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Some books are made for summer. npr staffers share their all-time favorites.

A few weeks ago, we asked NPR staffers to share their all-time favorite summer reads. Old, new, fiction, nonfiction — as long as it was great to read by a pool or on a plane, it was fair game. Scroll down to find tried-and-true recommendations for mysteries, memoirs, essays and, of course, romance.

Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene

Spare, droll, sometimes ridiculous and poignant, Graham Greene called Travels With My Aunt "the only book I have written just for the fun of it." An incurious, retired English banker named Henry Pulling travels the world with his eccentric Aunt Augusta after they meet at his mother's funeral. Henry visits a church for dogs in Brighton, smokes a joint with an American on the Orient Express and lands in a Paraguayan jail after blowing his nose on a red scarf honoring the government. Traveling with Henry out of his comfort zone is a delightful journey. — Elizabeth Blair , senior producer and reporter, Culture Desk

Happy Hour: A Novel by Marlowe Granados

Happy Hour is a diary of a "Hot Girl Summer." The novel follows Isa, the diary's writer, and her best friend, Gala, as they cavort through an NYC summer. They have next to no money, but a lot of charm — the pair penny-pinches by day and grows their social clout at the city's bars by night. As summer deepens and cash tightens, their friendship — and life in New York – becomes tenuous. I love these broke party girls and their shenanigans! It's a vibes-forward and seasonal romp, which is exactly my kind of summer read. — Liam McBain, associate producer, It's Been a Minute

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

The Pursuit of Love is a charming romp about one fabulously wealthy Englishwoman's romantic pursuits, narrated by her slightly less-romantic best friend and cousin. You might not live a life as seemingly pointless as Linda Radlett, but you will enjoy her misadventures wherever you might read them this summer. A collection of truly beautiful words about several truly beautiful people, The Pursuit of Love is that ideal summer read: deceptively mindless, appropriately fast-paced and unexpectedly gorgeous. You'll cry, you'll laugh and maybe, just maybe — you'll fall in love. — Nick Andersen, producer, Fresh Air archives

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

The epic history of the Great Migration isn't an obvious choice for a summer read: It's not "easy" and it's 800 pages or so. But reading The Warmth of Other Suns over the course of the summer, especially on vacation, gave me a chance to really absorb the story and to talk about it with family. I would read a chapter or two aloud at night and we would talk about it — something I don't think we would have or could have done during the school year. And make no mistake, it is an epic, and Isabel Wilkerson's writing has the verve and pace of a novel. — Michel Martin , host, Morning Edition

• Great Migration: The African American Exodus North
• 'Other Suns': When African Americans Fled North

The Interestings: A Novel by Meg Wolitzer

The Interestings of the title is the name for a group of teens at an arts summer camp. The book is the story of how they do or don't fulfill their potential as they grow into adulthood. How their friendships ebb and flow. How life disappoints and astonishes us.

But really it's about how friends help you see — and become — yourself. And because it's written by Meg Wolitzer, the story is gorgeous and juicy and so unputdownable — perfect to devour in summer, when life feels limitless. — Justine Kenin, editor, All Things Considered

• Summer Days Fade To Adulthood In 'The Interestings'
• Teens Rehearse For Adulthood In Wolitzer's 'Interestings'

All the Missing Girls: A Novel by Megan Miranda

Nicolette Farrell's best friend disappeared a decade ago in their rural hometown. Years later, Nicolette is home helping her ailing father, and a young neighbor goes missing, bringing back the haunting past. The magic of this book is that it's told backward, starting on Day 15 and finishing on Day 1. Like so many of Megan Miranda's thrillers, there are twists and turns you'll never see coming. It's a perfect summer read: The dialogue is great and the plot makes it a real page turner. Each day is a new chapter and this creative structure offers built-in breaks — so you can take a minute to jump in the pool. — Elissa Nadworny, correspondent

• How do you write a captivating thriller? This author found clues in the woods

Act One: An Autobiography by Moss Hart

I'd never heard the term "second-acting" until I read Moss Hart's firsthand account of mingling with 1920s intermission crowds in his teens, so he could sneak in with them to cadge Broadway jokes and songs for his Catskills summer camp revues. Practice, it turned out, for one of American theater's most storied, rags-to-riches careers, as Hart rose from poverty to write classic comedies with George S. Kaufman and direct My Fair Lady. In my own teens, in an era when live theaters mostly shut down for the summer, reading of his exploits is what kept me psyched till the fall stage season picked up. — Bob Mondello, senior arts critic, Culture Desk

The Thursday Murder Club: A Novel by Richard Osman

This jaunty mystery takes place in a retirement village, telling the story of four murder-mystery-obsessed friends who finally have a real case to crack. What's delightful is that there are no stereotypes here — the senior citizens solve the murder with wit, style and ferocious intelligence. The puzzle is intricate and involving, but there's a breeziness about it that makes it an ideal hammock read. You can likely finish it in one lazy afternoon. — Jennifer Vanasco, editor and reporter, Culture Desk

Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock

Redefining Realness is peak summer reading: a captivating escape into another life. But it also asks a daring question: What does it take to become yourself in a world that's hostile to your existence? Janet Mock's journey as a Black trans writer has had specific lessons for me as I found my footing as a gay journalist. But it's gained new resonance at a moment when trans kids are under attack — and offers insight on how to support trans youth as they become who they're meant to be. Plus, it's a lot of fun. Part catharsis, part kiki — and always a journey worth taking. — Tinbete Ermyas, editor, All Things Considered

• On 'Pose,' Janet Mock Tells The Stories She Craved As A Young Trans Person

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

A great summer read transports, which Rebecca — rather famously — does from its very first line. Narrated by the second Mrs. de Winter, what happened to the first — the titular Rebecca — unspools over the course of this Gothic classic. The narrator marries the wealthy Maxim de Winter after knowing him for just two weeks. At their estate, Manderley, the devotion of housekeeper Mrs. Danvers to Rebecca ratchets up tension and apprehension between the newly married pair. Set on the cliffs of the Cornish coast, the atmosphere and psychological suspense may send a near-literal chill down your spine. — Tayla Burney, director, Network Programming and Production

The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay

In this volume of essays from poet Ross Gay, we get a catalog of everyday little joys from a year in his life: unspoken pacts of trust between strangers on a train, a dancing praying mantis, the act of blowing things off. Along the way, he ruminates on nature, masculinity, race, and — most of all — our connections to each other. There's no ignoring the cruelty and pain that also come with life; he's finding humor and tenderness, even so. Whether you're traveling or staying home for the summer, it's the perfect read to inspire observing your corner of the world with a little more care and delight. — Erica Liao, senior digital analyst, Audience Insight-Research

The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein

Yes, I am recommending all 1,500+ pages of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels as a summer read. The four books trace the relationship between two girls across the latter half of the 20th century, exposing hard truths about female friendship while exploring the trajectory of Italian politics and the country's perpetual North/South divide. Yet I think of these novels as beach reads, not because they're easy or escapist (they're emphatically not), but because reading the story feels like being on a municipal beach in Naples: almost too hot; defiantly gritty; inescapably, heartbreakingly beautiful. — Emily Dagger, senior manager, Member Partnership

