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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.
This isn’t just for January, but for the whole of 2026 (thinking about Fall 2026 is a little dizzying right now). For this particular reader, seems a little on the lukewarm side, though any year with George Saunders and Emily St. John Mandel publishing news books has a pretty high floor. My only real observation is we need to figure out how to group non-genre fiction differently. Saunders’ Vigil, which has ghosts, is listed under Fiction & Historical Fiction. Mandel’s book, which vaguely refers to being about stuff happening “across time and space” is in Fantasy. Both of these books are Literary Fiction. You know it. I know it. It is ok to say it. That literary fiction as incorporated/co-opted elements of genre means that the term literary fiction is even more useful these days. Bring. Literary Fiction. Back.
I don’t check in with Book Marks regularly, but I do like this round-up of the best reviewed books of the year, at least according to their rubric, which groups reviews into a few buckets (rave, positive, mixed, etc). It lacks the simplicity of say Rotten Tomatoes which is basically good/bad, but it’ll do. What is pretty confusing here is how this ranking works:
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“RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points
The fifteen books with the highest points totals are ranked by weighted average, and the top ten make the list”
Why does a mixed review get a point? Seems like that should be zero. Also there is no “bad” equivalent for “positive.” Pan or nothing, and a Pan is -5.
The central tension here is that some books just get more reviews. Gish Jen’s Bad Bad Girl gets the overall #1 here, but Flesh got 4 more raves, but got 1 mixed review, where Bad Bad Girl didn’t get anything below Positive. Which could you say is “better reviewed? Anyway, take it as a snapshot and not pixel-perfect.
Why Hamlet is everywhere this year
So it’s not just me then. Good to know. I thought reading Hamlet for Zero to Well-Read had me seeing Danes everywhere, but they really are everywhere. Even with time travel and dragons apparently?
A Tiny E-Reader You Stick on the Back of Your Phone
I would not have thought of this. I thought the point of these admittedly adorable little ereaders would be to ditch the phone, but apparently some people like the e-ink reading experience just better than phone screen. I think I agree, but not enough to really change my reading. I think there is even just enough friction from having to turn your phone over that might make jumping over to Instagram or whatever that much less frequent. Might be a cool gift for someone in your life.
This was my take on the most recent episode of Zero to Well-Read, where Rebecca Schinksy and I go over Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Hugely, stunningly influential book. Sneak peak: if you say Merry Christmas, you have Dickens to thanks (mostly).
Hit the image below to listen, or wherever you get your podcasts. With each episode, we go over the history of the book, why its important, whats cool about it, what its like to read it. We think of it as hybrid English class/book club approach. A little nerdy, a little fun.
