Books

What a year it’s been! Martyr! came out of the gate in January as the year’s hottest debut with major book award potential, and while it didn’t win the NBA, it made the shortlist and just about every best-of list around. Jonathan Haidt sparked a new round of phone and social media concern—and some congressional

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that if you leave a content creator alone with Google Analytics during one of the quietest weeks of the year, they’re going to go spelunking. Presented in no particular order, here are 10 of the news stories Book Riot readers read and shared the most in 2024. Today In Books

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Tell me, O muse, of the man of many devices Hot off his Oscar win for Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan is going back to the well to tell another story about a Great Man on 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

Matty Matheson doesn’t have to tell you that Matty Matheson: Soups, Salads, Sandwiches isn’t your typical cookbook. You’ll know just by looking at it. The charismatic chef, restaurateur and actor (he consistently steals scenes as Neil Fak in the FX series The Bear) is dressed down in a worn-to-the-point-of-translucency Grateful Dead T-shirt on the book’s

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. The Bloom is Off Following a press tour that managed to be more fraught than the rollout of Don’t Worry Darling, Blake Lively is suing her It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni

The most engaging aspect of The Resurrectionist isn’t its gaslamp adventure or macabre thrills. It’s the poignant queer love story at the center of the book—which is surprising, because the plot revolves around the theft of cadavers. Those two elements should feel at the very least incongruent, but in author A. Rae Dunlap’s hands, they

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. A little something different today. Every Monday on the Book Riot Podcast, Jeff O’Neal and I discuss the most interesting news in the world of books and reading. It’s a lot like what we do

Tove Jansson and Tuulikki “Tooti” Pietila spent 30 years on Klovharun, an island off the Gulf of Finland, painting, writing and exploring the lush seaside. Known for her novel The Summer Book and the popular comic strip Moomin, Jansson reflects on her and Tooti’s time on Klovharun in Notes from an Island (2 hours). Notes

I read a lot of queer books—that probably won’t come as a surprise to you. That means it’s inevitable that I’ll pick up some queer books I don’t like, but I usually keep that to myself. I’d rather help spread the word about the great queer books I’ve read—that’s why I put together a list

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are top stories from the last week. Before we get to the rundown, have you heard of Book Riot’s TBR? It’s a personalized book-recommendation subscription that taps Book Riot’s expert book recommenders to match

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. The Books New York Times Readers Loved in 2024 The NYT continues to slice and dice best-of coverage in 2024, from all-century selection all the way today to reader choices for favorite books of 2024.

For the first time in the history of the National Book Critics Circle Awards—the only literary awards in the United States that are judged by critics—the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is sharing their longlists ahead of the award ceremony on March 20, 2025. NBCC president, Heather Scott Partington, said “The NBCC is proud to

Lifeform (5 hours) is a collection of comedic and heartfelt personal essays from acclaimed actress and comedian Jenny Slate. These essays encompass the chaos and wonder of living during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing in particular on Slate’s experiences with romance and new parenthood. She writes with immense imagination, opening doors to rooms filled with raccoon

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. 2024 NBCC Awards Longlist: Fiction With the PEN Award, the NBCC often has the most unexpected end of year finalists, but this year’s list is probably as a consensus of a lists from them as

Sara always had an outsize impact on her best friend, Magda. Even after her death, Sara still manages to coerce Magda into going on a road trip. With Magda at the wheel and Sara’s ashes on the front seat, Anna Montague’s moving and surprisingly humorous debut, How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund? (9

Whether you’re in need of some gifting inspiration or a little treat for yourself this giving season, you’ve come to the right place. Welcome to the 2024 Book Riot hub for all things holiday gifting! Bookmark this page and check for weekly updates now through the holidays (and even a little into the new year).

Natalia Shaloshvili’s Pavlo Gets the Grumps is the sweetly funny story of an eventful day in the life of a grumpy kitten and the loved ones who attempt to jolly him out of his bad mood. Will their efforts be successful? First, while she and cranky little Pavlo eat their breakfast, Mama suggests a trip

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Liz Pelletier Named Publishers Weekly Person of the Year Pelletier had an excellent case to be named PW’s Person of the Year in 2023, as Fourth Wing burst into the reading world (though hard to

New Yorker Emma is 26 years old and has been sober for a year. With her sponsor’s restrictions on dating lifted, she might be ready to meet someone, and Ben, the sweet guy in her IT department, seems too good to be true. Though Emma believes her life is definitely better now, some things remain

Grab a cup of something tasty and catch up with the news stories Today in Books readers found most interesting this week. Groundbreaking Poet Nikki Giovanni Dies at 81 Beloved poet Nikki Giovanni has died at the age of 81. Giovanni made her name as a standout of the Black Arts Movement and became the rarest of things:

Today, I have another installment of “The Best Queer Books of 2024, According to…” Previously, I sifted through The New York Times, Amazon, Publishers Weekly, and Barnes & Noble lists for the queer titles included. This time, I’m highlighting the NPR picks. The year-end NPR list is a little different from most. They put out

When Abby Lai was young, she wished for a sibling to play with. Her parents granted her wish . . . four times over. Now the oldest of five, 12-year-old Abby tries to spend as much time outside her house as possible. After all, as she says in the epigraph of Chickenpox, “Younger siblings are

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

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Hollywood’s Calling for the Movie Rights Since 2005, The Black List has published an annual round-up of the best unproduced screenplays, many of which have gone on to win at the box office and on

Erica Ezeifedi, Associate Editor, is a transplant from Nashville, TN that has settled in the North East. In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a victim advocate and in public libraries, where she has focused on creating safe spaces for queer teens, mentorship, and providing test prep instruction free to students. Outside

You Better Watch Out In the checkout line of an upstate New York convenience store, opportunistic small-time thief Eddie Parker spots a purse overflowing with cash. As the elderly owner finishes her transaction, Eddie maneuvers himself into position to relieve her of her stash. It does not go according to plan; within arm’s reach of

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Groundbreaking Poet Nikki Giovanni Dies at 81 Beloved poet Nikki Giovanni has died at the age of 81. Giovanni made her name as a standout of the Black Arts Movement and became the rarest of

The wife-and-wife team of Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta (The View Was Exhausting) are back with Feast While You Can, a queer horror-romance about a monster that feasts on the “passion, heartbreak and mess” of life.  Angelina Sicco has lived in the small European mountain town of Cadenze for her entire life. The large Sicco

“The book was better” isn’t always true…but it’s a cliché for a reason. Readers know that unique heartbreak of having a favorite book be mangled in the adaptation. But which adaptations did the worst job with the source material? Aura Print put together a list of the ten worst book-to-movie and book-to-TV adaptations of recent years,