• Translator Behind Elena Ferrante Novels Says Her Job Is To Be An 'Enabler'
• In New Neapolitan Novel, Fans Seek Clues About Mysterious Author's Past

Call Me by Your Name: A Novel by André Aciman

Call Me By Your Name, the 2007 novel by André Aciman, follows Elio, 17, as he spends the summer at his parents' villa in Italy. His days are uneventful until an intriguing houseguest, Oliver, arrives. Slowly, Elio realizes he is in love with him and an all-consuming relationship ensues: the kind where you love someone so much you want them to know what it's like to be loved by you. In one heartbreaking line, Oliver tells Elio: "Call me by your name and I'll call you by mine." This is the perfect book for those looking to electrify their summer with an intense affair. — Malaka Gharib , editor, Life Kit

• 'Call Me By Your Name': Love, Their Way

Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession

This gentle novel from Irish blues musician and writer Rónán Hession follows the adventures of two sweetly bumbling, 30-something men as they go about their daily lives. The book is a delightful summer read because the characters are so incredibly likable: They enjoy playing board games and reading. They do nice things for other people. It's testament to the author's skill that this book, so lacking in the traditional trappings of drama, is somehow a total page turner. — Chloe Veltman, correspondent, Culture Desk

Who is Maud Dixon?: A Novel by Alexandra Andrews

Who Is Maud Dixon? is a wild ride following an aspiring writer as she tries to find her feet in the publishing industry. She takes a new gig as an assistant to an anonymous novelist and finds herself falling in love with her boss's life — and then trying to steal it. The many twists and turns in the novel make it a beach read — and the vibrant descriptions of Morocco make it a perfect summer escape. If you can't travel this summer, you can immerse yourself in the luscious descriptions of the seaside, meals and street markets in this story. — Erin Register, project manager, Network Growth

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin

To me, summer is about adventure and exploration, so my desire to read books that are a little weird and meandering totally spikes. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is one of those books. It doesn't give you much of a roadmap; instead, it plunges you into a world and invites you to come along. What is it about? I don't know — a guy living outside Tokyo, a missing cat, mysterious strangers, having too much time on your hands. What I do know is that I couldn't put it down. Reading felt like wandering through a stranger's dream: lush, surreal and totally immersive. — Leah Donnella, senior editor, Code Switch

• Haruki Murakami: 'I've Had All Sorts Of Strange Experiences In My Life'

Red, White & Royal Blue: A Novel by Casey McQuiston

Red, White & Royal Blue takes readers on a journey that turns rivals into lovers — and sees a lot of self-growth. When Alex Claremont-Diaz's mom becomes the president of the United States, all eyes turn to the first family, the "American Royal Family." So when Alex and Prince Henry fall for each other, they have to navigate the struggles of relationships, a reelection cycle and international relations. This story gives the reader a warm hug as it sees Alex learn, process and grow into his own sexuality and sense of self. It is witty and wholesome in all the best ways. June brought Pride Month and summer: What better way to enjoy a day at the beach than to dive into a heartwarming story of becoming yourself in a way that is incredibly accessible to LGBTQ+ youth and allies. — Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez, audio engineer

• 'Red, White & Royal Blue' Reigns As Must-Read Romance

No One Tells You This: A Memoir by Glynnis MacNicol

Journalist Glynnis MacNicol's memoir is an engrossing, incisive portrayal of a woman constantly in motion, whether she's pedaling her bike across New York City to a friend's party or rushing home to support her ailing mother. MacNicol has no choice but to figure out on her own how to move through life, because preset roadmaps weren't designed for people like her — a 40-year-old, single, child-free woman. Like summer, the essence of No One Tells You This is escape: to solo vacations, to a dude ranch in Wyoming and, ultimately, from a narrow idea of a meaningful life. — Rhaina Cohen, producer and editor, Embedded

Attachments: A Novel by Rainbow Rowell

Lincoln starts a job as a nighttime IT guy assigned to monitor — and therefore read — all of the office email at a newspaper in 1999. He hates his job but finds himself captivated by the hilarious messages that best friends and co-workers Beth and Jennifer exchange every day. Then he starts to develop a crush on Beth. Perhaps an office isn't the traditional setting for a summer read, but I've reread it multiple summers because it makes me so dang happy. Rainbow Rowell is on par with Nora Ephron when it comes to writing kind, lovable characters having witty conversations (my favorite thing). — Tilda Wilson, Kroc fellow

• Rainbow Rowell Does Romance With A Subversive (Read: Realistic) Twist

The Wedding Crasher: A Novel by Mia Sosa

The Wedding Crasher is a great summer read with its charm and heat. Solange is roped into helping with her cousin's wedding planning business. But instead of making sure one of the weddings goes off without a hitch, Solange finds herself crashing (and burning) it. The almost-groom Dean has a proposal for Solange — a fake relationship to help him with his career. Fake dating has been done many times before, but never with such great communication. And it was super steamy to boot. Written by a Black, Brazilian American author, The Wedding Crasher shares with us Solange's boisterous and loving Brazilian family, and they were just as much fun as the romance. — Anika Steffen, chief employment counsel

The Summer Place: A Novel by Jennifer Weiner

A posthaste engagement between Ruby and her boyfriend leads to a wedding taking place at her safta's summer home in Cape Cod. However, when the wedding day arrives, secrets are revealed, misunderstandings come to light, and this complicated family must confront their own personal mistakes and consequences. This novel is filled with juicy gossip and unparalleled family drama — and is perfect for sitting poolside with a margarita as you dig up the dirt. While at times it may resemble an episode of Jerry Springer, the love and emotion that tie this family together are stronger than DNA. — Sam Levitz, product manager, Network CMS

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo follows the life of retired Golden Age Hollywood star Evelyn Hugo through the lens of her infamous seven marriages. We follow along as she falls both in and out of love — with not only the spotlight, but with those around her. This book is like having a summer fling turn to romance — starting with excitement and intrigue and ending with a feeling of never wanting to let go. You'll never want to say goodbye to Evelyn Hugo, and you'll be thinking of her for a long time to come. — Aja Miller, associate, Member Partnerships

This list was produced by Beth Novey and edited by Maureen Pao and Meghan Collins Sullivan.

• summer books

Be True to You!

Maggie Hutchings (text), Hayley Wells (illustration), Be True to You!, Affirm Press, May 2024, 24 pp., $22.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781922 […]

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Avast! Pirate Stories from Transgender Authors

Michael Earp and Alison Evans (eds.), Avast! Pirate Stories from Transgender Authors, Fremantle Press, 2024, 304 pp., RRP $29.99 (pbk),

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Cross My Heart and Never Lie

Nơra Dåsnes, and Matt Bagguley (translator), Cross My Heart and Never Lie, HarperCollins Publishers, June 2024, 241 pp., RRP $22.99

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Jarvis, Thank You, Walker Books, May 2024, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781529503920 From the creator of The Boy

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The Unexpected Mess of it all

Gabrielle Tozer, The Unexpected Mess of it All, HarperCollins Publishers, May 2023, 338 pp., RRP $19.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781460761441 After

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Little Book Baby

Katrina Germein (text) and Cheryl Orsini (illustrator), Little Book Baby, HarperCollins Publishers, January 2024, 32 pp., RRP $24.99 (hbk), ISBN

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NT Mob Sharing Stories in Language

Bill Forshaw (ed.), NT Mob Sharing Stories in Language, Indigenous Literacy Fund, May 2023, 101 pp., RRP $29.99 (hbk), ISBN

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Millie Finds her Voice

Michele Graham, Millie Finds her Voice, Gosh Design, December 2023, 32 pp., RRP $22.99 (pbk) ISBN 9780645925302 Millie loves to

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How to be a Friend

Sarah Ayoub (text), and Mimi Purnell (illustrator), How to be a friend, HarperCollins Publishing, Nov 2023, 24 pp., RRP $24.99

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Liar’s Test (The Silverleaf Chronicles #1)

Ambelin Kwaymullina, Liar’s Test (The Silverleaf Chronicles #1), Text Publishing, June 2024, 272 pp., RRP $24.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781922790873 Liar’s

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THE READING LIST

by Sara Nisha Adams ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 3, 2021

A quiet and thoughtful look into loneliness, community, and the benefits of reading—suited for true bibliophiles.

