Books

Bradley Graeme and Celine Bangura used to be best friends. Then Brad joined the popular football crowd, leaving Celine to lean into nerd culture and her TikTok account. Though Celine has no shortage of self-confidence, she’s always resented Brad for choosing popularity over loyalty. Their friendship fallout feels especially painful since Celine and Brad are

In So Much Snow, author Kristen Schroeder and illustrator Sarah Jacoby take readers through the days of the week by exploring the joys of a big winter snowfall in the woods.  “On Monday, it starts to snow,” the book opens as a tiny mouse watches huge three snowflakes fall to the grass. “How high will

December is just about over and we’re in the final week of the year, and for many, that means curling up inside under the covers with as many books as you can get your hands on. And if you really want to escape the snow and cold weather, transporting yourself to whole new worlds can

Last year, Rachel Riley was the most popular girl at East Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin. This year, she’s persona non grata with the entire eighth grade class—except for Anna Hunt.  Anna, the new kid in town, is an aspiring journalist who loves listening to podcasts, reading and emailing her grandmother, Babcia, who lives in

Pick your city: New York. London. Hong Kong. Jakarta. Athens. New Delhi. They are, all of them, studies in sharp contrasts, places where the uber-rich glide along gilded paths, cheek-by-jowl with the destitute, the desperate and the deadly. For the people who occupy the space between these extremes, it’s possible to ignore or be oblivious

“Trauma” has become a bit of a buzzword around the internet. This is the case in part because more and more research and understanding of trauma has come to light, and we’re better articulating the impact of trauma on the body and mind. Trauma is an emotional response to an event; it is not the

It’s the end of another year and that means we’re being treated to another look into the reading life of former President Barack Obama. Like previous years, it’s a diverse mix of titles and includes both fiction and nonfiction. This year includes a powerful graphic memoir as well. Of little surprise, Obama’s first pick is

Poor Nubby. The plush toy rabbit has been “carried, buried, dropped, dragged, torn, worn, chewed on, sat on, and even used as a nose wipe. Repeatedly.” What a life! No wonder Nubby decides to head off in search of a place where he’ll be far more appreciated than he is at home.  First, Nubby tries

Barnes & Noble has a plan to open 30 stores in 2023, making the bookseller the leader in what’s being called a big-box revival. This expansion comes after more than a decade of shrinking its number in response to competition from Amazon. There are even a couple of the new stores being opened in the

Coretta Scott King Honor author Lesa Cline-Ransome has earned a reputation as an excellent chronicler of American history in more than 20 works of fiction and nonfiction. In For Lamb, she powerfully captures the events that lead to a fictitious lynching in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1940.  Cline-Ransome was inspired to write For Lamb after visiting

Readers have likely noticed that super-bright colors continue to dominate book cover design in 2022, but while evaluating all the covers she’s seen this year, BookPage’s Brand & Production Designer Meagan Vanderhill was looking for more than eye-catching colors. Good book jacket design is certainly about grabbing a reader’s attention, she explains, but it’s also

New York City is the literary capital of the country, from the abundance of publishing houses based there to the vibrant writing culture. It also has some of the largest public libraries in the United States. We’ve seen a lot of discussion in the past few months of the best books of the year as

Love stories set during the holidays are almost always good-natured, but this year’s standouts take good cheer and good will to another level. Personal transformations and turning points abound in these empathetic and festive happily ever afters.     ★ So This Is Christmas Author Jenny Holiday takes readers on a third trip to the fictional country

After solving two notorious cold cases, Stevie and her friends from Ellingham Academy are off to jolly old England to uncover the truth about a double murder that took place at a wealthy country estate in 1995. Meanwhile, they’re also dealing with college applications, academic pressures, romantic entanglements and more. In Nine Liars, bestselling author

Are you guilty of reading ahead? We certainly are: The January issue previews some of our most anticipated books of 2023, including upcoming books from Tom Hanks, KJ Charles, S.A. Cosby and many more! Plus, love will be in the air in our February issue, which includes Valentine’s Day features & an expanded romance column.

