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THE HEADLINEBarnes & Noble’s Book of the Year finalists

The 16 books that made it onto the list of finalists for Barnes & Noble’s Book of the Year for 2026 are:

  • Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
  • Whale Harbor: A Novel by Mary Beth Keane
  • Partita: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
  • Land: A Novel by Maggie O’Farrell
  • The Calamity Club: A Novel by Kathryn Stockett
  • Cool Machine: A Novel by Colson Whitehead
  • Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden
  • Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up by David Byrne
  • This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark by Craig Fehrman
  • The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss by Robert Macfarlane, Jackie Morris
  • Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War’s Most Extraordinary Spy by Ben Macintyre
  • Ottolenghi Simple Too: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi
  • London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe
  • This Is a Door by Daniel Nayeri
  • Is This a Plum? A Peek-Through Picture Book by Dan Ojari, Finn Ojari
  • The Unlikely Tale of Chase and Finnegan by Jasmine Warga

Viral sensations, award-winning authors, and debuts are represented among the finalists, which historically tend toward commercially successful, buzzy, book club-friendly reads (how Kin or The Disappearers didn’t make it is beyond my understand). BIPOC authors are far less represented on this list, touted as the books beloved by B&N booksellers.

Barnes & Noble earlier published their picks for the best books of 2026 in 17 categories. Their Book of the Year will be announced on November 12. – SZW

FREEDOM TO READTurning the spotlight on prison censorship

A coalition of organizations and individuals working in the freedom to read space published a five-year report on the state of book censorship across the country earlier this fall. It invited literary advocates to share their experiences in fighting back against censorship.

Groups working on prison censorship shared their insights, too. While prison book bans don’t get the same spotlight that public school and library bans do, prison censorship continues to grow and evolve, with these institutions finding new and challenging ways to further curtail the First Amendment rights of those on the inside.

So what’s happening in prison censorship during this era of increasing book bans?

  • An increased push to move away from print materials to digital ones, via prison-issued tablets, has severely limited the types of materials available to justice-impacted individuals.
  • Ongoing scanning of materials in mailrooms, where there is no transparency about whether or not books are making their way into the hands of those who’ve requested them or letters requesting books are making their way into the hands of advocacy organizations.
  • Despite 13 states passing Freedom to Read laws that limit book bans, none of those laws specifically addresses prison censorship.

It’s not all bleak, though.

  • Several ongoing lawsuits are challenging the ways prisons censor both access to books for those on the inside and the writing they share.
  • This year saw three different federal bills developed that specifically address prison censorship and access to libraries and library services to incarcerated individuals.
  • Ground-level advocacy organizations that work to provide books to justice-impacted individuals have been building tremendous coalitions, pushed back against states which have implemented barriers between those on the inside and access to books and educational materials, and they’ve made significant strides in helping the average person understand why prison censorship is an issue everyone should care about.

Read the full five year report on prison censorship and bone up on your knowledge.

Then, see if you can do something this week–which is Prison Banned Books Week–to support the work being done by advocates, whether that’s making a donation to an organization, purchasing a book through an indie bookshop that’s sending them to those on the inside, or see where you can volunteer locally. – KJ

POP CULTUREThe worst page-to-screen adaptations of 2026

This has been a big year for book-to-screen adaptations, but they haven’t all been hits. Here are some of the worst adaptations of the year so far, according to Rotten Tomatoes ratings, with excerpts from reviews.

Adaptations Critics Hated:

  • Klara and the Sun (30% Tomatometer): “noxious sentimentality” that “strips away everything insightful and affecting from Ishiguro’s novel.”
  • Verity (31%): The “intensely stupid twist” makes the ending “inconceivably lazy.”
  • Practical Magic 2 (36%): An “overlong, muddled” story that “strips the franchise of its gothic charms.” This one does have a 90% audience score, however.

Adaptations Audiences Hated:

  • Finding Her Edge (50% Popcornmeter): This Netflix series has an “uneven plot, some predictable story arcs, and a forced love triangle.” Critics disagreed: it has an 87% Tomatometer score.
  • Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials (52%): “Certainly, no rope has ever been made that’s strong enough to support the amount of disbelief we needed to suspend.”
  • Cape Fear (52%): “In pursuit of an expanded canvas for Cady and the Bowdens, showrunner Nick Antosca has thrown in the kitchen sink, then the tumble dryer and the aircon unit.”

Overall Worst:

  • The Last Thing He Told Me (47% Tomatometer, 48% Popcornmeter): The second season of this series is a “thrill-light nothingburger of a story.”

Dishonorable Mentions:

  • Wuthering Heights and Reminders of Him both attracted a lot of discourse and low critic ratings (57% and 56%, respectively), but the audience scores are more forgiving (74% and 87%).
ROMANCEIf he wanted to, he wood: romance books like the Wicker movie

First things first: shout out to our writer Isabelle Popp for a delightfully punny title for her romance round-up.

With that said, the new Wicker movie, starring Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård, has one of the most talked-about trailers for an off-kilter movie that I’ve seen in a while.