An aging widower and a lonely teenage girl form an unlikely friendship by bonding over books.

Aleisha works at the Harrow Road Library in North London not for her love of books, but because she needs the money. When Mukesh, an older man who's recently lost his wife, visits the library seeking a book recommendation, Aleisha has little to offer. As he pushes for a suggestion, she becomes defensive, even rude. She regrets her behavior almost immediately, but she’s more focused on difficulties in her home life, including her absentee father and her mentally fragile mother. Even so, when she stumbles on a handwritten reading list tucked into a just-returned book, she impulsively uses it as a way to apologize to Mukesh, recommending the first book, To Kill a Mockingbird . She also decides to read every book on the list herself, rationalizing that it will help pass the long days in the library. When Mukesh returns to tell Aleisha how much he enjoyed Mockingbird , they decide to create an impromptu book club. It seems this budding relationship is just the thing to save Mukesh from his continued grief over his late wife. Meanwhile, Aleisha begins relying on Mukesh as the only stable adult in her life. When Aleisha’s family suffers a devastating event, Aleisha looks to Mukesh to help her pick up the pieces, but he’s not sure he’s the person she needs. Full of references to popular and classic novels, this debut focuses on reading as a means of processing and coping with challenging life events. The author deftly captures the quiet and listless vibe of ill-fated libraries everywhere. Told from the perspectives of both Aleisha and Mukesh, as well as a sampling of other characters, the story shows an insightful empathy for difficulties faced at divergent life stages. The author explores many difficult topics with grace, like mental illness, grief, abandonment, and self-doubt. Although the pace starts off slow, things pick up in the later pages and reach a satisfying conclusion.

Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-06-302528-8

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION

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New York Times Bestseller

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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SEEN & HEARD

by Elin Hilderbrand ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 11, 2024

Though Hilderbrand threatens to kill all our darlings with this last laugh, her acknowledgments say it’s just “for now.”

A stranger comes to town, and a beloved storyteller plays this creative-writing standby for all it’s worth.

Hilderbrand fans, a vast and devoted legion, will remember Blond Sharon, the notorious island gossip. In what is purportedly the last of the Nantucket novels, Blond Sharon decides to pursue her lifelong dream of fiction writing. In the collective opinion of the island—aka the “cobblestone telegraph”—she’s qualified. “Well, we think, she’s certainly demonstrated her keen interest in other people’s stories, the seedier and more salacious, the better.” Blond Sharon’s first assignment in her online creative writing class is to create a two-person character study, and Hilderbrand has her write up the two who arrive on the ferry in an opening scene of the book, using the same descriptors Hilderbrand has. Amusingly, the class is totally unimpressed. “‘I found it predictable,’ Willow said. ‘Like maybe Sharon used ChatGPT with the prompt “Write a character study about two women getting off the ferry, one prep and one punk.”’” Blond Sharon abandons these characters, but Hilderbrand thankfully does not. They are Kacy Kapenash, daughter of retiring police chief Ed Kapenash (the other swan song referred to by the title), and her new friend Coco Coyle, who has given up her bartending job in the Virgin Islands to become a “personal concierge” for the other strangers-who-have-come-to-town. These are the Richardsons, Bull and Leslee, a wild and wealthy couple who have purchased a $22 million beachfront property and plan to take Nantucket by storm. As the book opens, their house has burned down during an end-of-summer party on their yacht, and Coco is missing, feared both responsible for the fire and dead. Though it’s the last weekend of his tenure, Chief Ed refuses to let the incoming chief, Zara Washington, take this one over. The investigation goes forward in parallel with a review of the summer’s intrigues, love affairs, and festivities. Whatever else you can say about Leslee Richardson, she knows how to throw a party, and Hilderbrand is just the writer to design her invitations, menus, themes, playlists, and outfits. And that hot tub!

Pub Date: June 11, 2024

ISBN: 9780316258876

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/need-a-summer-read-here-are-17-books-from-our-experts

Need a summer read? Here are 17 books from our experts

If you’re lucky enough to have a quiet place to retreat from the heat this summer, we’ve got a symphony of suggestions for novels and nonfiction to keep you entertained.

WATCH: Amy Tan turns her literary gaze on the world of birds in ‘The Backyard Bird Chronicles’

Ann Patchett, acclaimed writer and owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, and Gilbert Cruz, editor of The New York Times Book Review, recently joined PBS News Hour’s Jeffrey Brown to share their picks for summer reading.

”Sandwich” by Katherine Newman

“If you want a book that has you from ‘hello,’ this is the one. Family goes to the Cape every summer for two weeks. They have kids in their 20s, they have elderly parents and they eat sandwiches, they are very near Sandwich and they are the sandwich generation.” – Ann Patchett

“Sipsworth” by Simon Van Booy

“This is an elderly woman who’s very isolated. She meets a mouse, and the mouse brings all of these wonderful people into her life. It sounds hokey. It’s not.” – Ann Patchett

“Bear” by Julia Phillips

“Two young sisters working so hard in a very tough existence on an island off the coast of Washington. It all changes when a bear comes to their neighborhood and it drives the sisters apart.” – Ann Patchett

WATCH: How Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novels teach kids it’s OK to have ‘big feelings’

”Crook Manifesto” by Colson Whitehead

“If you want some mystery, some cops and robbers, some corruption, some great writing.” – Ann Patchett

“Swan Song” by Elin Hilderbrand

“I’ve only been to Nantucket for two hours on, like, the coldest day that I can recall, so I have no idea what it’s like to be there in the summer. But I sort of do, because I’ve read a dozen Elin Hilderbrand books.” – Gilbert Cruz

“Horror Movie” by Paul Tremblay

“This is about, essentially, an independent horror movie that was made years and years ago. A bunch of tragedies happened. It’s become a cult film. And the only person left from the production has started to encounter some weird things.” – Gilbert Cruz

“The Bright Sword” by Lev Grossman

“There have been many retellings of the King Arthur legend – books, movies, musicals. This one is sort of a sequel.” – Gilbert Cruz

“There’s Always This Year” by Hanif Abdurraqib

“This is a collection of essays about family and love and grief and fathers. But most importantly, it’s all woven together through the lens of basketball.” – Ann Patchett

“My Black Country” by Alice Randall

“Alice is a fiction writer and a scholar, but she is also the only Black woman to have written a No. 1 country song. This is a story of all the people who have been erased in country music’s past, and she is restoring them into the landscape.” – Ann Patchett

WATCH: Beyoncé brings new audience to country music and highlights the genre’s Black roots

”Consent” by Jill Ciment

“Jill Ciment was 16 years old when she first kissed her art teacher, who was 46. They got married and they stayed together until he died at 86. And it is her looking back on her life and thinking, ‘It was a happy marriage, but knowing what I know now, maybe there was something a little wrong about that?’”

