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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.
Goodreads Users Choose the Season’s Most Anticipated Books
Spring has almost sprung, and that means a new season of fresh books. Goodreads users geared up for sunnier reading by selecting their most anticipated reads of the next few months. Highlights include Last Night in Brooklyn by Xóchitl González, my current read Whidbey by T Kira Madden, and The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton by Jennifer N. Brown, and Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age by Ibram X. Kendi, but the list boasts 79 anticipated spring books in various categories ripe for exploring.
Even Major Publishers Get Tripped Up By A.I.
Remember how we were talking about the rise in books published in the U.S., and how self-published books have a lot to do with that increase? Well, we didn’t talk about how the rise in A.I. also plays into the self-publishing boom. If you browse books on Amazon, you’ve likely come across A.I. slop titles. Sometimes it’s easy to tell when you’re looking at these works, and sometimes the clues are more subtle, as they might have been for Hachette. In a piece written for The New York Times, Alexandra Alter reports on how the Big 5 publisher scooped up a buzzy self-published horror novel that is now facing allegations of being largely A.I.-generated or assisted. Hachette had already released the novel in the U.K. but will discontinue that edition and has scrapped the planned U.S. release. In an email to the Times, the book’s author, Mia Ballard, claimed an acquaintance used A.I. to edit Shy Girl. Whoof. If ever I read a nightmare publishing story for our times… The piece goes on to explore the challenges all of publishing faces in the era of A.I. novelists and is worth a full read.
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The Nationwide Book Ban Bill Moves to the House: How to Take Action Now
Another day, another doozy from the miserable world of book bans. Kelly Jensen writes about the passage of HR 7661 by the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, where it goes next, and what you can do about it.
Barnes & Nobles’ Most Popular Books
And if you need even more recommendations based on what your fellow readers are into, look to Barnes & Nobles’ list of the top 10 most viewed books of the past week. R.F. Kuang is back in our line of sight with her newest, Taipei Story, which isn’t even out until this fall. Readers are also into the James Patterson/Viola Davis collab (who put that on their bingo card?), Judge Stone. And as my own doctor said, perimenopause is trending, and the book she recommended made the list: The New Perimenopause: An Evidence-Based Guide to Surviving the Zone of Chaos and Feeling Like Yourself Again by Mary Claire Haver MD. Of course, you will also find the next two just-announced, highly anticipated Sarah J. Maas ACOTAR books at the top of the list.
The Finalists for the 38th Annual Lambda Literary Awards
The Lambda Literary Awards, celebrating outstanding LGBTQ+ voices in literature, has its finalists for the 2026 awards. Each of the 26 categories has five finalists, so there’s much to explore. Titles that seemed to be everywhere last year include Hungerstone by Kat Dunn (Lesbian Fiction), The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam by Lana Lin (Lesbian Memoir/Biography), Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson by Tourmaline (Transgender Nonfiction), Spent by Alison Bechdel (LGBTQ+ Comics), and Sympathy for Wild Girls by Demree McGhee (Bisexual Fiction). But the fact is that not enough of these books get amplified. If books like Disco Witches of Fire Island by Blair Fell (Gay Romance), The Natural Order of Things by Donika Kelly (Lesbian Poetry; I still think about Kelly’s Bestiary collection), The Lilac People by Milo Todd (Transgender Fiction), and Bed and Breakup by (Book Riot’s own) Susie Dumond (Lesbian Romance) fell under your radar, this list of Lambda Literary Awards finalists will be your new favorite catch-up resource. Congrats to the authors!
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