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Kent-based author donates over 30,000 to help literacy rates - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9y172733mo.amp
https://redd.it/1qm90oy
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NYPL patrons can now get ebook and audiobook downloads of Heated Rivalry book
https://www.thecut.com/article/new-york-public-library-heated-rivalry.html
https://redd.it/1qlnaqg
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Naperville girl collects 1,600 books for low-income children | NCTV17
https://www.nctv17.org/news/naperville-girl-collects-1600-books-for-low-income-children/
https://redd.it/1qlkdrt
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For her first long-form graphic memoir, Gemma Correll explores her lifelong mental health issues with smart, relatable humor.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/99518-gemma-correll-welcomes-you-to-anxietyland.html
https://redd.it/1qlgkh0
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Most Americans didn't read many books in 2025 | YouGov
https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/53804-most-americans-didnt-read-many-books-in-2025
https://redd.it/1ql7yb4
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Maps that don't match the book, especially Ann Cleeves books.
More than a few times I've been frustrated when maps in the front of a book don't show important locations mentioned in the text. This time I did a closer analysis, in Ann Cleeves' The Killing Stones. It's possible that all of the bad maps were in her books, as she's written a lot and I've read them all.
Have you bumped into this problem? Which authors?
Examples from The Killing Stones
One of the murder locations, an actual well-known archeological site, is not on the map.
North and South Round Ronaldsay are confused in the text and mislabeled on the map.
Harray, a real location, Jimmy and Willow's home, is not on the map.
Many miscellaneous locations are not on the map. Why include the map?
https://redd.it/1ql0ebx
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To Kill a Mockingbird
HI all, I've just finished reading this book and it's left me with a feeling that I cannot explain. If I could rewind time and reread it all over again, I would. It's easily top 3 for me.
For those that have read it, what are your honest thoughts on the book? I'm very curious to hear your thoughts!
https://redd.it/1qkpvni
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Weekly Recommendation Thread: January 23, 2026
Welcome to our weekly recommendation thread! A few years ago now the mod team decided to condense the many "suggest some books" threads into one big mega-thread, in order to consolidate the subreddit and diversify the front page a little. Since then, we have removed suggestion threads and directed their posters to this thread instead. This tradition continues, so let's jump right in!
**The Rules**
* Every comment in reply to this self-post must be a request for suggestions.
* All suggestions made in this thread must be direct replies to other people's requests. Do not post suggestions in reply to this self-post.
* All unrelated comments will be deleted in the interest of cleanliness.
____
**How to get the best recommendations**
The most successful recommendation requests include a description of the kind of book being sought. This might be a particular kind of protagonist, setting, plot, atmosphere, theme, or subject matter. You may be looking for something similar to another book (or film, TV show, game, etc), and examples are great! Just be sure to explain *what* you liked about them too. Other helpful things to think about are genre, length and reading level.
____
All Weekly Recommendation Threads are linked below the header throughout the week to guarantee that this thread remains active day-to-day. For those bursting with books that you are hungry to suggest, we've set the suggested sort to new; you may need to set this manually if your app or settings ignores suggested sort.
If this thread has not slaked your desire for tasty book suggestions, we propose that you head on over to the aptly named subreddit /r/suggestmeabook.
- The Management
https://redd.it/1qknvb2
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Has anyone read convinience store woman? What are your thoughts on it?
basically the title, this is the first book I've read in a long time thats kinda perplexed me and left me not knowing what to think. I do relate to it a lot especially when she says the convenience store "makes her human" and how she was downgraded from convenience store worker to a female member of the species when she got with shirahara, who I also relate with but I feel like is the opposite side of the same coin as furukura. I feel like there's a pretty deep meaning here that either I'm not picking up or just isn't as deep as I thought it was. Something outside of the core message that it's not necessarily bad to be obsessed with something to a degree that ostracizes you from normal society.
like my gut is telling me there's something pretty profound here but I'm just not picking up on what exactly that is maybe something to do with how she comes to terms with the fact that she's not a convinience store worker because she wants to look like a normal member of society but that she actually just is a convinience store worker in her soul and that's fine. what were your thoughts on It?
https://redd.it/1qkm0k7
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Have you ever gone on a literary pilgrimage?
