Books

After Wordle took over our screens in 2022, word games continued to climb in popularity. Once seen as a niche hobby, it’s now common to see someone puzzling over a crossword on their phone as a daily activity. Of course, there’s a pretty big overlap between crossword puzzlers and readers: we’re both word people. So

Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until

Indie bookstore Fabulosa Books — located in San Francisco’s historically queer Castro District — is running a program called “Books Not Bans.” Last May, Fabulosa’s Becka Robbins began raising money for the project, which uses customers’ donations to send LGBTQ+ books to places in the country where they’ve been banned. So far, the books have

Book Riot Managing Editor Vanessa Diaz is a writer and former bookseller from San Diego, CA whose Spanish is even faster than her English. When not reading or writing, she enjoys dreaming up travel itineraries and drinking entirely too much tea. She is a regular co-host on the All the Books podcast who especially loves

Here’s your weekend round-up of the most-read stories from Today in Books, with my commentary. Grab your coffee and catch up! The Thriller Writer Outselling James Patterson & John Grisham You’re expecting this to be a story about the latest TikTok romantasy hit, aren’t you? The clock app may be hogging headlines with stories about

Margaret Kingsbury grew up in a house so crammed with books she couldn’t open a closet door without a book stack tumbling, and she’s brought that same decorative energy to her adult life. Margaret has an MA in English with a concentration in writing and has worked as a bookseller and adjunct English professor. She’s

In May, I asked you to pick which queer books I should read next from my TBR, and the winner was A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland. Unfortunately, my library hold then took weeks to come in, so I wasn’t able to read it until about a week ago. Here’s what I thought

Hi, mystery fans! A Family Affair is now streaming on Netflix, and the trailer had me howling with laughter, so I am absolutely watching it this weekend! Bookish Goods Book Girl Summer Shirt by ChapterCatchers If you’re looking for a summer book tee! There are 8 color options for the shirt, up to 5XL. $23.

Kendra Winchester is a Contributing Editor for Book Riot where she writes about audiobooks and disability literature. She is also the Founder of Read Appalachia, which celebrates Appalachian literature and writing. Previously, Kendra co-founded and served as Executive Director for Reading Women, a podcast that gained an international following over its six-season run. In her

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View

Arundati Roy has been awarded the PEN Pinter Prize, which celebrates writers whose work display an “unflinching, unswerving” look at the world. Roy, who was the first Indian writer to win the Booker Prize in 1997, said she was “delighted” to win the award, saying “I wish Harold Pinter were with us today to write

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s midyear check-in time, and in all corners of the bookish internet, we’re taking a look back at the first half of 2024 in new releases. The “Best Books of the Year So Far” lists are piling up — in fact, they started about a month before the halfway point

🤖 A new startup from the former co-founders of Scribd aims to help publishers license books to AI companies. 💖 In the mood for a summer fling? Check out these excellent deals on romance ebooks. 🎁 12 gifts for you and your book club buddies. The Best of Book Riot Newsletter Sign up to The

Margaret Kingsbury grew up in a house so crammed with books she couldn’t open a closet door without a book stack tumbling, and she’s brought that same decorative energy to her adult life. Margaret has an MA in English with a concentration in writing and has worked as a bookseller and adjunct English professor. She’s

We all love a good hero(ine) story, and today is all about celebrating them! We’re paying homage to the most iconic heroes, looking at the ordinary everyday heroes, celebrating our queeros, and questioning the hero’s journey. Are you feeling valiant? Gallant? Courageous? Grab your sword, summon up that secret dormant magical power you’ve probably got

Anne Mai Yee Jansen is a literature and ethnic studies professor and a lifelong story addict. She exists on a steady diet of books and hot chocolate, with a heaping side of travel whenever possible. Originally hailing from the sun and sandstone of southern California, she currently resides with her partner, offspring, and feline companion

Emily has a PhD in English from the University of Southern Mississippi, MS, and she has an MFA in Creative Writing from GCSU in Milledgeville, GA, home of Flannery O’Connor. She spends her free time reading, watching horror movies and musicals, cuddling cats, Instagramming pictures of cats, and blogging/podcasting about books with the ladies over

72 of the Best Horror Books, According to Horror Authors Who better to get your horror recommendations from than an expert in the field? Goodreads interviewed nine horror authors — Johanna van Veen, Paul Tremblay, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Ananda Lima, Monika Kim, Josh Malerman, Chuck Tingle, Stephen Graham Jones, and Gabino Iglesias — about their favorite

There’s nothing better than a beautifully written, well-narrated audiobook. Whether I’m trying to learn about a moment in history or simply relax, audiobooks have become one of my go-to methods of reading. And when it comes to Black historical audiobooks, there is a wide and wonderful world to choose from. I’m looking for two things

Amazon Picks Its Best Books of the Year So Far Amazon released its list of the best books of the year so far, including their #1 pick of the year, James by Percival Everett. This is confirms for me that James is the Book of the Year (so far), and I think likely to be the book of the year

Last week, Jeff O’Neal rounded up the books being named the best of the year so far by tallying up all the titles on ten of the biggest lists out at the time of writing: The New York Times, Time, Harper’s Bazaar, The BBC, The New Yorker, Vogue, Vulture, Esquire, Goodreads, and Barnes & Noble.

Welcome to Today in Books, where we report on literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. A Leaked Document Gives Glimpse of Amazon’s Bookselling Might Everyone knows that Amazon sells a ton of books. Most people, especially ones reading this newsletter, might even have the sense that Amazon sells the most

10 Nebula Award Winners You Should Put on Your TBR Early June marks the latest round of Nebula Award winners. I’m writing this post before the awards, so by the time this goes live, the winners will have been announced. Congratulations to them all! As both an admiring reader and aspiring writer in the science

Libro.fm, the independently owned audiobook service that lets you choose which indie bookstores receive a portion of your audiobook sales, has released a list of top 10 bestselling audiobooks of all time to commemorate their 10th anniversary. The list is based on sales reported to Libro.fm from over 3,000 indie bookstores and includes thought-provoking nonfiction,

Wait, How Did This Woman “Accidentally” Buy a Bookstore? I got several tips about this TikTok where a woman named Jessica (I can’t find a last name at the moment) was basically handed the keys to a bookstore not too far from where I live in Portland. Apparently, she was a former employee of the

Has the DEI Backlash Come for Publishing? Dan Sinykin and Richard Jean So have some fascinating data in The Atlantic. In looking at the racial breakdown of more than 1700 novels published by major publishers in the last five years (2019 – 2023), Sinykin and So found that the percentage by nonwhite writers doubled, from

If you’re on the bookish internet, you know the appeal of an aesthetic bookstore photo. When we don’t have a book in hand, readers love scrolling through photos of beautiful bookshops and libraries that look like the ideal places to sip a fancy coffee and leisurely flip through pages. If you are on Bookstagram, you

The lead story today turned out to be so interesting that I am making it a one story day. Barnes & Noble Buys Tattered Cover In a surprise (to me at least) move, Barnes & Noble has bought Tattered Cover, a local indie chain of bookstores in the Denver, Colorado area. Tattered Cover had been

Tattered Cover bookstore first opened in 1971 in Denver, Colorado. Since then, it’s undergone a lot of change, including new owners and storefronts — by 2022, it had grown to eight locations, including storefronts with a full bar and cafe. They sell new and used books and host hundreds of author and community events a

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View