Book Riot’s Deals of the Day for October 26, 2026
Two inseparable sisters, the bloody costs of living well, southern gothic eco-horror, and more of today's best book deals.
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Lit Hub Daily: October 26, 2026
Why boys actually need boy bands: “Books and boy bands are a bard’s best balm.” | Lit Hub Music Matthew Sitman talks to Brandon Taylor about Minor Black Figures, writing about Black art, and more at The Center For Fiction.
Horror Books to Read in One Sitting This Halloween
These horror novellas and graphic novels are perfect choices to read in one sitting on Halloween.
Romance Authors’ Favorite Romance Novels
Who better to recommend romance than someone who writes it? Here are 15 romance authors' favorite romance novels.
8 Great Genre-Blending Mystery Books
Locked spaceship murder mysteries and cozy rom-com mysteries aren't out of the ordinary in these genre-blending mystery books.
Early Chapter Books for Reluctant Readers
These early chapter books for reluctant readers hit the sweet spot of compelling subjects and comfortable, approachable reading levels.
Fights and Spells: 8 Exciting YA Sword & Sorcery Fantasy Novels
Magic and adventure await you on the pages of these exhilarating YA sword & sorcery fantasy novels!
Brandon Taylor on Writing About Black Art and Black Artists in America
The Center For Fiction welcomed Brandon Taylor, Booker Prize finalist and bestselling author of Real Life and Filthy Animals, back to our stage to celebrate the release of his highly anticipated novel Minor Black Figures. Matthew Sitman, host of the
Hidden In Plain Sight: What It Meant to Unearth My Father’s Decades-Old FBI File
My father didn’t want to know what, if anything, the FBI had on him. Or at least that’s what my mother claimed. But after he died, as I sifted through his United Nations personnel documents and wartime correspondence to and
Maria Edgeworth: Early 19th-Century Celebrity Novelist and… Key Contributor to the Birth of Classical Economics?
London society buzzed with one name that spring: Miss Edgeworth. The year was 1813. The Regency era was in full swing, and the upper class had assembled for the season in a pastel whirl of lace and silk, complete with
How Joe Biden and the National Democratic Party Paved the Way For American Fascism
I’m angry at MAGA leaders every day for the lies and manipulation and wreckage they’ve wrought on the very people who voted for them—not to mention the rest of us. I’m angry when I see faith manipulated and weaponized, while
Anika Fajardo on Connecting With Her Colombian Heritage Through Magical Realism
I discovered magical realism when I was sixteen, the same summer I began a correspondence with my Colombian father. Up to that point, I had lived entirely removed from my birthplace in Colombia. It was the 1980s and I was
This Week in Literary History: The First Ballpoint Pen is Sold in New York City
This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Literary History newsletter—sign up here. In the summer of 1944, news of an exciting new invention made its way to American newspapers. A Hungarian-Argentinian journalist named László Bíró had patented a new kind of pen, one
The Story Behind Edward Hopper’s Iconic Painting, “Nighthawks”
Feature image: Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942. Oil on canvas, 33 1/8 × 60 in. (84.1 x 152.4 cm). The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois. Purchased using Friends of American Art fund, 1942.51. Photo: The Art Institute of Chicago / Art
War Is Interested in You by Gideon Rachman review – are we on the brink of world war three?
A foreign affairs expert’s bleak assessment of the state of global securityAre we on the brink of a new world war? This bleak subject is increasingly invoked by leaders, soldiers and officials, from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin to the heads of our military and intelligence services. It’s an urgent theme, then, for the FT foreign affairs columnist Gideon Rachman to explore in his latest survey of global diplomacy. Rachman draws his title from the expression, sometimes attributed to Trotsky: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you” – the idea being that conflict doesn’t much care whether we like to think about it or not: it will come knocking on our doors regardless.Clearly, humanity is in a particularly unsafe spot right now, but seeing our security issues laid out like this, catalogued and mapped and analysed, they seem almost overwhelming. To summarise: the most powerful, nuclear-armed states – the US, China and Russia – are led by unscrupulous, self-dealing “strongmen”, each of whom is playing with the nationalist “Great Again” politics epitomised by Trump. Democracy is being rolled back around the world, and even bastions of liberalism such as the UK, …
Are Boy Bands the Cure for the Male Loneliness Epidemic?