I loved the book The Outsiders as a teenager and recently discovered there's an Outsiders museum in Tulsa. I'm also interested in the Little House on the Prairie museum in Kansas and Ingalls house in South Dakota.
In London I went to 221B Baker Street but didn't have time to go into the museum.
Not quite the same, but in NYC there's an exhibit in the library that has Charles Dickens's writing desk.
Have you ever visited an author's house or a museum dedicated to a book? Gone on a tour of a literary neighborhood? Something else?
https://redd.it/1qk6dn1
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The Iron Heel by Jack London seems so very relevant and prophetic in these current times
I’m almost done and can’t believe how relatable it is to what I’m seeing in politics today. Has anyone else recently read it or had read it a while ago and think of it as a close parallel to today? I’m surprised because I don’t see it referenced like other books with this theme (ie 1984, It Can’t Happen Here)
https://redd.it/1qk0oa2
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Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
The best way that I can describe this book is that it is haunting.
The impassivity of the language acts as a source of horror. Focusing on action, with no room for thoughts or feelings, or even names, the novel’s third-person narration sticks to the viewpoint of the officer in charge, with barely any speech, and none that isn’t his. The language, as light on judgment as a stage direction, is highly disconcerting.
I loved how Shibli uses omission as a narrative strategy: the absence of names, feelings, interiority, and even speech forces you to sit inside the cold machinery of occupation. When the narrative shifts into the first-person voice, the contrast is electrifying and suddenly you’re inside a mind shaped by fear, insomnia, and obsession.
What I appreciated most is how the book treats violence as something choreographed, repeated, and embodied; the physicality of fear and control becomes its own language. What I struggled with was the novel’s refusal to give access to the victim’s viewpoint. It’s a book that demands you sit with absence and erasure, but that can feel heavy and disorienting.
Shibli gives profound attention to the way that violence, or the possibility of violence, affects the body, and how it is produced through the repetition, whether through the constant marching of a perimeter, or in calming oneself to keep fear in check. These descriptions read like a choreography of violence, one that is played out again and again in varying forms, but that is always recognizable.
https://redd.it/1qjpxry
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What's a book, author, or fictional character you love to hate?
I’ve never been lectured about how bad a book is, but that happened to me today. Someone was passionately explaining how much they dislike Paulo Coelho’s 1988 novel The Alchemist, which they see as the worst kind of New Age–y, superficial spiritual book, a book with no real substance or meaning that should have never been published or become popular. They compared it the movie The Secret. What made it worse for them is that people (including their therapist!) constantly recommend it whenever they talk about their spiritual struggles. They were furious.
As I told them, there are books I dislike, such as Virginia Woolf’s and Faulkner’s work, for example, but mostly because I find them difficult to read or understand. So I don’t think I truly hate any book or author (even when I disagree with an author’s politics). Perhaps that’s because I usually choose books I expect to enjoy. I imagine it would be different if I picked something at random or were forced to finish a book I didn’t care for.
On the other hand, there are fictional characters I genuinely dislike, especially while I’m reading the book. While reading The Count of Monte Cristo, for example, I had very strong negative feelings toward Baron Danglars. The ending helped reduce the rage a little but still, imagine someone doing that kind of damage to you. So many years lost, the past impossible to change, and even money unable to undo the damage. When one person’s actions alter your life so profoundly, it’s hard to come to terms with it ever. I never would be able to.
There are other characters I dislike too, quite a few in Wuthering Heights. There’s so much cruelty in that novel. So much abuse. You basically watch a cycle of abuse with all the emotions that go with it. It's very hard.
Annie Wilkes is another one. Hard to sympathize with her deludedness.
