Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
What Are the Most Recommendable Books of the Century So Far?
If you’re around Portland, OR, join us for a live Book Riot Podcast event discussing the most recommendable books of the century so far at Powell’s on Thursday, March 13. Your $15 ticket doubles as a credit toward in-store purchases, and let’s be real: you’re gonna buy some books. Jeff and I have kept our lists a secret from each other and can’t wait to share our picks and chat with you. Bring a bookish friend or your whole book club!
Finalists for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
The finalists for the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, which “honors the best published works of fiction by American permanent residents in a calendar year,” were announced earlier this week. (All awards should be based on the calendar year, full stop.) Percival Everett’s James, which has deservedly swept awards season, is on the shortlist alongside two other books I loved: Colored Television by Danzy Senna (who happens to be married to Everett—have the members of a couple ever vied against each other for a literary award before?) and Pemi Aguda’s remarkable debut collection Ghostroots. Garth Greenwell’s indie darling Small Rain and Behind You is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj round out the list. The winner, who will receive $15,000, will be announced at a ceremony held May 15. Normally, I like to see some variation in an awards season, but I’m pulling hard for Everett to continue his streak.
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Simply Delightful
This is a new one: an author interview conducted by typewriter. With a little help from pre-computer technology and the good ol’ USPS, Austin Kleon and Ross Gay discuss what makes the perfect day, silly writing rituals, artistic lineages, and much more. Gay, whose recent books exploring delight and joy are stealthily radical, is one of my favorite thinkers, and it’s because he does things like answer a question about how to pay better attention with a thought like this: “Writing stuff I notice helps me I think. It’s a version of pointing, writing is. Pointing and thinking, to be more precise. Preciser still: wondering!”
Yes to this creative format, yes to the substance, and yes to “lollygagging, visiting, getting waylaid, teaming up or chipping in on something, sharing food, tooling around in the garden OFF THE CLOCK.“
The Complicated World of YA Books for Younger Teens
Here’s Book Riot’s resident YA expert Kelly Jensen on the complexities of writing YA for younger teens:
A perennial complaint in the YA world is that there are not YA books published for younger teen readers. In some ways, this is true. There is a dearth of books featuring and appealing to readers who are just outside of that middle grade demographic and looking for YA books with characters who are 13, 14, or 15. For reference, among classics of YA, Charlie from Perks of Being a Wallflower is 15; Melinda in Speak is 14; and Steve in Monster, 16. A lot of the books that get buzz and attention online today–and in the last half decade or more–are those with protagonists who are older, sometimes even older than 18.