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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.
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 find on PW‘s lists, which include an overall top 10 and lists for 12 categories, than what I did find. Reading is subjective and each outlet approaches their Best ofs looking through a unique lens, but I admit I expected to see, for instance, R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis under SF/Fantasy/Horror (which is such a short list!), Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This under Nonfiction, and S.A. Cosby’s King of Ashes under Mystery/Thriller. The titles I wasn’t surprised to find included were Katie Kitamura’s Audition, Stephen Graham Jones’ The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, and Jordan Thomas’s When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World all under PW’s Top 10 picks; Nicholas Boggs’ Baldwin: A Love Story under Nonfiction; Angela Flournoy’s The Wilderness and Souvankham Thammavongsa’s Pick a Color under Fiction. I also have to remind myself that there won’t always be crossover between books selected for this year’s major book awards and those selected for Best ofs, but it’s been a strange year in books with mixed feelings about the quality of reads being published and, so far, those vibes are showing up on these lists.
Esquire Names Its Best Books of 2025
And it’s a decent one! It includes some of my anticipated reads from earlier in the year that, I feel, got buried in the mix as 2025 progressed. The list gathers a variety of styles, categories, and genres. But, am I missing something or are there no books by Black writers listed? This is my only gripe. Read more about Esquire‘s best books here.
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A Gothic Fiction Starter Pack
Today’s Halloween treat is for anyone who wants to get into Gothic fiction, or take a more curated approach to reading these works. The New York Times published a starter pack that offers some historical context alongside must-reads. You’ve got classics, contemporary works, Southern Gothic, and reads for people with particular leanings or desires. It’s a great way to get started with this category of fiction and to explore just how broad it can be. Go on and scare yourself up some spooky season reads.
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, champion historically underrepresented authors. The news comes as the current administration slashes federal arts funding with an eye toward groups that don’t espouse their views or that engage with DEI seemingly on just about any level. Poet and President of the Mellon Foundation Elizabeth Alexander said, “American philanthropy can play a bigger role in strengthening the financial infrastructure of the literary organizations and nonprofits that serve these literary artists,” and it certainly appears that outside groups will need to step in as federal funding checks out.
Libraries are Scrambling for Books
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. 404 Media covered why it might be harder for all of us to get new releases from our local libraries. We’ve been talking about the shuttering of one of the largest distributors of books to libraries, Baker & Taylor, and the storm brewing for these essential public spaces. This is one of the most comprehensive articles I’ve seen about the distributor’s downfall and the fallout of its closure being experienced by libraries now. Most frustrating for library staff is the lack of transparency about the state of the books distributor from B&T itself, with news of the shuttering breaking on a Reddit thread instead of via a statement. Read all about the debacle and what it means for libraries and library patrons like you.
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