{"id":181,"date":"2021-04-29T13:23:47","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T17:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/?p=181"},"modified":"2021-05-01T16:54:59","modified_gmt":"2021-05-01T20:54:59","slug":"book-to-screen-adaptations-are-a-pandemic-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/2021\/04\/29\/book-to-screen-adaptations-are-a-pandemic-hit\/","title":{"rendered":"Book-To-Screen Adaptations Are a Pandemic Hit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A

Barnes & Noble. Credit: Courtney Shapiro.<\/p><\/div>\n

Barnes and Noble bookstores are expected to look the same.Each one has the same forest green color, a comforting presence, and the same rows, shelves, and stacks of books in fiction, romance, mystery, YA, Sci-Fi\/Fantasy etc.While the arrangement of these sections might vary from place to place, the same books will\u00a0 always be there.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When COVID-19 hit in the beginning of 2020, libraries and bookstores\u2014independent, used, or corporate\u2014were all put on lockdown. In-person shopping wasn\u2019t an option and online retail was taking a giant step into the spotlight. Even though purchasing looked different, reading was at an all time <\/span>high<\/span><\/a>. But what were people reading? How were they finding recommendations without the help of a bookseller?<\/span><\/p>\n

To find books, readers turned to trends seen on TV, tapped into current affairs, and relied on influencers and reviewers seen on \u201cbookstagram\u201d (book section on Instagram), \u201cbook Twitter\u201d and \u201cbooktok\u201d (book section of TikTok).\u00a0 People were reading the genres they like to read, ultimately finding comfort in the stories that can offer that much needed escape from reality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With bookstores being back open, the displays are helpful in giving shoppers an idea of what they may want to pick up next.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it <\/span>comes to picking displays, it depends on what it is for,\u201d said Kailey S., a bookseller at a Barnes and Noble in Illinois. \u201cWe have specific ones for new books, so new contemporary, new fantasy, etc., and we have the booktok table so anything that’s kind of trending there. I like to do displays that feature more diverse authors and more diverse stories, and it’s not something that we do super often because once you create a display you want it to stay up for a while and want people to buy off of it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the three years Kailey has worked for Barnes and Noble she\u2019s noticed that book-to-screen adaptations are always the first to go out of stock.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"AEven independent bookstores like The Strand in New York City, for example, keep up to date with current reads. They have tables on the main floor with new releases in hardcover or paperback and have specific books that have crept back onto the bestseller lists, mainly thanks to television.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Independent or indie bookstores, as they are known to consumers, aren\u2019t controlled by larger corporate chains. They may not be as mainstream as Barnes and Noble, because the book selection is unique to the store, but they are likely to have book-to-screen adaptations readily available.<\/span><\/p>\n

Book-to-screen adaptations are not a new phenomenon. When people find out that a movie or TV show they enjoyed was a book first, it\u2019s likely that they will end reading the book as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

In December, almost a year after lockdown mandates had been put in place, Netflix released the first season of \u201cBridgerton,\u201d a regency romance drama based on an eight-book series by Julia Quinn. The show was a massive hit, and people wanted more content when the season had ended. Longing for the same characters and fluffy narratives, the television watchers turned to the book series. Since the release of the show, the books, which originally came out in the early 2000\u2019s, made a comeback on the NYT bestseller <\/span>list.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI actually first heard about \u2018Bridgerton after seeing ads for it when I was on Goodreads. I also saw a ton of \u2018Bookstagrammers\u2019 posting about the release of the show alongside their own copies of \u2018The Duke and I,\u2019\u201d said book blogger Elisa Grimaldi, known to her followers on social media as @the.overflowing.bookshelf.<\/span><\/p>\n

Grimaldi says she tends to gravitate towards books that have been or are currently being adapted for TV or film. \u201c I think TV can open our minds to new genres we may like. I\u2019ve seen an increase in people sharing and purchasing a plethora of different historical romance books since the release of \u2018Bridgerton.'”<\/span><\/p>\n

Barnes and Noble stores, specifically, started stacking the \u201cBridgerton\u201d books, similar novels and other displays for book to screen adaptations. Mainstream bookstores are typically the store of choice because they are up to date with these trends, yet used bookstores come in handy for niche finds that a regular bookstore might not have.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A

Barnes & Noble. Credit: Courtney Shapiro.<\/p><\/div>\n

Sweet Pickle Books, located on Orchard Street in Manhattan’s East Village, obtains their vast collection of books through donations, trades, private buying and acquisitions, and bulk sales from owners or libraries. The inventory of a used bookstore is constantly changing and a lot of the books represent the interests of the surrounding neighborhood. New books come in multiple times a week, so selection is always different.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While the constantly changing inventory of a used bookstore may make it more difficult to keep up with current trends, readers may be able to find books that explore the hobbies and themes they\u2019re exposed to when watching these adaptations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, \u2018The Queen\u2019s Gambit\u2019 was really popular<\/span>\u2014<\/span>everyone coming into the store came in looking for chess books, how to play, the rules, and just that topic in general,\u201d said Leigh Altshuler, the owner of Sweet Pickle Books.<\/span><\/p>\n

These shows and book titles offered a type of comfort that many people were missing during a pandemic. It\u2019s inevitable that book sales will be influenced by the things happening outside of a bookstore, yet sales were\u00a0 amplified even more during COVID because people were reading more books.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the same thing that happened around the time the Hunger Games came out. The YA book market became flooded with more dystopian novels,\u201d Grimaldi said. \u201cFifty Shades of Grey led to people shamelessly embracing romance novels. Showing a piece of art in a different way can definitely influence people to experience its other forms.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TV is bringing books back to the bestseller list<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":365,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorsvision.com\/thebrink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}