And a bonus…

“Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma” by Claire Dederer

“…a great book that just came out in paperback that could be read as a companion piece.” – Ann Patchett

”The Future Was Now” by Chris Nashawaty

“The summer of 1982 – if you care about science fiction, fantasy, stuff like that – was one of the biggest summers of all time. So it had “E.T.”, “Poltergeist,” “Blade Runner,” “Tron,” a “Mad Max” sequel, a “Star Trek” sequel. And this is essentially a history of that summer, a history of those movies.” – Gilbert Cruz

“Cue The Sun! The Invention of Reality TV” by Emily Nussbaum

“Emily Nussbaum does an amazing job of sort of sketching that whole history and what they’re billing as sort of the first comprehensive history of this very important genre.” – Gilbert Cruz

And a few for the youngest readers…

• “The Old Boat” by Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey (board book)
• “The Old Truck” by Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey (board book)
• “Ahoy” by Sophie Blackall
• “Ferris” by Kate DiCamillo

In his more than 30-year career with the News Hour, Brown has served as co-anchor, studio moderator, and field reporter on a wide range of national and international issues, with work taking him around the country and to many parts of the globe. As arts correspondent he has profiled many of the world's leading writers, musicians, actors and other artists. Among his signature works at the News Hour: a multi-year series, “Culture at Risk,” about threatened cultural heritage in the United States and abroad; the creation of the NewsHour’s online “Art Beat”; and hosting the monthly book club, “Now Read This,” a collaboration with The New York Times.

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August 4, 2023

If reading is your great love in life, why not turn it into a side hustle and get paid to read books?

One of the best things about the book publishing business is that thanks to the internet, it adapts well to copy editors, designers, and even editors looking for a home job, as well as voice talent for narrating audiobooks.

And if you’re simply a book lover who gets excited about free copies of new young adult lit or interesting nonfiction, you can turn your passion for reading into pocket change by writing a book review.

So settle in, my excellent bookworms! I’ve got some great ideas that’ll let you read books and make money in a remote job .

Make extra money with book review opportunities

If you aren’t necessarily looking to pay all your bills by reading books, you may be able to find work as a paid book reviewer or at least get a free book in exchange for an online review. Here are some sites where you can provide paid book reviews or get a new book.

• Online Book Club requires your first review to be unpaid, but you’ll still get a free book to review! After your initial review, most projects offer $5 to $60. As you can see, book reviewing really isn’t a gig that compensates well for the time involved. You really need to love to read — and quickly — and consider any compensation a bonus while having fun .
• Kirkus hires freelance reviewers and expects a 350-word review within a 2-week time frame.
• Booklist accepts freelance book reviews – assigned reviews only. Freelance opportunities are limited but pay $12.50 for a blog post and $15 for a full book review.
• The US Review does pay reviews, though their website does not say how much. Reviews must include a short book summary, be turned around within 2-3 weeks, and follow a style guide.
• Bethany House specializes in Christian books and is specifically looking for reviewers who have an existing online platform like a YouTube channel, a book blog, etc. There is no mention of compensation, but you may be able to use your affiliate marketing link within your review on your own website or channel.
• Writerful will allow you to submit an honest review of any book of your choosing. You just won’t get paid as a new reviewer, so expect to put in some time on the site. Paid book reviewer opportunities are offered if you become a trusted, experienced reviewer. These paid opportunities compensate $10 to $50 per review.
• Moody Publishers is another publishing house specializing in Christian titles. They do not pay for your reviews, but you will receive free books.

If you need to earn a living from your side hustle , you’ll probably have to do more than review books. Here are some additional opportunities that pay more and will still have you reading.

Also see: How to make money as an Amazon reviewer

Become a narrator

Audiobook narration is an industry that has been picking up steam in the work-at-home world in recent years. With so many books now being consumed through Audible and similar services, even self-publishers are publishing their works on various platforms.

To become an audiobook narrator , you’ll need a great voice, the ability to perform in different voices (training as a voice actor helps), and editing skills (most narrators do their own post-production file editing). You can mark up the manuscript or printed book with tips to help you avoid problems when narrating.

Audiobook work also requires the right equipment, such as a microphone, a pop screen filter, good-quality headphones, a tablet or e-reader, and recording and editing software. Learn more about becoming an audiobook narrator here .

Copy editing and proofreading jobs

Large and small publishers — not to mention websites, magazines, and corporations — often outsource online proofreading jobs as well as copy editing jobs. If you’d like to copy edit for a traditional publishing house, it will most likely require you to have a professional copy editing certificate, which you can get by completing a copy editing course. Universities often offer these courses, and many can be completed online.

If you aren’t able to get a certificate right now, don’t worry! You can still land a professional proofreader job or copy editing position from someone else, such as a website or corporation. To apply for a copy editing or proofreading job, simply demonstrate your superior grammar and spelling skills! If you are looking at some resources, two that were helpful to me were this free workshop with the basics of getting in the proofreading business and The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications by Amy Einsohn. (Be sure you pick up the latest edition.)

With a little bit of luck, you can score an editing work-from-home job . These opportunities are not that common, but you’ll periodically find websites or online publications looking for assistant editors and even managing editors. A small traditional publisher may also work with remote editors. Bookjobs.com is one great place to keep an eye out for book editor openings; you can also keep a tab on Indeed, and make it a habit to regularly check the Careers page on your favorite websites.

Or you could develop your own freelance editing business , selling your services to authors seeking a professional evaluation and polish of their manuscripts. This will take some time and legwork on your part. You’ll need to build your business from the ground up: decide your rates, design your website, and gather customer testimonials. Then you’ll need to land clients!

You may want to look for editing jobs via other services while you work on your own base of operations as a freelancer. You can find a remote editing job on various low-paying job boards (such as UpWork) or via better-paying Virtual Assistant companies (like Time Etc). This work-while-you-build strategy serves two purposes: First, it brings some money in, and second, it lets you collect testimonials about your performance. Be careful when employing this tactic, however. Make sure you don’t poach customers from another service or violate the terms of your agreement with any virtual assistant platform.

If you are fluent in a second language, you may find online opportunities for translation jobs . These gigs are plentiful on sites like UpWork in addition to translation services and marketplaces such as:

Today Translations

Translators Base

Layout and design

There are a lot of emerging opportunities to work with writers who are self-publishing these books. While these folks may have a great story to share, they may not be as passionate about formatting their book or graphic design needed to create a compelling book cover.

You can learn how to do book layout and editorial or graphic design for free at sites such as The Book Designer . And many great desktop publisher computer programs, such as Adobe InDesign, Quark XPress and Microsoft Publisher, can help you with the actual book layout.

Then just hang out your shingle as a designer or formatter! You can create a website to advertise your book layout and design services, network with authors and publishers on social media, and look for designer gigs in all the usual places.