What books, authors, or characters do you love to hate?
https://redd.it/1qjoa5f
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What happened to Prydain? Did it get lost in shroud of Welsh mist?
Growing up, the Chronicles of Prydain were an absolute delight to me, I absorbed them in the same time period I absorbed Narnia, and to me, they were just as engaging.
The backdrop of humans roaming and living in a fantasy land clearly not meant for them, the adventures, the fighting, the valour, the comedy and humour, Eilonwy, the three witches, no bossy temperamental Aslan- oh yes. What was there not to love?
But I acknowledge they didn't age well. I first clued into this when my daughter read one of them- in fact one of my old paperbacks one summer, and hated it. I was shocked. I don't remember which one it was- but she hated Taran, and how he talked to Eilonwy, and how Eilonwy was portrayed. She just became annoyed at having to read from Taran's pov- he was so dull? And annoying? She loved A Series of Unfortunate Events, and so, well, yes. She didn't get into the Prydain series at all- I can't even remember if she finished that one book- I actually don't think she did.
So maybe I answered my own question there, from my dataset of two, myself and my daughter. Somehow, Lloyd Alexander didn't resonate with the young 'uns, whereas C S Lewis, perhaps somewhat bizarrely given the decline overall in Christianity, did. And now no-one talks about Prydain, whereas Narnia remains evergreen.
https://redd.it/1qj9k64
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Val McDermid was assigned ‘sensitivity reader’ to cut offensive language from old books
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jan/21/val-mcdermid-was-assigned-sensitivity-reader-to-cut-offensive-language-from-old-books?CMP=share_btn_url
https://redd.it/1qjbzjb
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Currently reading Matilda’s books
I’ve never been much of a reader but enjoy it now. I was reading Matilda by Roald Dahl to my daughter and the list of books she reads I took as a recommendation of good books to read. I since see that maybe they have a childhood innocence theme to them all, or a children knowing more than their elders’ theme?
Anyway here is the list and the ones I’ve read. Keen for discussions on them, and if there’s a more specific theme I’ve missed
Read: Nicholas Nickleby, Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, The Old Man and the Sea, Animal Farm, The Invisible Man, Gone To Earth
Not read yet: Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, The Secret Garden, The Grapes of Wrath, Kim, Brighton Rock, and The Good Companions
Currently reading: The Sound And the Fury
https://redd.it/1qlw9ql
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“Nobody reads manga anymore.” Veteran manga editor says there are fewer aspiring editors who are truly passionate about the medium - AUTOMATON WEST
https://automaton-media.com/en/news/nobody-reads-manga-anymore-veteran-manga-editor-says-there-are-fewer-aspiring-editors-who-are-truly-passionate-about-the-medium/
https://redd.it/1qlo8w7
@r_books
Which books have you been unable to finish?
I always try to finish a book no matter how hard it is to keep reading for one reason or another. The last one I really struggled with was the Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake. For anyone who hasn't read the Atlas trilogy, the first book had a lot of promise, but by the second book I just stopped caring about the characters and the outcome. I slogged through it, and forced myself to continue onto the final book but even then I just hated everyone and ended up just googling the end because I couldn't bear to keep reading anymore.
Now I've just started reading Chasing Embers by James Bennett, and I'm halfway through and again I'm finding it a struggle to keep going. I still have 90 pages to go and its unbearable to read. The writing is filled with overdescriptions and endless analogies and metaphors, its like reading an educated version of Dan Brown. I just want to get to the point, I don't want a whole page describing how someone looks.
Has anyone else had this kind of struggle when reading anything? I'm just glad there's a new Dresden book for me to start!
https://redd.it/1qlji1w
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How researchers got AI to quote copyrighted books word for word
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2026/01/24/how-researchers-got-ai-to-quote-copyrighted-books-word-for-word_6749749_13.html
https://redd.it/1qldsea
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Looking for youtube recommendations of who to follow that are mainly mystery/thriller/crime people?
