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Catch up on the news you missed this week with the stories Today in Books readers were most interested in.
So Many Anticipated Fall Books
At this point, a slew of publications have released their anticipated books of fall, and I’ve rounded up a handful of them for you. Prepare for cozy season and brace your TBR:
If you don’t have time to parse each list, I can tell you the standout repeats are:
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Barnes & Noble’s Discover Prize Finalists
Barnes & Noble has selected the six finalists for its Discover Prize celebrating new writers. The most recent winners of this prize were The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters (2023) and Swift River by Essie Chambers (2024 – I read it and loved it). Here are the finalists for the 2025 Prize:
- Tilt by Emma Pattee: a woman nine months pregnant reflects on her life and uncertainties as she walks the wreckage of Portland, OR after a big quake, bearing witness to humanity along the way.
- The Artist and the Feast by Lucy Steeds: A young journalist spends time with a reclusive artist and his niece and, together, they unlock long-held secrets and new passions.
- Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin: Race, class, and history clash as a queer Black Stanford graduate arrested for cocaine possession wrestles with himself in his hometown of Atlanta and New York’s underworld.
- Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar by Katie Yee: A woman undergoes a journey of grief and healing after learning her husband has been having an affair and that she has breast cancer; she names the tumor after the other woman.
- Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu: The story of a lasting but volatile friendship that forms between the child of recent immigrants to New England and a Panamanian orphan, from their years as scholarship kids at a Catholic school through their adulthood in New York’s art scene.
- Kaplan’s Plot by Jason Diamond: A listless, unsuccessful man returns to Chicago and, through unraveling the mystery of his gangster grandfather, opens the door to a brighter, more honest relationship with his dying mother.
Congrats to all of the finalists!
The Banned Wagon is Back!
For the third year in a row, Penguin Random House is doing the Banned Wagon Tour, which gives away banned books—for free!—during Banned Books Week (October 5-11). This year, they’ll be visiting libraries and indie bookstores in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia.
A Bit of Attention for a Great Bookstore
I’m carving out a slice of space to highlight an indie bookstore co-owned by a former Rioter. Hannah Oliver Depp spoke to NBCWashington about the decline in business D.C.’s Loyalty Bookstores has seen since the federal takeover. Depp pointed to mission-aligned organizations fearing “repercussions if they were seen to support a Black, queer, Asian, disability-owned independent bookstore,” and the article mentioned DOGE-effected job cuts impacting wallets. It’s also hard to imagine feeling encouraged to participate in even leisurely community engagement when the world outside looks like a police state. I’m rooting for the folks who just want to live their lives in safe spaces, for the community organizers, and for small businesses like Loyalty Bookstores trying to stay afloat in these hard times. Watch the news segment and read the story.
Trump Targets Journalists and Authors in Billion-Dollar Lawsuit
Trump continues his streak of lawsuits against news media companies with a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against New York Times journalists who authored a book and articles focusing on his finances and role in the show, The Apprentice. The book, published by Penguin Random House, and NYT articles published ahead of the last election. We’ve seen major news corporations and other formidable institutions settle out of court. Lawsuits are costly, time-consuming, and the president wields great power but, in my opinion, settling sets a terrible precedent and damages reputations. Law firm Paul, Weiss lost major partners after entering a deal with Trump to remove an executive order against the firm. The optics of a law firm fearing the courtroom is yikes, and you have to wonder if it was worth it. I think not. Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, told AP News, “Trump’s new lawsuit appears designed not to vindicate any genuine reputational harm, but to impose crushing legal costs on media organizations and create a chilling effect that will deter future critical coverage of Trump’s conduct and business dealings.” The NYT and PRH so far sound committed to standing by its writers.
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