Some smaller publishing houses even hire freelance book designers, giving you the opportunity to establish a lucrative business relationship. Or you can actively seek out self-publishing authors getting their books ready for print-on-demand and ebook stores like Kindle. (The latter will likely be your primary clientele.)

Become a book publisher

This is the ultimate “get paid to read books” job.

Let’s say you’ve been building all the skills I outlined above. You’ve maximized your opportunities in the book business. You can recognize good writing. You’re a good copy editor and overall editor. You know how to make a book look beautiful on the page and on the screen. So why not start publishing books yourself? Go into business to create your own publishing company!

If you’re a writer, you could start by self-publishing your own work. Once you’re established as someone who can turn out a beautifully designed and cleanly edited product, you can start looking for other authors to publish. You’ll need some start-up capital to land your first author, but you’ll have all the skills and a golden opportunity to create a book that you believe in. And be sure both you and the author make some money, of course!

Marketing and public relations

One of the key tools in your arsenal is knowing how to market yourself, your skills, and your products. Not only is this crucial to making your own freelance editing or publishing business work, but you can also turn book marketing and public relations into its own business! With so many self-published authors new to the field every month and traditionally published authors who are struggling to come up with their own PR strategy, there are tons of opportunities to step in and help them out. You can become their freelance book marketing and publicity pro, who lines up blog tours, plan author interviews, and really gets the word out about their books with viral marketing .

Where can I find these jobs for book lovers?

• Kirkus hires book reviewers as well as several of the positions mentioned above.
• Freelance Writer’s Den offers a job board specifically for writers and editors.
• Publishers Weekly offers several freelance publishing positions, such as book reviewer and editor.

Are you a book lover who’s excited about these opportunities? I’m excited for you! There is so much remote work for you to turn your love of reading into a livelihood, and now you know how to look for it. Whether you’re reviewing books for extra cash or narrating the next best-selling audio book, I’d love to hear from you about any and all jobs you land and businesses you begin from here!

About Angie Nelson

Angie Nelson began working from home in 2007 when she figured out how to take her future into her own hands and escape the corporate cubicle farm. Angie’s goal is sharing her passion for home business, personal finance, telecommuting, and entrepreneurship, and her work has been featured on Recruiter, FlexJobs and Business News Daily.

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You Should Be Reading Sebastian Barry

Ireland’s fiction laureate has a special understanding of the human heart.

Five years ago , when Sebastian Barry was appointed laureate for Irish fiction, he delivered a lecture that began with what he confessed was a truism: “All things pass away, our time on Earth is brief, and yet we may feel assailed at great length in this brief time, and yet we may reach moments of great happiness.” The whiplash repetition of “and yet” is typical Barry, and so is the stoic resolve behind the truism, a long, bleak perspective that accedes to the inevitable, with misery and joy cozying up to each other. Reading his novels is like braving Irish weather: You’re chilled and drenched and dazzled and baked in buffeting succession.

Explore the April 2023 Issue

Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.

His new novel, Old God’s Time , his ninth, is a beautiful, tragic book about an “old policeman with a buckled heart” who’s assailed at great length and yet enjoys streaks of jubilance, even after repeated assaults. I find the book powerful enough to want to bang the drum and say as loudly and clearly as I can that Barry ought to be widely read and revered—he ought to be a laureate for fiction everywhere.

Let’s start with the writing, an unclouded lens that, yes, occasionally goes all purple. No surprise to hear an Irish lilt and discover an unabashed delight in metaphor—paragraphs without a simile or three are a rarity. Barry is a poet and playwright as well as a novelist, and lyricism and drama jostle in nearly all his sentences, many of which are stuffed to bursting. Prose seems the wrong word for what he does; paragraphs unspool like spells, dreamy incantations, words repeated, cadence summoned. A sample plucked more or less at random from his most resolutely rural novel, Annie Dunne (2002): “Oh, what a mix of things the world is, what a flood of cream, turning and turning in the butter churn of things, but that never comes to butter.” A skeptic might dismiss this as a nostalgic ditty with a clunky ending, but as the eponymous Annie knows, “there is a grace in butter, how can I explain it—it is the color we all worship, a simple, yellow gold.” Barry churns and churns, and gold comes out. And so does pitch black. This, from the new novel: “Tar melting in tar barrels, roadmenders. The lovely acrid stink of it.”

Each of his novels stands on its own, but many of the characters belong to two interconnected Irish families, the Dunnes and the McNultys, based on the two branches of his own clan. Ordinary, inconsequential folk in sometimes extraordinary, history-defining circumstances—soldiers, spinsters, policemen, rogues, fugitives, many of them willing or unwilling participants in the Irish diaspora—emerge from what Barry calls “the fog of family.” (More Irish weather!) They themselves are substantial, flesh and blood, but drifts of fog cling to them, the secrets and lies, the hopelessly mixed motives and divided loyalties of kinfolk everywhere. The family connections add a satisfying resonance. Knowing that Annie Dunne is the sister of Willie Dunne, whose hellish sojourn in First World War trenches is the subject of A Long Long Way (2005), seems to give both books greater heft. Annie cherishes the sentimental notion that Willie fought to protect the world of her childhood, “so that everything could continue as before,” a faith painfully stripped from Willie in the mud and gore of Flanders.

Family is rooted in history and place. The epicenter of Barry’s world, his home turf and time, is the early and mid-20th century in Dublin and County Wicklow, hilly countryside about 40 miles south of the capital yet somehow excitingly remote. Many of his characters roam the globe; some turn up in war zones. The painful birth of an independent Ireland and its ugly and confused sectarian struggles always loom in the background of whatever else happens. An exception, the magnificent Days Without End (2017), is set in mid-19th-century America and, weirdly, miraculously, resembles nothing so much as a mash-up of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and Annie Proulx’s “ Brokeback Mountain .”

Its sequel, A Thousand Moons (2020), is set in Tennessee in the aftermath of the Civil War and narrated by Winona, an orphaned Lakota woman who was adopted and raised by the narrator of Days Without End , Thomas McNulty, and his “beau,” John Cole. New World horrors have proved as fertile to Barry as Old World horrors. He describes Indian War massacres and the Easter Rising of 1916 with equally clinical specificity, and yet there’s something beyond history, beyond war and politics, beyond America’s manifest destiny and Irish independence that animates his novels.

To pinpoint that something is to risk sounding mawkish. Annie Dunne, a “humpbacked woman” whose only brush with romance consists of a foolish fantasy, finds other uses for her load of thwarted passion. A summer spent looking after her young, city-bred grandniece and grandnephew on the tiny subsistence farm in Wicklow where she lives teaches her to see “eternal pleasure and peace in the facts of human love.” The deepest of the “moiling mysteries of the human heart,” human love is Barry’s great subject—love enjoyed, love tested, love betrayed, love annihilated by human depravity and the suffering it inflicts.

