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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
The Surprising OG of Hockey Smut
Heated Rivalry is a gift that keeps on giving for so many reasons, and the endless side-quests for content creators are not least among them. There’s something validating about realizing that not even The Gray Lady is immune to the gravitational pull of hockey smut’s big pop culture moment. To whit: Alexandra Alter, who regularly covers books and publishing for the NYT, has unearthed the fictionalized memoir about a female NHL player that Don DeLillo published under a pen name in 1980. Who doesn’t love “a gleeful sports sex romp?” Sounds like copies of Amazons are rare but not terribly expensive if you’re really looking to complete your hockey romance backlist.
Brick Your Phone, Part 23453902
What happens when you switch to a flip phone for a month? You annoy your friends, you get a little FOMO, and your brain starts to bounce back. Nothing really groundbreaking in Emma Russell’s tale of going analog, but if you’re looking for motivation to right-size your own relationship to technology, there’s this: “After about a week, I wasn’t reaching for my phone and I had the patience to read.” It feels like the cultural tide is really going to turn on smart phones, especially social media, in 2026, and I could not be more for it.
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The Testaments is Coming to Hulu
An adaptation of The Testaments, Margaret Atwood’s 2019 sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, is set to debut on Hulu April 8. One Battle After Another‘s remarkable Chase Infiniti leads the cast in the “dramatic coming of age story set in Gilead.” I didn’t make it past the first few episodes of season 1 of The Handmaid’s Tale—the real-world news cycle is more than enough for me—but I’m glad to see that Hulu continues to be willing to engage with stories like these in a cultural moment when corporate overlords are all too willing to bend the knee to the Trump-Vance administration’s threats against “woke” content. Fiction can provide an accessible entry point and powerful exposure to consciousness-raising ideas, and whatever impact the show may have is a net positive.
One of the Great Weirdos of Modern Literature
Much like its titular main character, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” is a lot less straightforward than many modern interpretations would have you believe. When Bartleby says, “I would prefer not to,” is he opting out of capitalism? Commenting on the dehumanizing nature of work? Being a weirdo just for the sake of it? Melville never tells us.
What you see in Bartleby is largely a product of what you want to see, and that’s part of the wonderful absurdity of the story. We had a hell of a time revisiting this English class staple on Zero to Well-Read, and we think you’ll have fun, too. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcatcher of choice.