I follow several people on book tube like matts reviews, or mikes reviews and talking story. They are great for getting recommendations on fantasy, sci fi, or even a little horror here and there. I am just finishing a long sci fi series though and wanting to go out of my comfort zone for a break before i start my next series. Overall would like to read more mystery/thriller/crime books. So who do you follow and watch?
https://redd.it/1ql1io9
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Readers are returning to physical books
https://www.westernmassnews.com/2026/01/22/readers-turning-page-back-physical-books-after-digital-decline/
https://redd.it/1qkrl4k
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Just finished, Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman
My thoughts on Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman; This one left me emotionally concussed.
The book is set in war-torn, plague-infested France during the Black Death. Our main duo: a dishonored, excommunicated knight and a mysterious little girl wandering through a countryside that feels genuinely abandoned by God and actively invaded by demons. And honestly? The setting is phenomenal. Bleak, apocalyptic, medieval hellscape energy. Extremely fascinating, extremely cursed. 10/10 atmosphere.
Now.
This book was insane. And I cannot comfortably recommend it to anyone. Like at all. 😭
I like my books dark, gritty, and realistic, clearly, since I loved Red Rising and Sun Eater, but this one was pushing it. Hard.
The violence? Brutal.
The imagery? Nightmarish.
The vibes? “Do you need to talk to someone after this chapter?”
And then there’s the content. Racist. Homophobic. Misogynistic. And more.
I understand it’s intentional. I understand it reflects the time period. I understand it’s part of the horror and the ugliness of the world. But good damn, it was a lot to sit through. This book does not ease you into anything, it just throws you into medieval hell and says “good luck, sinner.”
That said… I’m glad I read it.
Despite everything, it’s incredibly well written. The theological horror, the moral weight, the slow crawl toward something almost resembling hope, it works. It really works. And the relationship between the knight and the girl ends up being surprisingly touching in a story that otherwise wants to traumatize you.
Final verdict:
Brilliant. Disturbing. Unhinged.
Would I reread it? Absolutely not.
Am I glad I experienced it? Yes.
now need something wholesome before I sink into depression?
https://redd.it/1qkohur
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The NYPL has acquired Tom Verlaine’s archive. Which other rock stars live on at the library?
https://lithub.com/the-nypl-has-acquired-tom-verlaines-archive-which-other-rock-stars-live-on-at-the-library/
https://redd.it/1qklkqk
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"A national movement to get everyone reading".
The National Year of Reading 2026 is a UK-wide campaign designed to help more people rediscover the joy of reading.
https://goallin.org.uk/about/
https://redd.it/1qkj6ly
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Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Sadaawi
Similar to Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, this book also left me feeling haunted. Where it differed though was in the way it haunts the reader. Shibli’s work was haunting in its sadness but Woman at Point Zero is haunting in the way Firdaus’s rage radiates off the pages.
Proud and unbroken, in spite of a life of unremitting pain and repeated betrayals, she narrates her story to a female psychiatrist on the eve of her hanging. The text has a highly visual quality, it’s an expressionist film in words: disembodied eyes loom over Firdaus at key moments in her life, representing intense emotions of both fear and love. Genitally mutilated as a child, Firdaus feels sexual desire as a distant memory, something once glimpsed, now only vaguely remembered. The searing narrative is rendered epic by the use of long repeated passages that make explicit the connections between the stages in Firdaus’s journey towards murder. As a first-person account, the book initially seems narrow in focus, but it builds to an all-encompassing and blood-curdling indictment of patriarchal society.
The repeated themes are both haunting and thought provoking. There are repeated scenes of Firdaus finding herself literally in the dark, looking to someone she trusts to save her. The repeated attempts to find her mother’s eyes in other people’s. The repeated disappointment really impacted me. True to the character Firdaus would have been (she was executed in 1975) the language is very straight forward and there is a shaking clarity in it, especially toward the end.
