Books

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

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Governments are Banning Books at Higher Rates In perhaps unsurprising news to those who have been following book banning coverage, two advocacy groups released data showing that the rate of book banning by state and

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

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

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

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. How Booksellers Are Taking On Book Banners Publishers Weekly recently highlighted efforts by some indie booksellers to combat local book bans and get banned books into people’s hands. Big ups to Charley Rejsek of Austin’s

Jessica Plummer has lived her whole life in New York City, but she prefers to think of it as Metropolis. Her day job is in books, her side hustle is in books, and she writes books on the side (including a short story in Sword Stone Table from Vintage). She loves running, knitting, and thinking

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

Alice Nuttall (she/her) is a writer, pet-wrangler and D&D nerd. Her reading has got so out of control that she had to take a job at her local library to avoid bankrupting herself on books — unfortunately, this has just resulted in her TBR pile growing until it resembles Everest. Alice’s webcomic, writing and everything

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

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. 2024 Ignatz Awards Announced The Ignatz Awards, the festival prize of the Small Press Expo recognizing “outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning,” announced its 2024 winners and reignited my passion for the form. The winners

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

Eileen’s primary literary love is comic books, but she’s always on the lookout for her next literary adventure no matter what form it takes. She has a Bachelor’s in media studies, a Master’s in digital communication, a smattering of published short stories, and a seriously cute dog. Follow her on Bluesky. View All posts by

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

“Jessica has been a voracious reader since she was old enough to hold chapter books right side up. She has an MA in English from the University of Maine, and has been writing about books online since 2015. She started out writing about the Romance genre, but in recent years she has rekindled her love

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Sunday’s are for passing along the links from the week that I didn’t quite get to for one reason or another. These made my bookmarks, and now maybe they will make yours.

When I was in university, there was a class on the course list that I couldn’t wait to take: an introduction to lesbian literature. Unfortunately, that class was never offered in the years I was there. I did study some queer literature, but I never got to take a class devoted to it. And I

Here are the stories that made news in the world of books and reading this week. The Fiction Longlist for the 2024 National Book Awards The final and most closely-watched longlist for The National Book Awards was announced this morning: the ten nominees in fiction. James is the headliner, though Martyr!, All Fours, and the newly-released Creation Lake have all been getting

Earlier this week we covered the 2024 National Book Awards Longlists for Young People’s Literature and Translated Literature. Now the longlists for Nonfiction, Poetry, and Fiction have also been released, rounding out all the contenders for this year’s awards. The National Book Awards were first established in 1950 to celebrate the best writing in the

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. The Fiction Longlist for the 2024 National Book Awards The final and most closely-watched longlist for The National Book Awards was announced this morning: the ten nominees in fiction. James is the headliner, though Martyr!,

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. How Historical Fiction Redefined the Literary Canon The central data point in this piece on the rise of historical fiction is this: between 1950 and 1980, “about” half of novels that win award-winning novels were

Welcome to The Best of Book Riot, our daily round-up of what’s on offer across our site, newsletters, podcasts, and social channels. Not everything is for everyone, but there is something for everyone. Welcome to September, where the vibes are all about kids being back in school, many readers are hoping for relief from the

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. In The Shack with Robert Caro Good long read on Robert Caro, The Power Broker at 50, and his progress on the next book. Spending decades on a multi-volume biography feels like a relic of

Tuesday, we covered the announcement of the 2024 National Book Awards Longlist for Young People’s Literature. Since then, this year’s National Book Awards Longlist for Translated Literature has also been released. The ten titles on the longlist were translated from six different languages—Danish, Arabic, Spanish, French, Mandarin Chinese, and Swedish. They explore everything from “disorienting

We are in the thick of Fall books season, and it shows. There are so many amazing new queer books out in fall 2024, from cozy sapphic fantasy to trans gothic horror to gay sci-fi and more. I’ve highlighted the ten biggest and buzziest releases of September, October, and November below, mostly from authors you

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. ‘Good Omens’: Production Paused On Amazon Drama From Neil Gaiman Good Omens, both the show and the book, is a crown-jewel in the Gaiman-verse. And so news that that season three of the show has

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Richard Powers on What We Do to the Earth and What It Does to Us Hua Hsu writing a long profile of Richard Powers in The New Yorker. Happy Monday to me. I’ve read a

Here is what’s on tap today on Book Riot: We’re nearly a quarter into the 21st century, which means there are hundreds of books published this century with equal chances of being terrible and amazing! Recently, The New York Times released their 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list. This list isn’t exactly controversial, but it’s full

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

It’s Sapphic September! It’s always a good time to read sapphic books, in my opinion, but this is a great excuse to recommend some of my favourites. If you want my full reviews on these and hundreds of others, you can check out the Lesbrary, especially the recommendations list. I’ve been reviewing sapphic books there