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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. Here are the biggest headlines from last week.
The Big Audiobook Winners of 2025
The big audiobook awards event of the year in the U.S. took place last night when the 2026 Audie Awards® winners were announced. The awards recognizing audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment is conducted by the Audio Publishers Association. The Audiobook of the Year winner was none other than Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins, narrated by Jefferson White, and the Fiction winner was Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, narrated by Kristen DiMercurio, Julia Whelan, and Taylor Jenkins Reid. The Autobiography/Memoir winner was Matriarch by Tina Knowles, and who could compete with this narration team: Tina Knowles, Beyoncé, Solange, Kelly Rowland, and Angie Beyincé. Horror went to The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones, narrated by Shane Ghostkeeper, Marin Ireland, and Owen Teale, and I can personally attest to the excellence of that audiobook. Explore the full list of 2026 Audie Awards winners and finalists.
The NYT Highlights 27 of This Month’s New Releases
I hadn’t realized what a great month in books we were entering until my colleague, Jeff O’Neal, mentioned it during a recording of the Book Riot podcast when I was filling in for Rebecca Schinsky. But now it seems obvious, hard as it is to compete with a month where we got a new Tayari Jones. The New York Times highlighted 27 of this month’s new releases and it includes big names like Ibram X. Kendi, a Judy Blume biography, and my next two reads, both of which I selected for our own list of this year’s most anticipated reads: Whidbey by T Kira Madden and The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu. Let me know what you’re reading this month in the comments!
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Is Design Behind the Death of Reading?
Strap in for a fascinating deep dive because Carlo Iacono wrote a piece for aeon on the design problem behind our inability to focus that you won’t want to miss reading. Iacono joins many in writing about how the hand-wringing over the degradation of quality reading has persisted across history but offers fresh perspective, focusing on specific aspects of design that are the true problem. He writes:
What’s different is the existence of delivery mechanisms actively engineered to prevent the kind of attention that serious thought requires. The penny dreadfuls didn’t follow you into your bedroom at midnight, vibrating with notifications.
Read all about Iacono’s theory about literacy as a design problem, and his observations of library habits.
The Ensh*ttification of the Institute of Museum and Library Services Trucks On
Late last week, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) overhauled its website’s home page. The change took place sometime between Wednesday, February 25, and Friday, February 27. The refresh is the perfect encapsulation of how the Trump Vance administration is hellbent on destroying an agency dedicated to sharing and protecting truth, facts, and information; it is also the perfect encapsulation of how the regime’s obsession with and dedication to AI is about bowing to technocrats and further enshittifying democracy, rather than serving the American citizenry.
Learn more and find out what you can do.
The Next ACOTAR Books Have Release Dates
What’s that distant screaming, you ask? Don’t worry, it’s just the elated cries of BookTok. Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series sells like hot cakes and boasts a massive and dedicated fandom, and Maas gifted that fandom the release dates for the next two ACOTAR books during her appearance on the latest episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. The sixth book is out this year on October 27th, so brace your feed, and readers won’t have to wait long after devouring that book because the next will be released January 12th. If you’re wondering why this news is so big, the last book in the ACOTAR series was released in 2021, and if you know anything about romantasy, it’s that its readers are insatiable. The presale numbers will be bonkers.
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