One of the most formative moments in my adventures in rock ‘n roll occurred when I was around fourteen. I went to a brick and mortar record store at the mall and read the liner notes to Good Charlotte’s self-titled
Can Creative Hobbies Actually Change the World?
At first glance, belonging to a calligraphy guild or attending a quilting circle may seem like the very definition of apolitical activity. A handful of people gathering in a library conference room or church fellowship hall to have a potluck
Night of a Thousand Hells
Revolutions always begin with ugly stepsisters. Our little sister was neither ugly nor revolutionary. Who knows what darkness lurked in her heart when she strapped on a bomb and blew herself up. The curtain rises: disaster and ruin slither out
Music Against the Night by Yiyun Li review – a virtuosic interrogation of the power of art
What does it cost, to live your life in the hope of immortality? Li examines the gulf between talent and genius through the marriage of two real-life musiciansIn his recently published A History of the Novel in Britain, Philip Hensher makes a bold claim. Historical novels, he tells us, don’t last. However popular and prestigious a historical novel might be in its day, it will almost always get thrown overboard as the ship of literary culture sails on, piled high with novels of contemporary life. He might be on to something. Who now prefers Walter Scott to Jane Austen? The historical novel risks a double obsolescence, courting a future in which it has become an old-fashioned vision of an old-fashioned time.However much this news might dismay writers of historical novels, Hensher is untroubled: “As readers enjoying our contemporaries, we should not let our readerly pleasures be affected by the probability of ultimate oblivion.” Will the future, what there is of it, rate Wolf Hall as highly as we do? It doesn’t matter. Posterity, as Gore Vidal once wrote, is “a permanent darkness where no whistle sounds”. What matters is us, now, what we make of history and of our lives – in our nove…
Two children’s laureates to give royalties to Sally Rooney after her UK sales halted
Irish and Welsh authors Chris Haughton and Nicola Davies show solidarity after Rooney’s support for Palestine ActionThe children’s laureates for Ireland and Wales are donating royalties from their works to Sally Rooney in a show of solidarity after she was forced to stop selling books in the UK because of her support for Palestine Action.Chris Haughton, Ireland’s children’s literature laureate, said he also wanted to demonstrate the “absurdity” of the bestselling author being unable to receive royalties from her own UK sales because of her public support for the direct action group. Continue reading...
Stephen Fry: ‘Sherlock Holmes altered the course of my whole life’
Nearly a hundred years after Arthur Conan Doyle’s last Sherlock Holmes story, the writer and broadcaster unravels the mystery of the detective’s enduring appealIt has become quite the fashion for contemporary writers to have a go at reinventing past classics. We’ve seen it done with imperishable literary heroes like Bond, Jeeves, Poirot and Winnie-the-Pooh. This is a relatively new phenomenon. But not in the case of Sherlock Holmes, where the practice is almost as old as the man himself.Sherlock Holmes was the conception of Arthur Conan Doyle, a Scottish doctor down on his luck who had turned his hand to fiction to make up for a worrying lack of success in attracting patients to his surgery. Conan Doyle could never have guessed that the first Sherlock Holmes story he wrote, A Study in Scarlet, published in the 1887 issue of Beeton’s Christmas Annual, would in a few years propel him and the characters he created to literary fame. The personalities and characteristics of Holmes and Watson became as familiar to late Victorians as their own friends and families. The readership was worldwide and spread across all ages and classes. Continue reading...
Book Riot’s Deals of the Day for October 25, 2026
A New Mexican family's story, thought-provoking sci-fi, Fyodor Dostoevsky's classic, and more of today's best book deals
Zadie Smith tells Dua Lipa inequality has made culture clashes feel ‘existential’
Novelist says demise of Britain’s ‘incredible’ welfare system and housing struggles have led to deeper divisionsThe novelist Zadie Smith has said that inequality has made culture clashes feel “existential”, adding that it has become “natural to look to your left and think ‘who the fuck are you?’”In an interview with Dua Lipa as part of the Southbank Centre’s London literature festival, Smith argued that the demise of Britain’s “incredible, historic” welfare system has led to greater divisions. Continue reading...
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