Here at Book Riot, we publish 8-10 posts every weekday, not counting news stories, deals round ups, and other miscellanea. That’s thousands of posts in a year. Some of them blow up, and some of them are snubbed by social media algorithms. Regardless of the views, likes, or shares, though, our contributors have written some

Teen sleuth Stevie Bell is back! It’s the autumn of her senior year at Ellingham Academy, and she and her friends Nate, Janelle and Vi have been invited by Stevie’s boyfriend, David, to join him in London to solve another cold case. One rain-soaked night 1995, nine inseparable friends played a game of hide-and-seek on

‘Tis the season for “best of” book lists, and we’ve rounded up quite a few on Book Riot. The newest addition is the first “The Atlantic 10,” which the magazine defines not quite as the best books of the year, but the books that “impressed us with their force of ideas, that drew us in

“Solitude is tolerable, even enjoyable at times. But when you realise that you’ve given your life to someone, yet you know nothing but his name? That kind of solitude is loneliness. That’s what kills you.” In An Yu’s ethereal Ghost Music, a woman’s grip on her suffocating life loosens as she is drawn into a

Blackmail, jealousy and murder haunt a luxury ski resort. Can two sleuths crack the case before a blizzard traps them alongside a killer? Darby Piper and Tate Porter are still getting used to working together as PIs when they agree to take on a case brought to them by Tate’s ex-girlfriend, Cecily Madd. Cecily’s husband,

“Fake news” has been the news for years, thanks to a president who helped empower distrust in people and institutions which have experience, expertise, and history in delivering information. But from “fake news” has been the larger discussion of mis- and disinformation, which themselves have been used to weaponize authority. But what exactly does misinformation

The art of letter writing seems all but doomed in our age of digital communication, and one wonders where future literary biographers will turn for the singular insights that a writer’s correspondence affords. Scholars of John le Carré will have no such concerns. Le Carré, real name David Cornwell, who died in December 2020, was

One of the biggest readers’ choice book awards–and one that certainly captures the excitement and attention of the bookish internet–is the Goodreads Choice Awards. It’s an opportunity for Goodreads users to weigh in on the books they think were the best of the best that year. For 2022, it’s clear that the power of BookTok

The Double Agent The problem with being a double agent is that if you put a foot wrong, there is always someone ready—even eager—to kill you. In the case of Alexsi Ivanovich Smirnoff, the situationally heroic hero of William Christie’s The Double Agent, there are not two but three agencies poised to be either his

Now that so many of us spend all day on screens, there’s something about using a paper calendar. From bullet journalling to maintaining a wall calendar, having reminders in a physical form can make them more effective — and it’s nice to get a break from screens and pinging reminders. Daily calendars (fun fact: “Page-A-Day

Science journalist Sabrina Imbler dives deep into the waters of human and marine life in their luminous essay collection, How Far the Light Reaches. In the book’s 10 essays, Imbler cannily observes the lives of sea creatures, drawing out lessons about resilience, survival and wildness and tying those insights to their own experiences as a

The grumpy / sunshine trope is nothing new, but watching Wednesday and Enid becoming the best and unlikeliest of friends in the new Netflix show reminded me of just how much I love that dynamic whether in friendships or romances. There’s just something about a hardened, stoic character being soft for that one overly optimistic

Documentary filmmaker and historian Ken Burns believes that photographs are portals “not just to a different time and space but also to dimensions and possibilities within myself.” Through photographs and illustrations, these books are guaranteed to transport you. ★ Apollo Remastered Apollo Remastered: The Ultimate Photographic Record is a weighty, large-format coffee table book that

Evette Dionne’s anticipated second release after her celebrated children’s nonfiction book, Lifting as We Climb, is a bracing essay collection on the dangers of fatphobia and her personal resistance to its claims. The former editor-in-chief of Bitch magazine braids the personal with the political in Weightless: Making Space for My Resilient Body and Soul, breaking