Welcome to your Saturday edition of Today in Books, packed with all the news Book Riot reported this week. Let’s dig in.

A South Carolina Library Won’t Buy New Books for Readers Under 18

Taylor Swift is Publishing a Book!

Welcome to your weekend highlight reel! Here are some of Book Riot’s most popular stories of the week.

7 Horror Books to Read for the 2024 Read Harder Challenge

It’s October, which means it’s Halloween month! This is the time of year when I try to read as many horror and horror-adjacent books as I can — exactly the books I avoid the rest of the year. Despite not usually gravitating toward this genre, October is usually my best reading month: I read more because I’m trying to beat the clock and fit in as many horror books as I can before November. I won’t tell you how many titles are on my TBR this month, but let’s just say I’m inching dangerously close to my library’s very generous checkout limit.

South Carolina Public Library Won’t Buy New Books for Kids

Thanks to a new proviso in the South Carolina state budget, at least one public library system in the state has made the decision to acquire no new books for those under the age of 18. In a statement released across York County Public Library’s social media late last week, the library board chair announced the moratorium on new purchases until the State better clarifies what is and is not permitted in public libraries.

I’m all about queer horror reads in the lead-up to Halloween, and I have so many on my TBR. If you, too, are looking to pick up some creepy queer reads, I thought I’d take a look back at five of the queer horror books I’ve read so far this year and rate whether you should buy, borrow, or bypass them.

I plan to read a lot more in this genre in the next couple of weeks, but so far, here are my thoughts on the queer horror (and horror-adjacent) books I’ve read in 2024.

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Welcome to The Best of Book Riot, our daily round-up of what’s on offer across our site, newsletters, podcasts, and social channels. Not everything is for everyone, but there is something for everyone.

The Perfect Dark Academia Novel for Your Fall TBR

In the fall months, it’s all about dark academia. Give me a creepy school. Give me suspicious students. Give me teachers with secret agendas. I’m looking for a book with all the vibes of a perfect crisp fall day during back-to-school season. But while dark academia is a genre that is really known for the vibes, we need more than a feeling to get us through a whole book, right?

Library News Round-Up

What happens when a library bans Banned Books Week? Well, if you’re Sierra Benjamin, a longtime staff member at the Flathead County Library (MT), you sit outside the library on your days off with a stack of banned books and a sign that says “Banned Books Week is BANNED in your public library!” The library director, Teri Dugan, said that Sierra is allowed to do what she likes in her free time, and that because the library has a number of materials that patrons can check out at any point, they “‘didn’t see a need to necessarily highlight [Banned Books Week].'” Well, maybe they should, because Flathead County has had a few issues with banned and challenged books over the last few years.

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

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How Did Holocaust Stories Become Beach Books?

In a guest post for Maris Kreizman’s newsletter, Ilana Massad explores the popularity of light/inspiring/beachy/romantic fiction set in and around the Holocaust to ask, “what happens when we sell real-life suffering for light entertainment?” Citing examples like The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Massad defines the Holocaust Beach Read as a book about the Holocaust that “keeps a reader engaged without being serious enough to put a damper on their good vibes.” As she asks who these books are for, she invites us to consider how transmuting one of the greatest atrocities in human history into digestible stories might deny the humanity of its victims and erode our ability to engage with the horrific reality.

Welcome to The Best of Book Riot, our daily round-up of what’s on offer across our site, newsletters, podcasts, and social channels. Today, we look back at the most popular stuff we did this week.

The Best New Books Out in October, According to Indie Booksellers

This is a mix of September and October releases, and I’m going to be honest with you, I’m not sure why the Indie Next List is organized this way. Maybe the publication dates shifted since they were nominated, or maybe indie booksellers are just mysterious that way.

Nothing Says Lovin’ Like Something from the Coven: Witchy Romance Novels!