O ld God’s Time , set in the 1990s in Dalkey, a seaside suburb south of Dublin, cranks into motion with a comically hackneyed premise: a retired detective visited by former colleagues who drag him into a cold case he dreads revisiting. Tom Kettle has had nine months of mostly sitting in his favorite wicker chair, gazing out his window across Dalkey Sound to “stolid” Dalkey Island. The sudden intrusion has “unmoored” him—an “act of terror,” he calls it. A storm is rising outside his modest flat; it all seems a bit overwrought, the air of menace and mystery and guilt thickly laid on. One of the younger detectives brandishes a “rumpled sheaf” of police reports, and Tom seems to know without looking that it concerns historic allegations of child abuse leveled at the clergy. His visceral response: “Ah no, Jesus, no, lads, not the fecking priests, no.”

We learn in due course that Tom, who never knew his parents, was raised in an orphanage run by the Christian Brothers in Connemara. (The institution is unnamed, but we can assume it’s the infamous St. Joseph’s Industrial School, in Letterfrack, where abuse was rampant and extreme .) And we learn that Tom’s late wife, June, was also an orphan, raised by nuns, and repeatedly raped, from the age of 6, by a priest. So, yes, the fecking priests.

We learn that Tom, too, was beaten and “used” by one of the Christian Brothers, information gleaned from hints and asides (“He was the guardian of his own silences, had been all his life”). We hear of June’s trauma from June herself. “Tom, will you forsake me if I tell you?” she asks on their honeymoon. “I’d better say it now.” The words come out in “her smallest voice.” The passage is hard to read, not because it’s graphic, which it is, but because Tom feels her words so keenly. “Now, Tom, now Tom—you love me now, if you can,” she says, and he does.

She also says, “It’s a wonder we’re alive at all, us two.” They raise a couple of children, Winnie and Joe. The family, but most especially his love for June and hers for him, is the source of “immeasurable happiness.” And then, when the children have barely reached adulthood, it’s all taken away, item by item. This is as close as Tom comes to self-pity:

Things happened to people, and some people were required to lift great weights that crushed you if you faltered just for a moment. It was his job not to falter. But every day he faltered. Every day he was crushed, and rose again the following morn like a cartoon figure.

Tom has the Road Runner in mind, and Bugs Bunny, but the epigraph for Old God’s Time is from the Book of Job: “Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee?” God, speaking from the whirlwind, contrasting his omnipotence with Job’s impotence.

The narrative technique (though Barry is expert enough to make it seem not a technique but an organic element of the story) is close third person: Tom isn’t the narrator, but we’re nonetheless in his head, often an uncomfortable place to be. Preternaturally observant—he’s a detective, after all—he has moments of startling lucidity, accompanied by a heightened awareness of the tragic arc of his existence. Here he’s remembering the rhythm of his day when he was still young, his family still intact,

the two babies in their beds and June in their own … Tom would be thinking of the early rise in the morning to get out to the bus, and the long trek into town, head nodding from the broken sleep, and the passing from his character as father and husband into his character as policeman and colleague, a curious transition that in the evening would be reversed, in the eternal see-saw of his life, of everyone’s life. The only thing being missed by him in those moments being the absolute luck of his life, the unrepeatable nature of it, and the terminus to that happiness that was being hidden from him in the unconsidered future.

At times this hyperclarity is almost too much to bear, as when he describes the devastation caused on one Dublin street by the car bombings of May 1974, a particularly vicious episode in the long, sad history of the Troubles. (“Political bombs with personal outcomes” is Tom’s bitter understatement.) A sentence that in its entirety runs to 256 words takes us from the scene as Tom imagines it in the seconds before the explosion to what he actually witnesses as he arrives, galloping in his heavy boots from the nearby police headquarters:

And then the blast, bursting everything known and usual to smithereens, every window in the street blown in in a great cascade, and the bomb debris and the looser items of the street, and the window glass, all turned into weaponry now, against the soft bodies of the citizens, and rending them, and tearing them, and undoing them, till Tom saw more clearly what he had thought were the cuts of meat, black smoke everywhere and the cuts of meat, some of them neatly squared, smoking, blackened, but it was sections of those just recently living souls, oh some still living, a head and a torso with the mouth moving, the eyes open in bloodied faces, and some still whole, in their blast-torn coats, here and there kneeling to the imploring faces, saying words that Tom could not hear, prayers maybe, or whispering.

This is shocking but not gratuitous. The gruesome details foreshadow June’s equally shocking and violent death—not witnessed and, mercifully, not imagined on the page—and remind us that no one, not even poor Tom, has a monopoly on suffering: “There were worse things and worst things.” June, who “survived everything except survival,” dies a death that lies on the absolute grievous end of that spectrum.

A widower for 20 years, retired from police work for nine months, and now suddenly asked to consult on a case that dredges up an obliterating load of grief and guilt, Tom veers into fantasy, a dreamworld so lifelike that the reader will only with difficulty separate Tom’s imaginings from what transpires in reality. The first time this happens, he’s having a drink with his landlord, Mr. Tomelty, and his wife—or so he thinks. He notices that in the corner of the room “stood a unicorn, with a silver horn, or possibly white gold, raising its delicate right hoof, and innocently staring out through quiet eyes. Mr. Tomelty and his missis made no reference to it. It was just there, verifiably.” But we later discover that Mr. Tomelty’s wife died years ago. Subsequent appearances of the mythical beast signal the recurrence of fantasy or a dream sequence: “Mrs. Tomelty’s unicorn was standing on the little beach. Pay it no heed.”

From the April 2022 issue: Fintan O’Toole’s passionate, angry, slyly humorous history of Ireland

Tom is a victim, a modern-day Job, but he’s also the perpetrator of a crime committed two decades earlier. His fellow detectives might just let him off the hook, but Barry won’t. He once wrote, in an essay about his family, “I am honour-bound to judge them in the round,” and he seems to feel the same about his characters. The doomy first chapters of Old God’s Time are crammed with clues pointing to Tom’s stricken conscience. Looking in the mirror, he sees a criminal: “He had no cheekbones, it was suddenly clear, and his face just seemed like a flat, failed loaf with dirty knife-holes in it. It looked to him like he had had his head shaved in a sort of unconscious gesture of atonement.” The novel’s ending is a dramatic exploration of the possibility of atonement. One cannot say for sure whether his putative redemption is “verifiably” real or fantastical, but there can be no doubt about how Tom feels. The final pages are ravishing.

In A Long Long Way , Willie Dunne listens to a battlefield sermon and has a minor epiphany: “He wondered suddenly and definitely for the first time in his life what words might be. Sounds and sense certainly, but something else also, a kind of natural music that explained a man’s heart or heartlessness, words as tempered as steel, as soft as air.” The ending of Old God’s Time explains Tom Kettle’s heart as truly and well as can be.

This article appears in the April 2023 print edition with the title “Love Annihilated.”

​When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

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A wrinkle in time, common sense media reviewers.

Classic sci-fi story still inspires and gets kids thinking.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

This book contains lots of science, but more impor

There are many important themes in A Wrinkle in Ti

The book is chock full of great role models. Meg i

The book has suspense and a few scary moments. The

Mild flirtation and a kiss.

Parents need to know that A Wrinkle in Time is one of the great works of literature for kids. Besides being an exciting story, its messages of individuality, nonconformity, friendship and courage have inspired generations of readers. This is a wonderful book for kids who've ever felt "different" or lonely or…

Educational Value

This book contains lots of science, but more importantly, it's a great way to discuss topics of conformity and individuality.