Firdaus’ confidence and conviction against the backdrop of her life story is extremely striking. El Saadawi said that her image never left her after writing Woman At Point Zero, even after her death. You can see why.
https://redd.it/1qjpy2d
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Middle school library club celebrates national book month and National Reading Day (January 23rd)
https://www.richlandtoday.com/article/1058,rjhs-library-club-celebrates-book-month-and-reading-day
https://redd.it/1qjvt35
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Tor Publishing Group Announces Commercial Fiction Imprint
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/99510-tor-publishing-group-launches-commercial-fiction-imprint.html
https://redd.it/1qja54u
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The Vegetarian by Han Kang
What I loved about this novel was how it centred around the body – the body as a site of protest, of refusal, of obsession and of so much passion as well. It pulls at strings of violence, sanity, and nature to weave together a complex portrait of the human condition.
The Vegetarian is a story in three acts: the first shows us Yeong-hye’s decision and her family’s reaction; the second focuses on her brother-in-law, an unsuccessful artist who becomes obsessed with her body; the third on In-hye, the manager of a cosmetics store, trying to find her own way of dealing with the fallout from the family collapse. Across the three parts, we are pressed up against a society’s most inflexible structures – expectations of behaviour, the workings of institutions – and we watch them fail one by one.
Her writing style is a contradiction in itself. The no-frills prose expressing ideas almost beyond articulation. These contradictions also make their way into the plot and leads me to question – could Yeon-hye’s reverting to a “natural” state be due to struggles with the “performance” of being human? Could it be an attempt to feel a sense of agency over one’s body after being subjected to intense violence? What could have caused this transition? The why evades us yet again.
In a novel filled with uncertainty, ambiguity, and complete collapse of a sense of normalcy, one constant reveals itself in the form of love. In-hye visits her sister in a psychiatric facility, caring for her despite her complete lack of response and detachment from “human” ways of being. This care is as irrational as every other human emotion chronicled by Kang, being showered ceaselessly on Yeon-hye despite no signs of improvement.
Perhaps this is the human reaction to dealing with the “unknowability” of mental illness: to crawl back to the familiar; and there is nothing more familiar to humans than love. By refusing to offer clear explanations of Yeon-hye’s behaviour, The Vegetarian proposes an approach of radical acceptance, stemming from connection, care, and hope.
https://redd.it/1qjpy8q
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We Need Diverse Books launches Unbanned Book Network to fight school bans.
https://apnews.com/article/unbanned-book-network-diverse-publishing-65cc2402215c7899dfa74859a6c06f95
https://redd.it/1qj1qil
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The one thing I've learned about book readers is that they move 10 times a year apparently
So, every time the subject of e-readers comes up, no matter what context, no matter what is being talked about, there will be 40 replies saying, "It's much easier to move with an E-reader."
It's such a common reply, it's become a trope it itself.
Even in real life, someone will see me with a kindle, and -- without knowing anything about me -- they'll say to me: "It's so much easier to move with a kindle"
Like, okay? How often are most people actually moving? Is this a commonality among all book readers?
Here's the thing: I HAVE actually moved three times in the last two years, funny enough, and the books were the LEAST annoying part of it. It was actually fun, getting a new chance to arrange them. Now KITCHEN stuff, THAT was annoying. I hate moving kitchen stuff. Can I have an e-Kitchen Aid?
But I absolutely have no problem moving books. Knick-knacks are annoying. Random pantry stuff is annoying. But books pack pretty cleanly, from my experience. As long as you don't overload a huge box and stick to small boxes, they're actually quite easy. And it's good exercise!
Here's my question, though: If you are a big proponent of e-readers, and you met a person who has lived in the same house for their whole life and has no plans to ever move... what will the conversation actually be like? Will you not have anything to say?
Yes, I'm being cheeky, but I'm guessing holding back "It'll be easier to move with" will be the hardest thing a person has ever done, hahahaha.
Note: I do own a kindle. I like my kindle a lot. BUT, the conversation around it always goes toward the same line and I have this compulsion to joke about it. Why are e-readers so fixated on moving?
https://redd.it/1qizjgd
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