1,001 ways to find a traitor
We loved Alwyn Hamilton's bestselling young adult fantasy Rebel of the Sand last year, which is set in the Arabian desert and is distinctly reminiscent of A Thousand and One Nights. Fans, young and old, will not have to wait long for a sequel. Traitor to the Throne is due out on March 7, in which gunslinger Amani al'Hiza will fight to liberate the desert nation of Miraji from a bloodthirsty sultan who killed his own father to seize power. Naturally, nothing is quite as it seems, and when she finds herself in the sultan's court, she realises that maybe he is not such a traitor to her homeland after all. Intrigued? Look out for our interview with Hamilton very soon.
And the Oscar goes to …
Unlike previous years, Oscar-nominated adaptations of fiction novels are thin on the ground this year. Still, that means there is more time to read the ones that did make the cut. Only one film in the Best Picture category is based on a work of fiction: science-fiction drama Arrival is based on the 1998 short story, Story of Your Life, by Ted Chiang. From the Best Foreign Language Film section, it is worth checking out the translation of Fredrik Backman's popular comedy drama A Man Called Ove – the Swedish film based on it is reportedly a treat, too. There are a couple of non-fiction adaptations up for Best Picture, though: heartbreaking drama Lion is based on Saroo Brierley and Larry Buttrose's A Long Way Home, while Nasa biopic Hidden Figures is based on the book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly.
1984... or 2017?
Some might suggest it was only a matter of time, but sales of George Orwell's seminal dystopian novel 1984 have dramatically spiked after Donald Trump's inauguration as president of the United States. Much of the renewed interest – it has been Amazon's No 1 seller in the past week – is attributed to adviser Kellyanne Conway's now infamous use of the term "alternative facts" in an interview about the administration's contentious claims about the numbers of people who attended and watched the inauguration. More than a little reminiscent of Orwell's "doublethink" idea, the all-seeing Big Brother's subsequent line, "the party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears", has also taken on an even greater resonance as a result.
