Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
5 Things to Read Today
As the publishing industry prepares to close for the rest of the year, the news cycle and my inbox are colder than Ebenezer Scrooge’s office. Here’s a snack-sized sampler of bookish content for the day.
What If Readers Like A.I.-Generated Fiction?: Vauhini Vara, whose book Searches recounts her experiment writing about AI in collaboration with AI, explores an existential question.
Why Romance Fiction is Booming: The Guardian‘s Ella Risbridger delves into one of the book world’s thorniest questions: why do critics continue to dismiss the genre that dominates the bestseller lists?
Why I Stopped Reading and Embraced Audiobooks: New York Times reported Elisabeth Egan on her audiobook conversion (and yes, we all agree that audiobooks count as reading)
How the Housemaid Movie Alters the Book’s Storyline: Freida McFadden’s BookTok sensation hits the big screen on Thursday.
9 Books from 2025 You Shouldn’t Overlook: There’s still some reading time left in 2025. The editors of Publishers Weekly has recs.
And One Thing to Listen To
On today’s episode of the Book Riot Podcast, Jeff and I wrap up the year in podcasting with a look back at the stories that defined publishing in 2025. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcatcher of choice.