Books & Literature
New books, literary reviews, author interviews, reading lists, book clubs and publishing news.
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This reading list brings together items from the sources selected for Books & Literature. Open each item at its original source for the complete article, episode or video. This is a selection of current coverage, not a complete archive.
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Authors of r/Fantasy, join us for the 2026 Holiday Charity MegaSale on the 26th & 27th of December, 2026, to benefit the Mary Cariola Children's Center! 100 authors and 260+ books already pledged! - (posted with moderator approval)
The 2026 Holiday Megasale banner, with winter colors, showing a call for authors. TLDR: MegaSale call for participants! We are once again bidding farewell to the holiday season with an epic sale on Dec. 26th and 27th, and this is our one and only open call for participants. Many thanks to u/BryceOConnor for hosting the MegaSale in years past! I will be hosting it again this year, to make sure this sale keeps going. We’ve moved to a Google form rather than a spreadsheet for signups, in hopes of making this easier for everyone involved.
Playful sex
Hey everyone! I am looking for books rec where the sex is a fun activity for the couple. Like they are laughing, teasing each other and all that. In most books, it's always that the sex scene is just full of dirty talk from the mmc and the fmc just moaning. While that is also undoubtedly hot, I am looking for more relaxed playful sex scenes. I would prefer a younger couple but honestly anything works. Just no multiple partners. Thanks!
Book Riot’s Deals of the Day for October 13, 2026
Essays on horror, dragon racing, a sex worker turned political assassin, and more of today's best book deals.
Layli Long Soldier : We
Layli Long Soldier returns to the show to discuss her latest remarkable poetry collection We (and/or Wé). We talk about these two connotations of we/wé, the questions of address, audience, identity and kinship implicit in them both. We explore the many visual art installations documented within We and how they intersect with both poetry and community. We explore what it means to treat a poem, not yet finished, as having its own desires and needs different than yours.
Need a trope-informed FMC who is delusional and trusts "real life" WILL turn out like a romance novel
I think most of us are sick of FMCs who love romance novels, and part of the reason for that, for me is, they aren't delusional about it. The FMC will get into a fake dating scenario, but hem and haw the whole time about how it isn't real and it won't work out like the romance novels she loves, because she isn't living in a romance novel herself (haha, get it? /s).
What are your thoughts on this writing about the future of books and reading?
From James Marriott in The Times today: "Back then [the 18th century], long before public libraries & the paperback revolution, books were still rare and prestigious artefacts. And readers demanded not merely 'delight' from their reading matter but also 'instruction' and 'improvement'. It was the great age of sermons, edifying novels and moralising children's literature. And so is ours.
LOOK WHAT THE CAT DRAGGED IN
Working with artists Horner and Staehle, as he did for Hidden Pictures (2022), Rekulak uses illustrations to support a paranormal thriller plot. Penny Padgett, a 27-year-old cartoonist living in Philadelphia, has published three beloved graphic novels about her life with her cat, Popcorn, and is working on a fourth when Popcorn darts out the window during a snowstorm and disappears. When all efforts to locate him fail, Penny spirals into unproductive despair.
REALMSWEEP | Kirkus Reviews
Twelve-year-old Rowdy Buckner, who has dark eyes and hair and “the same brown skin passed down from ancestors who called this kingdom home long before it was a kingdom at all,” is sick of his pampered lifestyle as the future monarch of the Kingdom of Texas in the Allied Lands, a magical version of the U.S. He dreams of someday being an adventurer and gaining access to the alchemic tonics that provide gender-affirming and other physical changes so he can live as the man he’s long known himself to be.
UNAPOLOGETIC LOVE STORY
In London, Tom Branimir’s reputation as a journalist precedes him. Over the years, he’s increasingly devoted his career to writing exposés about fraudsters who push bogus health remedies and scam their followers. His cynical outlook and ruthless coverage have even earned him the nickname “King of Cancel Culture.” So he’s not expecting to find inspiration for his next investigative piece in someone who’s completely genuine.
MOTHSBLOOD | Kirkus Reviews
Larkspur Lee, a first-year American student on scholarship, is well aware of the precariousness of her situation at Université Meurdrac. Without social standing or family connections, Lark must use her fierce ambition and hard-earned knowledge of alchemy to survive. When the opportunity arises for a coveted apprenticeship with the immortal Petronelle Flamel, she grabs the chance to access the hidden web of alchemists that thrums beneath society;
LITTLE VOLCANO
In distinct contrast to the general run of introductions to volcanoes, which tend to be full of melodramatic images and tales of widespread disaster, this survey goes for cute. Wagstaffe does acknowledge the perils of being anywhere near an erupting volcano’s gigantic emissions of gas and flows of lava and ash, pyroclastic or otherwise, but Stevie turns out to be more lonely than dangerous, and her fiery Hawaiian neighbors throw her a welcome party when she emerges from the ocean at last.