Positive Messages

There are many important themes in A Wrinkle in Time : the importance of friendship, loyalty and individuality chief among them. This book celebrates kids who are a bit different, it sends positive messages about thinking for yourself and about the bonds of siblings.

Positive Role Models

The book is chock full of great role models. Meg is a strong, persuasive and brave heroine. Her mother is a scientist. Her friend Calvin is a model of loyalty and her brother Charles Wallace an example of how cool you can be if you aren't typically "cool."

Violence & Scariness

The book has suspense and a few scary moments. The children confront an evil, disembodied brain that controls a planet.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that A Wrinkle in Time is one of the great works of literature for kids. Besides being an exciting story, its messages of individuality, nonconformity, friendship and courage have inspired generations of readers. This is a wonderful book for kids who've ever felt "different" or lonely or who have wrestled with loss. It celebrates the power of individuality, bravery, and love. It's been adapted for the screen twice, once as a 2004 TV movie and once in 2018 as a big-budget Disney blockbuster . There's a good audiobook version read by Hope Davis.

Where to Read

Community reviews.

• Parents say (31)
• Kids say (103)

Based on 31 parent reviews

Beautiful, thought-provoking, and charming...except for when it's not (don't let bad reviews scare you, this works for many personalities, read on to see if you're a match)

What's the story.

In A WRINKLE IN TIME, Meg's father, an eminent physicist, has been missing for two years. One night a strange old woman, Mrs. Whatsit, appears, "blown off course" while she, along with Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which, was tessering, or taking a shortcut through time and space. They take Meg, her little brother Charles Wallace, and their new friend Calvin, to rescue Dr. Murry, who is a prisoner on a planet ruled by IT, a giant pulsating brain that controls the minds of everyone on the planet. Charles Wallace also falls under IT's control, and when Meg finds her father, she discovers that he is not the invincible protector she thought he was. She must not only come to terms with this realization, but find a way to rescue them both.

Is It Any Good?

For many children, reading this book is a turning point in their intellectual lives, opening to them worlds of science and literary complexity. Those who like action and adventure enjoy its science fiction story, filled with strange creatures and Meg's showdown with IT. Preteens of both sexes can relate to the coming-of-age theme, with a hint of romance, and commentary on the value of individuality over conformity. And kids who aren't terribly popular enjoy watching an outcast become a hero, and doing so by finding that her faults are also her strengths.

Grown scientists who read A Wrinkle in Time as a child recall it as being the first book that encouraged openness to imaginative speculation, the root of all scientific inquiry and creativity. Parents who want to expose their children to women and girls who are passionate about math and science would do well to slip their child a copy of this book. Not only do Meg and her mother fit this particular bill, but Meg is also the one who wages the battle between good and evil.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about individuality, conformity, and personal growth. What does A Wrinkle in Time suggest about these ideas?

How is the Murry family different from most people in their community? At the beginning of the book, do you find them strange, and does your opinion change over the course of the story?

How does Meg change over the course of her adventure? What character strengths does she demonstrate?

Book Details

• Author : Madeleine L'Engle
• Genre : Science Fiction
• Topics : Adventures , Brothers and Sisters , Great Boy Role Models , Great Girl Role Models , Science and Nature , Space and Aliens
• Book type : Fiction
• Publisher : Yearling Books
• Publication date : January 1, 1962
• Publisher's recommended age(s) : 9 - 12
• Number of pages : 240
• Award : Newbery Medal and Honors
• Last updated : June 19, 2019

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Blog – Posted on Friday, Mar 29

17 book review examples to help you write the perfect review.

It’s an exciting time to be a book reviewer. Once confined to print newspapers and journals, reviews now dot many corridors of the Internet — forever helping others discover their next great read. That said, every book reviewer will face a familiar panic: how can you do justice to a great book in just a thousand words?

As you know, the best way to learn how to do something is by immersing yourself in it. Luckily, the Internet (i.e. Goodreads and other review sites , in particular) has made book reviews more accessible than ever — which means that there are a lot of book reviews examples out there for you to view!

In this post, we compiled 17 prototypical book review examples in multiple genres to help you figure out how to write the perfect review . If you want to jump straight to the examples, you can skip the next section. Otherwise, let’s first check out what makes up a good review.

Are you interested in becoming a book reviewer? We recommend you check out Reedsy Discovery , where you can earn money for writing reviews — and are guaranteed people will read your reviews! To register as a book reviewer, sign up here.

Pro-tip : But wait! How are you sure if you should become a book reviewer in the first place? If you're on the fence, or curious about your match with a book reviewing career, take our quick quiz:

Should you become a book reviewer?

Find out the answer. Takes 30 seconds!

What must a book review contain?

Like all works of art, no two book reviews will be identical. But fear not: there are a few guidelines for any aspiring book reviewer to follow. Most book reviews, for instance, are less than 1,500 words long, with the sweet spot hitting somewhere around the 1,000-word mark. (However, this may vary depending on the platform on which you’re writing, as we’ll see later.)

In addition, all reviews share some universal elements, as shown in our book review templates . These include:

• A review will offer a concise plot summary of the book. 
• A book review will offer an evaluation of the work. 
• A book review will offer a recommendation for the audience. 

If these are the basic ingredients that make up a book review, it’s the tone and style with which the book reviewer writes that brings the extra panache. This will differ from platform to platform, of course. A book review on Goodreads, for instance, will be much more informal and personal than a book review on Kirkus Reviews, as it is catering to a different audience. However, at the end of the day, the goal of all book reviews is to give the audience the tools to determine whether or not they’d like to read the book themselves.

Keeping that in mind, let’s proceed to some book review examples to put all of this in action.

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Book review examples for fiction books

Since story is king in the world of fiction, it probably won’t come as any surprise to learn that a book review for a novel will concentrate on how well the story was told .

That said, book reviews in all genres follow the same basic formula that we discussed earlier. In these examples, you’ll be able to see how book reviewers on different platforms expertly intertwine the plot summary and their personal opinions of the book to produce a clear, informative, and concise review.

Note: Some of the book review examples run very long. If a book review is truncated in this post, we’ve indicated by including a […] at the end, but you can always read the entire review if you click on the link provided.

Examples of literary fiction book reviews

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man :

An extremely powerful story of a young Southern Negro, from his late high school days through three years of college to his life in Harlem.

His early training prepared him for a life of humility before white men, but through injustices- large and small, he came to realize that he was an "invisible man". People saw in him only a reflection of their preconceived ideas of what he was, denied his individuality, and ultimately did not see him at all. This theme, which has implications far beyond the obvious racial parallel, is skillfully handled. The incidents of the story are wholly absorbing. The boy's dismissal from college because of an innocent mistake, his shocked reaction to the anonymity of the North and to Harlem, his nightmare experiences on a one-day job in a paint factory and in the hospital, his lightning success as the Harlem leader of a communistic organization known as the Brotherhood, his involvement in black versus white and black versus black clashes and his disillusion and understanding of his invisibility- all climax naturally in scenes of violence and riot, followed by a retreat which is both literal and figurative. Parts of this experience may have been told before, but never with such freshness, intensity and power.

This is Ellison's first novel, but he has complete control of his story and his style. Watch it.

