing a show based on Samantha Irby’s 2013 essay collection Meaty. Two of the show’s executive producers, Abbi Jacobson and Jessi Klein, both come from tv backgrounds and are both authors of their own essay collections, I Might Regret This and You’ll Grown Out of It, respectively.
On Sunday, former President Jimmy Carter won a Grammy Award for his audiobook Faith: A Journey for All. This is his second Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album. He previously won in 2016 for his audiobook A Full Life, Reflections at Ninety. The article linked above has some other fun facts about presidential Grammy awards.
And that’s all the news that made it on my radar this week. You can find me on Twitter @kimthedork, on email at kim@riotnewmedia.com, and co-hosting the For Real podcast here at Book Riot. Happy reading! – Kim