  • If you’re unfamiliar, the story is set in what appears to be a medieval village, where Olivia Coleman’s fishmonger character is struggling to find a longtime partner. But then she goes to the local magical basketmaker (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband.
  • A month later, she marries the Wicker Man (Alexander SkarsgĂĄrd), and…let’s just say that things get heated. The release of the trailer sent TikTok into a tizzy, and all sorts of risquè jokes were popping off—like this one where someone comments that they hope it’s in 4DX; or this one, which imagines the resulting view for sitting a bit too close to the screen in theaters.

The movie, out today in theaters, is based on the short story of the same name by Ursula Willis. The cover also got updated and made clinch-y for the release of the movie.

If you finish watching Wicker and still want books that “take an absurd premise somewhere genuine, earnest, and horny,” here are some great recs, courtesy of Isabelle Popp:

  • Pounded by Produce by G.M. Fairy: Basically erotic Veggie Tales. Two priests sometimes shapeshift into a tomato and cucumber, which the new girl Emily unknowingly uses for…a certain activity.
  • Ballpark Frank by Aria Maze: After getting a job at a baseball stadium, Nadine becomes involved with a tall hotdog man. You know the rest.
  • Drop Dead Gourdgeous: A Sapphic Demon Romance by Chelsey J. LeĂłn (out October 29): A drunk witch casts a spell on pumpkin seeds, which summons three demon princesses from hell. Lots of silliness and sexiness ensue.

Here are even more Wicker-esque romances. —EE

SCARY GOOD READSOh, the (YA short story) horrors

One of the hallmarks of horror is its adaptability. Because horror is a mood and not a genre, it can apply to any genre, and it plays so well across different formats.

  • That’s why there are numerous horror comics, as well as a bountiful selection of horror short stories. It’s also why you can find excellent horror selections in numerous formats and styles across age ranges, too.

While horror is always popular and always in style for readers, we’re living in a particularly great time for YA horror short story collections. There’s no better time than now–especially as we get closer to Halloween and the daylight in the northern hemisphere continues to wane–to explore a good YA horror short story collection.

  • Man Made Monsters by Andrea L. Rogers: This collection follows a Cherokee family from their ancestral lands in Georgia through World War I, the present, and the future. Find here classic horror creatures like vampires and zombies, as well as real-life horrors like colonization and intimate partner violence.
  • These Bodies Ain’t Broken edited by Madeline Dyer: This collection centers disabled characters and the 13 authors included vampires, monsters, dangerous woods, sinister video games, and more.
  • The White Guy Dies First edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker: The outstanding roster of authors flip the all-too-common horror trope of the character of color dying first in horror on its head. Stories include those of haunted houses, killer clowns, cannibals, and more.
  • The Gathering Dark edited by Tori Bovalino: Folk horror lovers and folk horror curious readers will want to read this collection, brimming with haunted lakes, wicked and burning towns, isolated bridges, and more.

Short story collections make great reading options because they take the pressure off committing to a whole book.

  • There’s no shame in jumping around the stories, skipping those that don’t resonate, and discovering the styles of authors whose names you may have heard of but not yet tried.
  • Sometimes, you’ll discover a new favorite author whose work you will be reading start-to-finish ASAP.

Check out even more YA horror short story collections, including one for your 2027 TBR. – KJ

TRUE STORYThe biggest nonfiction of the fall

We’re snugly in the best and biggest publishing season of the year: fall. So many books have come out recently that it’s easy to lose track.

I took a look at five lists of the biggest nonfiction releases of the season, from Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus, and tracked which books were mentioned the most often.

On four lists:

  • The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic by Malcolm Gladwell
  • Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings: (When) Do Leaders Matter? by Jared Diamond
  • The Rush by Nathaniel Philbrick

On three lists:

  • Abandoning a Cat: A Personal Story by Haruki Murakami
  • The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unraveling Men by Jon Ronson
  • The Vanishing Family: Love, Fate, and the Quest to End Dementia by Robert Kolker

On two lists:

  • And If I Die Before I Wake by George M. Johnson
  • Never Say Die: A Memoir by Ke Huy Quan
  • Huna: A Memoir of Revolution, Prison, and Becoming by Abdelrahman Elgendy

There are many more books that were mentioned on only two lists, but those are a few highlights!

How many of the biggest nonfiction books of fall 2026 have you read so far? —DE

HAPPY BIRTHDAYLaurie Halse Anderson (October 23rd)

Did you know? Anderson frequently cites Ulysses by James Joyce as a book that has influenced her, mainly for the musicality of its language.

CRITICAL LINKINGYou are now free to roam about the internet

Spice up your (reading) life with hot new romance novels.

E. L. James discusses her YA debut.

Canadian bookstore chain Indigo has named their best books of 2026.

A new prize has been launched to honor works co-written with AI.

Stephen King reveals the easiest book he ever wrote.

END NOTES

Written by Sharifah Zainab Williams, Kelly Jensen, Danika Ellis, and Erica Ezeifedi. Thanks to Kelly Jensen for copy editing.

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