Books

After a couple of flops in a row, I’m happy to report that I seem to have averted a reading slump. Reading can be so unpredictable — I picked up a book in the same genre with the same authors as a title I loved and ended up not liking it, while one I picked up

On Wednesday, about 1,000 publishing industry professionals—agents, editors, publicists, and marketers chief among them—gathered at NYU’s Kimmel Center for Student Life for the 2024 Publishers Weekly U.S. Book Show. Now in its fourth year, the U.S. Book Show sprang up during the pandemic after Reed International kiboshed Book Expo America (BEA) for good. Whereas BEA primarily served

Just last month, we discussed the shortlist for the International Booker Prize, and now the winner has been announced! It’s Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Michael Hofmann. The German novel follows the relationship of 19-year-old Katharina and 50-something-year-old Hans in East Berlin, as the German Democratic Republic declines. Despite the age gap, Katharina and

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

The weather is warming up, which means it’s the perfect time to start planning an epic road trip. Road trips are an American tradition, which is why there are so many road trip books in the U.S. literary tradition! If you’re planning your own road trip, why not make it a bookish one? Here’s our

Before creating her popular podcast Unf*ck Your Brain, Kara Loewentheil was already ambitious and accomplished: Her accolades include a degree from Harvard Law School, a clerkship for a federal judge and a job as a litigator for the Center for Reproductive Rights. “I had it all,” she writes, but “the problem was that my brain

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

For over a decade, health care journalist Shefali Luthra has been reporting on reproductive rights for Kaiser Health News and The 19th. In Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America, she details the public and private chaos that commenced when the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in its 2022 decision, Dobbs v.

Here at Book Riot, we believe in reading picture books as an adult. If you don’t have kids, or if your children are older, you may not have read a picture book in a long time — and that’s a shame. Picture books have beautiful artwork and moving messages. They’re also a great introductory point

The Safekeep, Yael van der Wouden’s debut novel, is set in 1961 rural Holland. At 30, Isabel is living in the house where she was raised after the death of her father forced the family’s move from the city and into a furnished house their uncle Karel found for them. Isabel lives a circumscribed and

This originally appeared in our Today in Books daily newsletter, where each day we round up the most interesting stories, news, essays, and other goings on in the world of books and reading. Sign up here if you want to get it. Inside Reese Witherspoon’s Literary Empire This profile in The New York Times by

A child heads outdoors, walking through a verdant and hilly rural landscape, as the sun rises and a shadow appears as the “last hint of night.” Thus begins an evocative exploration of shadows, both literal and metaphorical, in There Was a Shadow, written by Bruce Handy and illustrated by Lisk Feng.  Handy examines the omnipresent,

If you’re a comics lover or want to dip your foot into the comics world, look no further than this year’s slate of Eisner Award nominees. The Eisners are given for excellence and achievement in comics and among the most prestigious honors given to comic creators and their work. They are given to comics published

Today is the first day of the six-day Amazon Book Sale. It includes deals on tablets and ereaders, Amazon Editors’ print book picks, most shelved Goodreads books, books by Asian Pacific American Heritage Month authors, books by Black authors, ebooks in Spanish, and much more. You can browse them on the Amazon Book Sale page,

Break out your TBR and brace yourself for an onslaught of exciting mysteries and thrillers out this year! Goodreads has put together a list of the most-anticipated mystery and thriller new releases. These are the titles that have been added to users’ Want to Read shelves the most often. Some big names immediately jump out–fans

Sony Pictures dropped the first full-length trailer for the adaptation of It Ends With Us yesterday, and I have thoughts! Coming to theaters June 16, the films stars Blake Lively as main character Lily Bloom (whose unironic dream is to own a flower shop, I cannot), Justin Baldoni, and, inexplicably, Jenny Slate, playing it straighter than I knew she

In case you missed it, this week, I put together a recommendation list of mermaid books to read for MerMay that all check-off tasks on the 2024 Read Harder Challenge! They include picture books, a sci-fi novella, horror, manga, and more. I have to admit, I don’t have a lot of reading updates for you

A new trailer has dropped for It Ends with Us, adapted from the novel It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover. The book became a hit on BookTok, dominating the bestseller lists for many months. Of course, that spike in popularity also drew some backlash. The movie adaptation stars Blake Lively as Lily Bloom, Justin

There’s something about summer books that just hits different. The folks at Goodreads know we’re dream about long, sun-soaked days (so much extra time for reading!) and the vacations/staycations/breaks in routine that the season brings, so they’ve released a list of the most anticipated new books of summer. The list is comprised of the titles

Adventure, anyone? While Ikumi Nakamura is best known as a Japanese video game artist and developer with an interest in horror and mystery, she has another fascinating side. As Project UrbEx: Adventures in Ghost Towns, Wastelands and Other Forgotten Worlds reveals, she’s also a fearless, adventurous photographer who has long traveled the world to explore

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

If you are the sort of person who can’t bear to part with sentimental objects—“That belonged to Mamaw!”—this book is for you. Packed inside The Heirloomist: 100 Heirlooms and the Stories They Tell are photographs and stories of 100 items belonging to everyday as well as famous people, including Gloria Steinem, Rosanne Cash and Gabby

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

Canadian writer Alice Munro died on May 13th in her home in Ontario. She was 92 years old. She is considered one of the masters of the short story, well-respected in the literary world. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013, with the Academy saying she could “accommodate the entire epic complexity of

Adam Higginbotham’s international bestseller, Midnight in Chernobyl, chronicled the disastrous 1986 nuclear reactor explosion in Ukraine that was caused by a Soviet program plagued with a toxic combination of unrealistic timelines and dangerous cost cutting. His new book, Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, describes a surprisingly similar

Welcome to Today in Books, where we report on literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Library of Congress Charts a Roadmap to Reading  In preparation for the 2024 National Book Festival, which will take place this August in Washington, DC, the 56 state and territory Centers for the Book affiliated with

Theo remembers feeling uncomfortable with how the world saw them from a very young age. Frustrations built up, from boys assuming that they couldn’t play chess to being forced to cut their own hair because hairdressers always insisted on more feminine looks. But experiences in art school, at comic-cons and playing tabletop roleplaying games, plus

Merry MerMay! MerMay is most known as an art challenge, where participants make a mermaid-themed piece of art every day based on prompts. Here are the 2024 daily MerMay prompts, including #Kaiju #Feline #CoastalGrandma and so many more. While I love to see mermaid artwork in my feed, I’ll admit that visual art is not

After sharing a year with Mouse in Mouse’s Wood, young readers can now enjoy a day on the river with Mouse on the River: A Journey Through Nature, a quiet picture book full of charm. As the titular hero spends the day rowing down a river that eventually meets the sea, the most dramatic event

Summer Loomis has been writing for Book Riot since 2019. She obsessively curates her library holds and somehow still manages to borrow too many books at once. She appreciates a good deadline and likes knowing if 164 other people are waiting for the same title. It’s good peer pressure! She doesn’t have a podcast but