Books

Augusta Britt was just 16 when she met a 42-year-old Cormac McCarthy at a Tuscon motel pool. At the time, she was in and out of foster care—where she encountered a lot of abuse and inappropriate attention from men—and saw in McCarthy some sense of security. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, she recounts

★ The Hostess Handbook According to Maria Zizka (The Newlywed Table), the three pillars of party planning are “the desire to host, some reliably excellent go-to recipes, and a bit of party know-how.” You’ll get a hefty dose of all three in The Hostess Handbook: A Modern Guide to Entertaining. It’s filled with a wide

The Giller Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in Canada, and it has the largest cash prize: $100,000 for the winner and $10,000 for shortlisted authors. It recognizes outstanding fiction by a Canadian author published in the previous year. The 2024 winner has been announced, and it’s Anne Michaels for her historical

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World is the latest offering from botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, one of the great Anishinaabe peoples of the Great Lakes. This slim but powerful volume continues the work of her previous books, including Gathering Moss and the New York Times

Debutiful is a website and podcast focused on helping readers discover debut authors through interviews, excerpts, recommendations, and more. They’ve released a list of their top debuts of the year, including “debut-ish” authors who debuted in a new genre this year but may have published books previously. The full list includes 42 titles. Here are

This reviewer has to wonder why an author as brilliant as Niall Williams, whose latest book is the resplendent, suspenseful Time of the Child, isn’t at the top of every reader’s mind. Few contemporary novelists create worlds and characters so amazingly alive and specific. Williams knows every nook and cranny of his Irish town Faha,

Carolina Ciucci is a teacher, writer and reviewer based in the south of Argentina. She hoards books like they’re going out of style. In case of emergency, you can summon her by talking about Ireland, fictional witches, and the Brontë family. Twitter: @carolinabeci View All posts by Carolina Ciucci ThriftBooks The perfect gift is the

A couple weeks ago, I shared The Best Queer Books of 2024, According to Publishers Weekly: I looked through their overall Best Books of 2024 list and pulled out all the queer books I spotted to share with you. This week, I’m doing the same thing with the Amazon Books Editors’ Best Books of 2024.

If you’ve ever been curious about how an idea turns into a piece of art, you’ll love The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing. This visionary book’s first two pages lay out its thesis in surprisingly simple terms. First, there’s a sketch of a prescription pad with a physician’s signature at the bottom.

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Barnes & Noble’s Book of the Year is…. James is Barnes & Noble’s Book of the Year. I had a little fun with this announcement on Instagram, but this is the right selection. I will

Mina’s Matchbox (8.5 hours), by award-winning author Yoko Ogawa, is a magical coming-of-age story centered on two girls on the brink of adolescence: sturdy, pragmatic Tomoko and her fragile, artistic cousin, Mina. Told from Tomoko’s point of view and set in Ashiya, Japan, in 1972, Mina’s Matchbox is touched with fairy-tale enchantment, depicting a family in

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

Arvyn Cerezo is an arts and culture writer/reporter with bylines in Book Riot, Publishers Weekly, South China Morning Post, PhilSTAR Life, the Asian Review of Books, and other publications. You can find them on arvyncerezo.com and @ArvynCerezo on Twitter. View All posts by Arvyn Cerezo Winter’s fast approaching. It’s cold, and we just want to

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

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. Every year, I spend my November and December watching pretty much every new holiday movie I can feast my eyes upon. Cookie

When I write or plan content, or record podcasts, or whatever for Book Riot, I know who I’m speaking to. Our readers largely lean liberal, if not progressive; they value empathy and knowledge, they are for feminism and inclusion. And so I know that our readers were largely horrified, sad, scared, all of the above

Rejoice! For we have another best-of 2024 book list to fawn over, this time from TIME. The publication’s must-read list of 2024 is full of fiction (mostly of the literary variety) and nonfiction, with bestselling and debut authors alike. TIME describes the list as being full of “Gripping novels and short stories, eye-opening histories, moving

Famous for the Thursday Murder Club series, Richard Osman has inaugurated a new series with We Solve Murders (10.5 hours). Amy Wheeler, a professional bodyguard, and her father-in-law, Steve, a retired police investigator, stumble upon a money smuggling scheme involving ChatGPT and murdered social media influencers. With all the energy of a Carl Hiaasen novel,

Fresh on the heels of his debut collection, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza (2022), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the American Book Award, the Palestine Book Award and the Derek Walcott Poetry Prize, the Palestinian poet and essayist Mosab Abu Toha’s

At the start of John Straley’s Big Breath In, 68-year-old Delphine is staying in a Seattle hotel across the street from the hospital where she is being treated for Stage 4 cancer. The marine biologist is far from everything she loves: her home in Sitka, Alaska; her son and grandson in California; and the whales

To read Rolling Stones columnist Rob Sheffield’s Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music is to slide into a rich, somewhat zany, kaleidoscopic and wildly enthusiastic discussion of the greatness of Taylor Swift. While the structure of the book is loosely chronological, the substance of the chapters has little in common

Literary powerhouses Renée Watson and Ekua Holmes combine forces to create Black Girl You Are Atlas, a phenomenal poetry collection celebrating sisterhood, womanhood, Black culture and the power of family and friendship. This book revels in the promise of adolescence while acknowledging its accompanying landmines of fear, self-doubt and uncertainty.  Renowned poet, novelist and Newbery

When Rolling Stone music critic Rob Sheffield called me from New York City, I didn’t spend any time with softball questions or developing rapport. I jumped right in with my hardest-hitting question about his new book, Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music: Did he write an essay about the 1989

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Sales Surge for Dystopian Books The Handmaid’s Tale. On Tyranny. Men Explain Things to Me. These are the kinds of books folks are buying (at least those who are mortified by Trump’s win). 1984 was

Book Nooks The question of how best to set up a personal library has confounded many a book collector. When it comes time to arrange them, all those wonderful volumes can seem like the pieces of an unsolvable puzzle. The literature lover who’s searching for solutions will welcome Book Nooks: Inspired Ideas for Cozy Reading

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Celebs: They’re Just Like Us Paparazzi is a net negative in the world, but it does occasionally offer the fun of seeing what celebrities are reading, or at least what they want to be seen

Shelley Burr’s gripping sophomore mystery, Murder Town, is set in rural Rainier, Australia, a fictional small town located halfway between Melbourne and Sydney. It used to be known as a nice place to take a break from that long journey, what with its pretty Fountain Park and popular local businesses like Earl Grey’s Yarn and

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. Though we are 10 months into this year, the end still somehow feels like it’s coming too quickly. Mariah Carey has already

The City Sings Green & Other Poems About Welcoming Wildlife is an inspirational treasure trove that introduces young readers to the concept of rewilding, showing how cities and communities around the world are repairing some of the environmental damage caused by human habitation. Focusing on 11 intriguing examples, Erica Silverman has created a unique blend

There have never been more sources to turn to for book recommendations, but one of the most reliable is asking indie booksellers. These are passionate experts in the field who make a point of keeping on top of the most exciting and interesting new releases coming out every month. That’s what makes the Indie Next