A chill in the air? Check. Pumpkin spice-flavored everything hitting the shelves? Check. Pop-up Halloween stores appearing overnight? Check. It’s official: it’s the season of the witch! Today’s recommendations have hex appeal and feature witches who can work all kinds of spells (or maybe not), but can’t stop themselves from falling in love. Oh-oh-oh, it’s magic!

Book Riot Exhorts You to Vote and Endorses Kamala Harris for President

I can say it no better than our own Sharifah Williams does in our endorsement of Kamala Harris:

We find ourselves, again, approaching an election season where it is imperative to lend our voices to the call for every American to vote and be heard. The last time we published a political endorsement, we had not yet witnessed the January 6th attack on the Capitol, which resulted in at least seven deaths and more than 150 injuries in connection with the insurrection as well as a shaken nation. Roe had yet to be overturned, placing politicians between doctors and patients and giving states often catastrophic power over the reproductive health and family planning decisions of many. Book bans and censorship had yet to reach a critical point, with political groups standing in front of parents, librarians, and educators, telling them what their children and students can and cannot read. Americans who have witnessed their country’s descent into a regressive age demand freedom and change.

It’s October, the one month of the year when I join the crowd of horror fans. Something about the weather cooling off, the leaves falling, and the approach of Halloween has me reaching for horror, thrillers, dark fantasy, and everything unsettling. I especially look forward to the October 24-hour readathon, which I’ve been doing every year for more than a decade. It’s the perfect time to read through a big stack of horror comics and novellas in one sitting!

Currently, my dresser is covered in stacks of horror books, most of them queer. I save them all year, and I place a bunch of library holds to come on October 1st, so I’m drowning in options. I’m reading An Education in Malice by S. T. Gibson at the moment, a sapphic vampire dark academia novel based on Carmilla, and I’m loving it so far. A Dowry of Blood is one of my favourite books, so that’s not a surprise. I’m also listening to the audiobook of If I Stopped Haunting You by Colby Wilkens, a bi4bi M/F romance between two Indigenous horror authors set in a haunted castle. I’m really enjoying it, partly because Penelope is one of the most stubborn woman main characters I’ve ever read, and I’m here for it.

As I mentioned, I have dozens of queer horror/Halloween books to choose from this month, but here are five of the titles on my TBR, from a queer monster anthology to a trans YA horror novel to an asexual romance set in a haunted house.

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This content is for members only. Visit the site and log in/register to read.

Welcome to The Best of Book Riot, our daily round-up of what’s on offer across our site, newsletters, podcasts, and social channels. Not everything is for everyone, but there is something for everyone.

The Best New Books Out in October, According to Indie Booksellers

This is a mix of September and October releases, and I’m going to be honest with you, I’m not sure why the Indie Next List is organized this way. Maybe the publication dates shifted since they were nominated, or maybe indie booksellers are just mysterious that way.

New Horror for October Because It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This year, there are sooooo many good horror books coming out to celebrate the season. You’ll see plenty from horror staples like Nick Cutter and Richard Chizmar. But this October is also going to introduce us to some new spooky authors on the scene. For instance, check out Del Sandeen’s gothic horror debut.

The Most Read Books on Goodreads This Week

We have a new book on the list this week! Most of the time, the most read books on Goodreads stays pretty similar week to week, shifting slightly but keeping most of the same names. That’s true of numbers two through five of the most read books this week, but number one is appearing here for the first time. I won’t spoil what it is, but here are some hints: it came out last year, and there’s a good reason that it rose to popularity in this precise week…also, you might want to read it while sipping a specific seasonal beverage.

8 Recent and Forthcoming Children’s Book Adaptations

If you’re on the lookout for something to watch with your kids now and in the near future, these excellent children’s book adaptations might be right for you. The children’s book selections here cover a wide range of genres. There’s a book that explores the struggles of a young girl during a war, a boy who can create anything with his magical crayon, a mystical world up in the trees, Greek gods and goddesses battling it out, superheroes and heroines saving the world, and many more stories for kids.