Books

The feature, called Maven, lets you type prompts like, “show me fantasy audiobooks that I can complete on an 8-hour road trip.” Audible will then use AI to come up with matching audiobooks.

Audible is rolling out Maven as a beta to half of US-based users on Android and iOS. Amazon just debuted an AI-powered discovery feature on its Music app as well.

Even though you can’t see Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise in this new teaser for HBO’s It prequel series Welcome to Derry, it’s pretty obvious the clown’s going to be up to his regular, degular demonic tricks when he makes his small screen debut.

Interview With the Vampire’s second season finale closed out on Lestat (Sam Reid) getting together a band, and it looks like the group’s going to be the subject of a documentary when the show returns for season three.

Ahead of the season two premiere of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol in September, AMC has renewed the spinoff for third installment. The Walking Dead: Dead City, which debuts in 2025, has also been renewed for a second season, and a new trailer for the series teases how Maggie Green (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) reunite.

If you’ve been wrestling with the recent revelations about Alice Munro, Michelle Dean might have put it down best over at The Cut.

This piece is many things: a close reading of Munro’s work, an argument for what we can separate between an artist and their art, and ultimately a personal struggle evoked with lucidity in the face of moral ambiguity.

In his latest book, Microsoft software developer turned literature professor Dennis Yi Tenen takes us all the way back to 17th-century apps for a deep dive into computer science and literature’s intertwined history — and, as Tenen says, why it’s important our understanding of AI “become more grounded in the history of the humanities.”

Ahead of the season two finale of its Interview With the Vampire adaptation, AMC has renewed the show for a third season that will see Lestat become a touring rockstar trying to tell his tragic story through music.

HBO is banking on a new Harry Potter adaptation to ensure its future success, and the network announced today that the project will be written / executive produced by Francesca Gardiner (Succession, His Dark Materials) and directed by Mark Mylod (Game of Thrones, The Last of Us).

Say what you will about Marvel’s What If...? Disney Plus series, but it has obviously had at least some influence on Warner Bros.’ new animated Watchmen films that are scheduled to debut some time in the near future.

Comics legend Frank Miller has largely withdrawn from the public eye in recent years. But with the release of Frank Miller: American Genius — director Silenn Thomas’ new documentary — he’s opening his life back up to fans for one night only (June 10th) when the film hits Cinemark theaters across the country. New Yorkers can also catch an earlier screening on June 6th.

A24 has been selling physical copies of its films’ screenplays through its online store for a few years now, but the studio has just struck a deal with publisher Mack that will put its books in brick-and-mortar stores in in the U.S., Europe and Asia beginning this September.

Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks’ Shōgun adaptation was originally meant to conclude after its first season, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, FX and Hulu are keen on keeping the ball rolling with two more seasons.

Like Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon has alluded to how the great oncoming winter is the actually the biggest threat the people of Westeros will face.

But the prequel series’ latest season two trailer is firmly focused on the past at a time when all the matters is the war within the fractured Targaryen family.

Sauron (Charlie Vickers) was careful about keeping his true identity secret all throughout the first season of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. But the dark lord’s powers are on full display in the series’ new season two teaser, and it seems like he’ll be laying waste to Middle-earth when we see him next. Show’s back on August 29th.

Batman: Caped Crusader jumping ship to Amazon Studios after the Warner Bros. Discovery merger made it seem like the project might never see the light of day. But the series now has an August 1st premiere date, and it seems like when the show drops, it will be introducing yet another new Harley Quinn riff.

We already knew what Warner Bros.’ new live-action Clark Kent (David Corenswet) would look like out of costume, but now we know what to expect from a fully suited-up Superman. Seems like James Gunn has gone for an aesthetic that’s classic, if a little baggy in the shoulders.

Geralt is getting a whole new face season four of Netflix’s live-action The Witcher adaptation. But in addition to Liam Hemworth, the show has also added Sharlto Copley as Leo Bonhart, James Purefoy as Skellen, and Danny Woodburn as Zoltan to the cast.

Sure, Joaquin Phoenix is in the movie, but we’re all showing up to see Joker: Folie à Deux for Lady Gaga’s turn as Harley Quinn. Every official photo of the duo in costume has looked promising so far, but after the musical thriller’s first trailer drops on Sunday, we’ll probably know what they sound like together.

The second season of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire is just a few weeks away, and when it gets here, it looks like we’ll be following Louis, Lestat, and Claudia (newcomer Dalaney Hayles) to the Théâtre des Vampires to take in a show or two.

According to Ars Technica, Vinge, a professor and computer scientist who was well-known for his hard science fiction novels such as A Fire Upon the Deep and Rainbow’s End, passed away yesterday. A truly excellent author, he postulated that AI will one day surpass the understanding of its human creators; he described this singularity theory in a 1993 essay. But it is probably for his far-reaching and absorbing fiction that Vinge will be best known.

You can easily watch most of Sony’s live-action Spider-Man movies on Disney Plus if the mood strikes you. But if you’ve been yearning to see Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland’s Peters Parker back on the big screen, you’ll have a shot at catching all eight of the past Spidey films in select theaters beginning April 15th.

Aside from Batman and Superman, we don’t really know which DC superheroes will make up the foundation of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new cinematic universe of cape projects at Warner Bros. Discovery.

But the studio’s just announced its plans to produce a new live-action Teen Titans movie from writer Ana Nogueira, which — for other films — could portend the arrival of characters like Wonder Woman and the Flash as the larger franchise continues to come together.