All posts tagged: Books

68 of the Best Romance Books of 2026 So Far

68 of the Best Romance Books of 2026 So Far

Published by Jenni Sidey

Every month, The Kissing Books has a roundup of the best romance books out that month. Now that we’re halfway through the year, I’ve combined all of those picks into a collection: The Best Romance Books of 2026. Anyone can browse Book Riot collections and click the covers to find the publisher’s description, the Book Riot recommendation, and links for where to purchase the title. All Access members can create their own private and public collections, so if you want to keep track of the new romance releases on your TBR, that’s the best way to do it! Check out our guide on how to use collections, and join All Access for $6 a month to get started. All Access members also get access to our New Release Index and member-only content! Source link

51 of the Best Horror Books of 2026 So Far

51 of the Best Horror Books of 2026 So Far

Published by Jenni Sidey

Every month, The Fright Stuff has a roundup of the best horror books out that month. Now that we’re halfway through the year, I’ve combined all of those picks into a collection: The Best Horror Books of 2026. Anyone can browse Book Riot collections and click the covers to find the publisher’s description, the Book Riot recommendation, and links for where to purchase the title. All Access members can create their own private and public collections, so if you want to keep track of the new horror releases on your TBR, that’s the best way to do it! Check out our guide on how to use collections, and join All Access for $6 a month to get started. All Access members also get access to our New Release Index and member-only content! Source link

The Books Briefing: What Climate Fiction Should Accomplish

The Books Briefing: What Climate Fiction Should Accomplish

Published by Sam Flores

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here. Last week, I woke up in Washington, D.C., to a simmering, suffocating haze. The thermometer reached triple digits, and so did the air-quality index, which my phone told me meant “very unhealthy.” If I lived somewhere else—in Delhi, maybe, or Kinshasa, or Los Angeles—where high temperatures and murky skies were more common, I might have been less surprised. But climate change means that such conditions are no longer confined to specific regions of the globe, and people everywhere are beginning to contend with once-rare events becoming almost routine. “To be unfamiliar with these outcomes is to be the outlier, not the norm,” Robert Rubsam wrote about climate change and natural disasters this week in The Atlantic. So why is it so hard to point to literary fiction that successfully conveys the uncanny sensation of waking up in a different world? First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic’s Books section: The writer …

Long-lost love story by Alan Turing rediscovered in archive

Long-lost love story by Alan Turing rediscovered in archive

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. History remembers British mathematician Alan Turing as the father of modern computing with an ultimately tragic life, but it’s impossible to distill any one person down to a handful of details. Over 70 years since his death by suicide, the Turing is often recalled as a introverted, dispassionate loner—but his own words present a starkly different person. “We’ve distilled a version of Turing that is a two-dimensional stereotype. He’s come to be seen as socially unaware, entirely concerned with logic and numbers, and pretty isolated,” Sarah Dillon, a literature professor at the University of Cambridge, said in a statement. Dillon recently took the time to examine a very unique, often overlooked archival item from Turing’s life: a six-page, handwritten and incomplete short story …

How owning books became everybody’s business

How owning books became everybody’s business

Published by Sam Flores

If your home contains more than two bookcases, you probably know the cautionary tale of Homer and Langley Collyer. After the deaths of their parents, the aging bluebloods holed up in their stately Harlem rowhouse, once a picture of Gilded Age polish, and became a public curiosity. Homer, who began losing his vision in the early 1930s, almost never left the house; Langley slipped out at times when he was unlikely to be seen, in search of additions to collections that filled the house: books, newspapers, tin cans, clocks, baby carriages, pianos and more.  The building, filled to its ceilings, grew increasingly dilapidated; Langley’s paranoia about suspected intruders led him to build mazes of detritus to throw them off. In 1947, after reports of strong odors were reported, a huge crowd on the street watched as police and city officials pried their way inside to look for the brothers’ bodies. They found Homer, but it took weeks to uncover Langley, who had been crushed beneath one of his own towering piles. The question of when …

