Books

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

There is an immediate richness to the historical fiction of Tracy Chevalier (Girl With a Pearl Earring, Remarkable Creatures), one that goes beyond carefully researched details and evocative prose, and into deep emotion. In her 12th book, The Glassmaker, Chevalier weaves a tapestry of character and conflict, change and stability, to create a story that

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

When little Afia can’t sleep, her mind as active as a summer night, she and her papa travel in their imaginations to find love. And find it they do—in the sun-warmed sand, on a snowy mountain top, in the ocean’s friendly waves and even in the darkest night sky. Before she finally drifts off to

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

Both Same as It Ever Was and your debut, The Most Fun We Ever Had, are lengthy novels that examine family dynamics over the course of decades. What draws you to this type of story? I’ve always been drawn as a reader to big, meaty novels that stick with a cast of characters over a

Here we go, the most-clicked news stories from this week of Today in Books. And here are a bunch of interesting stories that didn’t make the cut for the full Today in Books analysis but are still worth your time. The comments section is moderated according to our community guidelines. Please check them out so

🙌 The Best New Book Releases of the Week 🏆 The Most Popular Books of the Year So Far, According to Goodreads 🤖 New AI App Turns Famous Authors Into Reading Guides The Best of Book Riot Newsletter Sign up to The Best of Book Riot to receive a round-up of the day’s new content. Thank

The list of Amazon’s best books of the year so far has just been released. The list was compiled by Amazon’s editors, who collectively read thousands of books a year in order to curate best-of and other kinds of lists. This year, they chose 20 books as the best overall books, and provided lists of

This week, a list of the most popular Netflix shows was released. The rankings of each of the English-language shows — which include 335,200,000 hours of views for spot #10, and 1,718,800,000 hours of views for #1 — were determined based on the views each show got within its first 91 days on the streaming

Bestselling author Ellery Lloyd has become deliciously adept at drawing readers into the world of the wealthy: redolent of privilege and glamour, and tainted by darkness and deceit. In their third thriller, The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby, Lloyd (a pseudonym for married British authors Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos) builds upon the contemporary social

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

In White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy, MacArthur fellow and activist-pastor William J. Barber II makes the logical but nonetheless surprising point that, even though poverty has a disproportionately high impact on Black Americans, there is a vastly greater number of white people living in poverty, leading lives

With about half of the year in the rear-view mirror, it’s time we did some reflection. And Goodreads, with its millions of members, is always a great place to get a pulse check on what’s popular among the people. The most popular books of the year so far were determined by looking at which new

With its near 500-page count and robust endnotes, The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq might at first glance scare off readers who haven’t sniffed a textbook in years. But thanks to Steve Coll’s crisp and dynamic prose, what’s between the covers feels little like an academic

On Thursday, three parents filed a federal lawsuit that opposes Florida law SB 1069, a law that essentially made banning books easier to do in the state. The parents allege that by making books easier to ban — and thereby upholding and enforcing “the state’s favored viewpoint” — the state is discriminating against parents who

Gennifer Choldenko’s The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman is a moving story about an 11-year-old abandoned by his single mom and left to care for his 3-year-old sister, Boo, inspired by Choldenko’s own childhood experiences of having undependable parents and a caring older brother who acted as a surrogate parent. Fans of the Newbery Honor

Today in Books rounds up news links from places from other than Book Riot, but we also cover news on the site, so here are the news stories we wrote about last week. Plus: a grab-bag of links that didn’t make into the regular daily sends, but still are worth a click. How Alabama Library

Since I write about new LGBTQ book releases every week on Our Queerest Shelves, I keep a giant spreadsheet of upcoming queer books, adding titles as soon as I learn about them. I follow approximately a million queer book blogs, BookTubers, BookTokers, Bookstagrammers, etc — and that’s not to mention the deluge of publicity emails

Here is our daily round-up of what’s going on in the world of books: Publishers Sue Google over Pirate Sites  I was just having a conversation about a recent survey about audiobook consumption that had a pretty startling statistic: 47% of respondents report getting an audiobook through a file-sharing service or YouTube. And that reminded

Costco Plans to Stop Selling Books Year-Round I had heard from a Book Riot reader that they were seeing some weird activity around the books section at their local Costco, so this story about Costco scaling back their stocking of books isn’t a huge surprise. We definitely need as many places for people who don’t

Bold thief Kierse gets more than she bargained for when she breaks into a terrifying creature’s home in The Wren in the Holly Library, the first in a new series from K.A. Linde. The Wren in the Holly Library takes place in a fantasy version of New York City, and the cityscape is written with so

It’s mid-year check-in season. This and more in today’s collection of book links. Barnes & Noble Picks the Best Books of the Year…So Far Barnes & Noble continues its recent format for best books list: grouping titles not by genre, but by….other things (books with sprayed edges, modern love, and others). Let me just highlight

Each section of neuroscientist and corporate coach Nicole Vignola’s Rewire: Break the Cycle, Alter Your Thoughts and Create Lasting Change is titled with phrases that will sound familiar to readers bent on self-improvement: “Ditch the Negative,” “Shift Your Narrative,” “Boost the Positive.” While those imperatives may not be new, the author’s explanations of how one

The Very Online Afterlife of Franz Kafka A very good piece of literary-cum-internet criticism from Amanda Hess for the New York Times. I have myself stumbled upon Kafka-core social media posting and immediately got the appeal. I think Hess’ read is largely right–the melancholy, literary romanticism is well-suited for a certain kind of internet mode.

Magdalena Herrera has a lot of responsibilities. On top of trying to finish high school, she works a part-time job and is the sole caregiver for her grandmother. Mags has a lot of secrets as well. She’s hooking up with a girl who has a boyfriend. And every night she disappears down a trapdoor in

We’re almost halfway through 2024, if you can believe it, which means taking a good hard look at our reading goals for the year. Are you on track to complete them? Or do you need to change pace? One of the most popular reading challenges is on Goodreads, which just asks you how many books

Running Close to the Wind Avra Helvaçi is lucky, perhaps supernaturally so, but he refuses to believe that. Luck can’t be proven, after all. Did he test the limits of his luck by drunkenly traipsing into a highly protected vault of the Arasti government and stealing the most powerful secret of the empire without getting

Here we go, the news stories Today in Books readers clicked on most this week! And here are a bunch of interesting links that didn’t quite make the cut for the full TiB treatment this week but are still worth your time. The comments section is moderated according to our community guidelines. Please check them