Literature

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

Welcome to Today in Books, where we report on literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Reflecting on 75 Years of the National Book Awards In the run-up to the 75th anniversary of the National Book Awards later this year, The Washington Post has invited authors who have been honored by

As of this moment, my daughter is on the longest reading bender of her young life. She picked up the Percy Jackson series about a week ago, burned through that, and now is on to the Heroes of Olympus part of the saga (is it a saga? I don’t know. She talks to me about

Every month, I round up the links that you all clicked on the most from last month’s Our Queerest Shelves newsletters. I love seeing which titles caught your eye — was it because you wanted to buy it right that second, or you just wanted to learn more about it? I can’t know that for

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

Raised by genteel, churchgoing parents, actress Geena Davis was a shy young woman while she was growing up, but over time, she found her true self as an artist and feminist. She chronicles her personal evolution in her companionable memoir, Dying of Politeness. With wit and honesty, Davis takes stock of her time as a

Cat Sebastian’s latest queer historical romance is a love letter to resilience and the power of bravery. Set in 1960 New York City, the same midcentury journalism milieu of Sebastian’s 2023 novel, We Could Be So Good, You Should Be So Lucky tells the story of shortstop Eddie O’Leary and journalist Mark Bailey, both of

In Malas, the legend of La Llorona (the Weeping Woman) ties together the stories of two women from different generations in a Texas border town. When the two meet in the ‘90s, their connection—including a shared love of Selena—threatens to surface buried town secrets. Malas is your first novel. Can you tell us a bit

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