MR. LEMONCELLO'S WONDERMOUS CHRISTMAS GIFT
Dishing up a lighter-than-air confection replete with homages to classic holiday tales, Grabenstein pits bookish 12-year-old Eloise Dobyns against spiteful failed author Roger Scobeenzee—who, having gained access to the source code for all the Christmas stories in existence, aims to overwrite them with his own dour vision of a Christmas Eve Martian invasion. Fortunately, Eloise has on her side an odd but helpful new schoolmate named (with shades of a certain well-known Christmas film) Clarence. She’s also helped by giddy bazillionaire Luigi L.
ABC JEWISH HEROES AND ME
This collective biography/alphabet book defines a hero as “someone who tries to be their best self, who helps others, who makes the world a better place.” One Jewish hero is included for each letter of the alphabet. The 14 women and 12 men featured vary in terms of race and ability, as well as occupation. Notably, fully half are living. “A, B, C—what type of hero will you be?” ask Cohen and Olitzky, encouraging readers to see themselves in the individuals profiled.
A DARKER ACT
That was, until last year, when she joined her school’s theatrical group and fell for their mysterious star, Roman Cavalero. Now, the British teen’s Type A skills are being put to the test as the Edgemoor Players venture out on an unchaperoned extra credit orienteering trip on their local moor. Faced with dangerous snowy conditions, the young actors become trapped in a creepy old abandoned church as they await rescue.
WRITTEN IN STARLIGHT
Della Farley embodies the classic fairy-tale heroine of a working-class woman whose dreams stretch far beyond her responsibilities of scrubbing floors and dusting shelves. When she discovers a mysterious book lying in the street, she’s captured by the tale of an intergalactic bounty hunter named Ansel Tulzok. In the next chapter, Ansel himself finds a slightly different book: The story within its pages is Della’s. They both quickly become aware that this isn’t an ordinary book.
THE DEEP DARK OCEAN
Setting her tone with the opening header “Weirdness All the Way Down,” marine biologist Scales highlights a select menagerie of strange-looking ocean fauna, from giant and colossal squid (which are actually different species) to bubblegum corals, E.T. sponges, and jellies called “larvaceans” enveloped in floating “snot palaces.”
HOLD STILL
When the muckraking journalist Barbara Ehrenreich died in 2022, her author son, Ben, decided to write a story every day to work through his emotions. The 85 pieces collected here all roughly qualify as flash fiction, though a few are ultrabrief wisps of ideas. (Complete text of one piece: “Again, it was supposed to rain, but it did not rain, again.”) Some pieces are intimately engaged with moments from Ehrenreich’s life with his wife and young daughter; others endeavor to evoke the language of myth and fable in narratives populated by magpies,
THE BOOKSHOP
Award-winning Scottish historian Pettegree offers an abundantly detailed history of bookselling, spanning the past 600 years. As far back as Greek and Roman times, there was a market for handwritten texts, and, even before the invention of printing, doctors, lawyers, and clergymen collected relevant tomes. Gutenberg’s invention, though, fueled the start of a book industry that involved printers, typefounders, binders, publishers, and sellers.
THE TRAVEL BOOK
This globe-spanning guide begins in Canada and circles the world in a generally easterly direction—leaving out the polar regions but fetching up at last with entries for Vanuatu and New Zealand. Each of the just under 200 single-page stops along the way presents a crowded but easily navigable mix of distinctive landmarks (portrayed in photos or Li’s and Andrya’s illustrations), updated fast facts (including a small map and flag), and notes on a choice selection of geographical, cultural, and historical highlights.
MIDNIGHT AT THE SAVOY
Bored with life in Toronto, attractive young Priscilla Tempest left Canada for London, where she’s serving as press officer at the famed Savoy Hotel. Her title might as well be Miss Fix-it, since she’s the one who’s called to deal with all sorts of problems, from hungover guests to temperamental actors who refuse to rehearse. Her current emergency, however, literally has her name on it, since a dead man has been found in a car in front of the hotel clutching a note to “my darling Priscilla.”
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