Author: Rebecca Joines Schinsky

We’re a little more than halfway through the inaugural season of our new hit podcast Zero to Well-Read, and if you haven’t checked out yet, we think you’ll dig it. Part book club, part English class, Zero to Well-Read aims to be a fun, informative, and irreverent guide to the books everyone talks about, from classics you should have read in high school to modern hits everyone’s buzzing about. Follow Zero to Well-Read wherever you get your podcasts, and if you like the show, please share it with a bookish friend!

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Welcome to Today in Books. Here’s our the bookish news stories readers were most interested in this week. Barnes & Noble’s Best Books of 2025 You’re not imagining it; Best Books of the Year season is getting earlier and earlier. PW has been first out of the gate the last few years, dropping their list in the final days of October. Barnes & Noble beat them to the punch on Friday with not one, not two, not seven, but 19 lists. Both the number of lists and…

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. Barnes & Noble’s 2025 Book of the Year Finalists Hot on the heels of their Best Books of 2025, announced last week, Barnes & Noble has revealed the finalists for the 2025 Book of the Year, which is indeed a different thing. The Book of the Year award, introduced in 2019, is selected by booksellers and tends to go to widely recommendable titles…

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. Amazon Revisits 25 Years of Best Books Picks Amazon was early on the internet-based Best Books of the Year trend. As we close out the first quarter of the 21st century, they’ve rounded up all of their #1 picks and other highlights from 25 years of best-of lists. Amazon editors’ approach to Best Of is unique among online publications and retailers. The #1…

This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here they are, the stories Today in Books readers were most interested in (measured in clicks) this week. Judge Tosses Trump’s Case Against the NYT, PRH A federal judge in Florida has dismissed President Donald Trump’s $15 billion lawsuit (yeah, that’s billion with a B, his feelings were very hurt) against the New York Times, four of its reporters, and Penguin Random House. Judge Steven D. Merryday described the 85-page complaint as “florid and enervating,” noting that Trump’s attorneys waited until page 80 to actually mention the defamation…

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Judge Approves $1.5 Billion Settlement in Anthropic AI Suit Authors scored an important victory this week as a federal judge in California approved the terms for a $1.5 billion settlement between AI company Anthropic and authors whose books it allegedly pirated to train large language models. The settlement, which will apply to an estimated 465,000 books, will pay authors and publishers $3,000 for each title. Judge William Alsup initially delayed approval of the settlement during a hearing on September 8,…

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 Problem Cannot Also Be the Cure Let me give you the bad news first: we’re doing another round of “why don’t men read fiction?” Now the good news: we may finally be homing in on better questions to ask. In reviewing a cohort of recent novels about the contemporary male experience, Robert Rubsam hits on the idea that writers know they have…