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. _______________________________________- How Fall Became The Big Season in Book Publishing We got an incredible link from a listener of the Book Riot Podcast about the origins of publishing’s “seasons,” especially the big separation into “Fall” and “Spring” lists. The answer is both sort of boring and amazing. Basically, in the early 19th century, the vast majority of bo ..read more

Amazon is having a book sale May 15-20th, including deals on both physical (hardcover and paperback) books as well as Kindle titles. Some of these sales have started early, though. You can browse them on the Amazon Book Sale page, or you can check out our curated list of deals below. These are all popular titles on sale today for 40%-60% off. $8.99 Beach Read by Emily Henry Get This Deal $10.50 A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas Get This Deal $16.99 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride Get This Deal ..read more

We’re back again with the most read books on Goodreads this week! It’s always interesting to see how this interacts with the bestseller list — there’s a lot of overlap, but also some differences. This list is also a little more current, since the bestseller lists are usually about two weeks behind. Of course, Goodreads doesn’t offer a complete picture of what everyone in the world is reading — we haven’t reached quite that state of surveillance dystopia — but it’s the closest thing we’ve got. I’ve also included a couple of books from the StoryGraph most popular page at the end, since there are ..read more

We’re less than one month out from Pride month, and with it, the programs, book displays, and conversations to be had about LGBTQ+ identity and history across the USA and beyond. For libraries, Pride has traditionally been a month for joyful displays of queer books, with periodic and predictable complaints. But several years into surging book bans, escalating violence, and rising fascism now, it is important to prepare for the upcoming month of events to anticipate all that has, does, and might arise. Last year, I put together a how to guide to Pride displays in libraries and it feels appropri ..read more

Welcome to Read this Book, a newsletter where I recommend one book that needs to jump onto your TBR pile! Sometimes these books are brand new releases that I don’t want you to miss, while others are some of my backlist favorites. This week, let’s talk about one of my most anticipated nonfiction books of the season. Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees by Aimee Nezhukumatathil Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s World of Wonders is one of my most recommended books of all time. Ever since it came out in 2020, I’ve been sharing it with anyone who will listen. With its beautiful illustrations of plan ..read more

I keep an eye out for Asian, Asian-American, and Pacific Islander authors releasing new titles, and lately, I have seen a lot of especially interesting new and new-to-me releases. In the interest of spreading the love around and getting more adoring fans for these titles, here is a list of some awesome AAPI-authored young adult books publishing in 2024. If the AAPI acronym isn’t one you’re super familiar with, of course, you can guess that it covers a very large portion of the world. Generally, I find that some countries and regions are more well-represented among Asian and Asian-American auth ..read more

Happy May, everyone! I hope you’re getting nice weather where you are. We’ve been alternating between rain and sunny skies here — often on the same day — as spring is wont to do. Luckily, both rain and sun are reading weather. This week, I shared some recommendations for task #10: Read a historical fiction book by an Indigenous author. I have a couple more recommendations you all added in the comments section that I’ll share below. I also have a picture of my dog Scrappy, for the pitbull fans here. But first, I wanted to mention a project you should know about: the Pass the Hat project starte ..read more

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. _________________________ Warner Brothers Decides to Make Its First New Lord of the Rings Movie About the Franchise’s Toughest Hang Look, maybe it will be good. Andy Serkis was a terrific Gollum, and the CGI Weta used for Gollum was truly mind-blowing back in 2000. And yet, in my last two decades of rewatching the extended edition Blu-Rays of Lord of the Rings, I skip th ..read more

Today’s Featured Book Deals $3.99 Throne of the Fallen by Kerri Maniscalco Get This Deal $3.99 At Her Service by Amy Spalding Get This Deal $1.99 The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal Get This Deal $3.99 How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino, trans. by Bruno Navasky Get This Deal $2.99 Unthinkable: An Extraordinary Journey Through the World’s Strangest Brains by Helen Thompson Get This Deal $2.99 Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy Get This Deal ..read more

There are so many great queer books out this week that I had to split the new releases into two: the adult titles on Tuesday, and the YA/children’s ones today. But before we jump into those, I wanted to talk about an important project you can help with. Right now on TikTok, the Pass the Hat project started by Erin Hattamer is matching influencers with families in Gaza to help raise money to get them to safety. Creators are both asking their followers to donate and donating money earned from those videos through the creator fund. It’s been amazing to see how many people have been helped already ..read more