Author: S. Zainab Williams

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. New Reading Rainbow Host Selected as National Library Week Honorary Chair Librarian and new Reading Rainbow host Mychal Threets is a delight and a gift to the reading world, so is it any wonder the American Library Association (ALA) selected him as Honorary Chair of National Library Week for 2026. “Find Your Joy” is the theme of the 68th annual celebration, which may…

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. The Atlantic‘s Best Books of 2025 Alert alert! We have another major best books list in the ether. The Atlantic released a list of their picks for the 10 best books of the year. Hats off to any outlet able to whittle it down to so small a number. If you’ve been scouring all of the lists, you won’t find any surprises here…

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. And the Giller Prize Goes to… Souvankham Thammavongsa for a book I really want to read. Thammavongsa is now a two-time winner of the Giller, Canada’s prestigious literary prize awarding C$100,000 for excellence in Canadian fiction. The author’s most recent win is for her buzzy new novel, Pick a Color, while her 2020 win was for her short story collection, How to Pronounce…

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. The Best Audiobooks of the Year Audiobooks have changed my reading life for the better, between surviving long commutes when I lived in L.A. to making sure I got reading done for podcasting without neglecting a million chores. So I anticipate lists of the year’s best audiobooks as much as I do the overall roundups, and Libro.fm and Audible have released those lists!…

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. New Dr. Seuss Book Will Celebrate the U.S.’s 250th Anniversary I’m not in a particularly celebratory mood, but the Cat in the Hat is here for it. A Dr. Seuss manuscript featuring the popular character has surfaced from the Geisel Library at The University California San Diego just in time for the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence. Sing the 50 United States, which sets out to teach the names of the states, will be posthumously published…

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. The Launch of a $50 Million Literary Arts Fund Some good news for your Wednesday! Publishers Weekly reports that the Literary Arts Fund has launched to “award at least $50 million to the nonprofit literary sector over the next five years.” The fund is supported by seven charitable foundations, including the Mellon Foundation, and will focus on organizations and publishers that, for instance,…

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2025 Between Barnes & Noble’s Best Books of the Year and Publishers Weekly‘s freshly-announced Best Books, I’m starting to think this year’s lists are going to be all over the place. It’s too early to say for certain as these are, after all, the earliest announcements on the block, but I was more surprised by what I didn’t…

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are the biggest headlines from last week. And the Nobel Prize in Literature Goes To… Laszlo Krasznahorkai. “Who?” you ask. Krasznahorkai is a Hungarian writer known for writing dark, apocalyptic novels in a style that features, for instance, only one period and long run-on sentences. He’s a winner of the Man Booker International Prize and Susan Sontag called him a “master of…

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Catch up on the news you missed this week with the stories Today in Books readers were most interested in. The National Book Awards Fiction Longlist Is In! The Fiction longlist is in and I’m patting myself on the back because two of the books I selected for my Book Riot podcast fantasy league made the cut (I’ll share what those are below). These books–some of which release later in the year–are and will be everywhere. I already have a copy of Angela…

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. The National Book Awards Nonfiction Longlist Let’s be real. The most anticipated NBA announcements for most people who pay attention to such things are the Fiction and Nonfiction categories, in that order. Which is why the Nonfiction longlist was announced just yesterday, and we still have to wait for the Fiction list. I was very excited about the Nonfiction category because I had…