Latine Books to Read if You Loved THE ODYSSEY

Latine Books to Read if You Loved THE ODYSSEY

Published by Jenni Sidey

By the time this post is out in the world, I will have seen Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey at least two times. There are a few minor things I might change were it up to me, but overall it blew me away; for a nerd who loves Greek mythology, an epic journey, lots of juicy gods vs. fate vs. personal responsibility discourse, and a score that really slaps, this is cinematic gold. My favorite part of the whole experience, though, has been the interest the film has sparked not only in Homer’s epic poem, but in related literature writ large. Folks in my feeds have been asking for reading recommendations, and receiving suggestions from passionate book nerds in droves. This is a great thing: people being jazzed about reading and interested in art is a cause for celebration. And while I love a lot of the stories I see recommended—I’m a known evangelist for Circe and The Song of Achilles, especially if you enjoy a recreational cry—I’d like to remind the people of two things: …

5 Great Middle Grade Books About Summer Camps

5 Great Middle Grade Books About Summer Camps

Published by Jenni Sidey

While only 12% of kids in the United States attend overnight summer camp programs, it’s still a popular topic among young readers. Whether or not they attend summer camps, kids love to imagine being away from home without their parents and all the hijinks they could get up to with that newfound independence. Middle grade books about summer camps often explore friend drama, first crushes, and self-discovery. Kids solve problems without adult supervision and go on their own adventures. From a camp centered on Black history to LGBTQ+ and monster camps, these five novels explore all the drama and personal growth that can happen at summer camps. It Doesn’t Take a Genius by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich Black excellence and Black joy take center stage in this delightful novel. When 13-year-old Emmett’s older brother gets a job at an exclusive Black summer camp far away from home, Emmett secretly applies for a scholarship and gets into the camp, much to his brother’s annoyance. While Emmett is known as something of a genius at his middle school, everyone …

Must-Read Books About Colonialism

Must-Read Books About Colonialism

Published by Jenni Sidey

Edna Bonhomme is the author of Tending To Our Wounds: A Diasporic Memoir, out now from Haymarket Books. Below, she recommends three must-read books about colonialism. (Photo credit: Jasmin Valcarcel) All empires are obsessed with the prospect of their own decline. For marginalized people born and raised in the heart of empires, some plot and hope for their demise. As someone who is part of multiple diasporas forced to leave their lands, I often turn to theorists and scholars who not only grapple with colonialism’s chains but also make sense of how it shaped the psyche, family, or rebellions. There are so many books to choose from, texts that nourish my spirit and inspire me to work toward building a better world. The texts I have chosen are not only case studies of the psychological cost of colonialism but also testaments that the colonized are not passive victims. Hopefully, they provide some hope in these times. The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon Fanon’s text is a revolutionary pamphlet and a psychiatrist’s diagnosis of French …

The rise of the ‘hot literati’: how reading became sexy | Books

The rise of the ‘hot literati’: how reading became sexy | Books

Published by Sam Flores

From celebrity book clubs to the revival of the edgy literary party, being a book lover is in. Dior has launched new versions of their Book Tote emblazoned with the covers of classics such as Ulysses and Dracula. Earlier this year, Coach collaborated with Penguin to produce miniature literary bag charms – fully readable micro-versions of books, from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings to Sense and Sensibility. Miu Miu hosts a Literary Club; Chanel its Rendez-vous littéraire. Being bookish is now sexy, we’re told. i-D magazine recently ran a piece on the Whitney Review – a literary journal based in New York – proclaiming its team part of the “hot literati reshaping criticism”. The founder describes the Review as “sexy, surprising, stubborn”, and its contributors “curious and beautiful” (corroborated by an accompanying shoot in which the Whitney team look more like a bunch of models than anything else). But the piece raised eyebrows in the comments section of i-D’s Instagram page: “the definition of vacuous and vapid”, writes one user; “No room for …

A Racist Cult, Revenge at a Private Academy, and More New YA Books for July 22, 2026

A Racist Cult, Revenge at a Private Academy, and More New YA Books for July 22, 2026

Published by Jenni Sidey

For being one of the longest summers possible–the distance between Memorial Day and Labor Day is the farthest it can be–this summer has absolutely flown by. Sure, there’s still a month and a half, but school here begins August 12 (!!!), and that may as well be fall. The good news is that, despite how fast things have gone, I’m really happy with how much time I’ve been able to spend reading so far. I’ve also enjoyed so much of what I’ve read, too. Participating in my library’s adult summer reading club has been a cherry on top; it definitely motivated me to read every night before bed, rather than just most nights. You take the Ws where you get them, even if you know maintaining that habit may change with the shifting of seasons. Whether you’re feeling the end of summer, are luxuriating in it, or hoping that it’ll end sooner rather than later, the good news I’ve repeated every week since Memorial Day remains: new YA books are still hitting shelves, so you …