Lyndsey reviews George Orwell’s 1984 on Goodreads:

YOU. ARE. THE. DEAD. Oh my God. I got the chills so many times toward the end of this book. It completely blew my mind. It managed to surpass my high expectations AND be nothing at all like I expected. Or in Newspeak "Double Plus Good." Let me preface this with an apology. If I sound stunningly inarticulate at times in this review, I can't help it. My mind is completely fried.

This book is like the dystopian Lord of the Rings, with its richly developed culture and economics, not to mention a fully developed language called Newspeak, or rather more of the anti-language, whose purpose is to limit speech and understanding instead of to enhance and expand it. The world-building is so fully fleshed out and spine-tinglingly terrifying that it's almost as if George travelled to such a place, escaped from it, and then just wrote it all down.

I read Fahrenheit 451 over ten years ago in my early teens. At the time, I remember really wanting to read 1984, although I never managed to get my hands on it. I'm almost glad I didn't. Though I would not have admitted it at the time, it would have gone over my head. Or at the very least, I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it fully. […]

The New York Times reviews Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry :

Three-quarters of the way through Lisa Halliday’s debut novel, “Asymmetry,” a British foreign correspondent named Alistair is spending Christmas on a compound outside of Baghdad. His fellow revelers include cameramen, defense contractors, United Nations employees and aid workers. Someone’s mother has FedExed a HoneyBaked ham from Maine; people are smoking by the swimming pool. It is 2003, just days after Saddam Hussein’s capture, and though the mood is optimistic, Alistair is worrying aloud about the ethics of his chosen profession, wondering if reporting on violence doesn’t indirectly abet violence and questioning why he’d rather be in a combat zone than reading a picture book to his son. But every time he returns to London, he begins to “spin out.” He can’t go home. “You observe what people do with their freedom — what they don’t do — and it’s impossible not to judge them for it,” he says.

The line, embedded unceremoniously in the middle of a page-long paragraph, doubles, like so many others in “Asymmetry,” as literary criticism. Halliday’s novel is so strange and startlingly smart that its mere existence seems like commentary on the state of fiction. One finishes “Asymmetry” for the first or second (or like this reader, third) time and is left wondering what other writers are not doing with their freedom — and, like Alistair, judging them for it.

Despite its title, “Asymmetry” comprises two seemingly unrelated sections of equal length, appended by a slim and quietly shocking coda. Halliday’s prose is clean and lean, almost reportorial in the style of W. G. Sebald, and like the murmurings of a shy person at a cocktail party, often comic only in single clauses. It’s a first novel that reads like the work of an author who has published many books over many years. […]

Emily W. Thompson reviews Michael Doane's The Crossing on Reedsy Discovery :

In Doane’s debut novel, a young man embarks on a journey of self-discovery with surprising results.

An unnamed protagonist (The Narrator) is dealing with heartbreak. His love, determined to see the world, sets out for Portland, Oregon. But he’s a small-town boy who hasn’t traveled much. So, the Narrator mourns her loss and hides from life, throwing himself into rehabbing an old motorcycle. Until one day, he takes a leap; he packs his bike and a few belongings and heads out to find the Girl.

Following in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac and William Least Heat-Moon, Doane offers a coming of age story about a man finding himself on the backroads of America. Doane’s a gifted writer with fluid prose and insightful observations, using The Narrator’s personal interactions to illuminate the diversity of the United States.

The Narrator initially sticks to the highways, trying to make it to the West Coast as quickly as possible. But a hitchhiker named Duke convinces him to get off the beaten path and enjoy the ride. “There’s not a place that’s like any other,” [39] Dukes contends, and The Narrator realizes he’s right. Suddenly, the trip is about the journey, not just the destination. The Narrator ditches his truck and traverses the deserts and mountains on his bike. He destroys his phone, cutting off ties with his past and living only in the moment.

As he crosses the country, The Narrator connects with several unique personalities whose experiences and views deeply impact his own. Duke, the complicated cowboy and drifter, who opens The Narrator’s eyes to a larger world. Zooey, the waitress in Colorado who opens his heart and reminds him that love can be found in this big world. And Rosie, The Narrator’s sweet landlady in Portland, who helps piece him back together both physically and emotionally.

This supporting cast of characters is excellent. Duke, in particular, is wonderfully nuanced and complicated. He’s a throwback to another time, a man without a cell phone who reads Sartre and sleeps under the stars. Yet he’s also a grifter with a “love ‘em and leave ‘em” attitude that harms those around him. It’s fascinating to watch The Narrator wrestle with Duke’s behavior, trying to determine which to model and which to discard.

Doane creates a relatable protagonist in The Narrator, whose personal growth doesn’t erase his faults. His willingness to hit the road with few resources is admirable, and he’s prescient enough to recognize the jealousy of those who cannot or will not take the leap. His encounters with new foods, places, and people broaden his horizons. Yet his immaturity and selfishness persist. He tells Rosie she’s been a good mother to him but chooses to ignore the continuing concern from his own parents as he effectively disappears from his old life.

Despite his flaws, it’s a pleasure to accompany The Narrator on his physical and emotional journey. The unexpected ending is a fitting denouement to an epic and memorable road trip.

The Book Smugglers review Anissa Gray’s The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls :

I am still dipping my toes into the literally fiction pool, finding what works for me and what doesn’t. Books like The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray are definitely my cup of tea.

Althea and Proctor Cochran had been pillars of their economically disadvantaged community for years – with their local restaurant/small market and their charity drives. Until they are found guilty of fraud for stealing and keeping most of the money they raised and sent to jail. Now disgraced, their entire family is suffering the consequences, specially their twin teenage daughters Baby Vi and Kim.  To complicate matters even more: Kim was actually the one to call the police on her parents after yet another fight with her mother. […]

Examples of children’s and YA fiction book reviews

The Book Hookup reviews Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give :

♥ Quick Thoughts and Rating: 5 stars! I can’t imagine how challenging it would be to tackle the voice of a movement like Black Lives Matter, but I do know that Thomas did it with a finesse only a talented author like herself possibly could. With an unapologetically realistic delivery packed with emotion, The Hate U Give is a crucially important portrayal of the difficulties minorities face in our country every single day. I have no doubt that this book will be met with resistance by some (possibly many) and slapped with a “controversial” label, but if you’ve ever wondered what it was like to walk in a POC’s shoes, then I feel like this is an unflinchingly honest place to start.

In Angie Thomas’s debut novel, Starr Carter bursts on to the YA scene with both heart-wrecking and heartwarming sincerity. This author is definitely one to watch.

♥ Review: The hype around this book has been unquestionable and, admittedly, that made me both eager to get my hands on it and terrified to read it. I mean, what if I was to be the one person that didn’t love it as much as others? (That seems silly now because of how truly mesmerizing THUG was in the most heartbreakingly realistic way.) However, with the relevancy of its summary in regards to the unjust predicaments POC currently face in the US, I knew this one was a must-read, so I was ready to set my fears aside and dive in. That said, I had an altogether more personal, ulterior motive for wanting to read this book. […]

The New York Times reviews Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood :

Alice Crewe (a last name she’s chosen for herself) is a fairy tale legacy: the granddaughter of Althea Proserpine, author of a collection of dark-as-night fairy tales called “Tales From the Hinterland.” The book has a cult following, and though Alice has never met her grandmother, she’s learned a little about her through internet research. She hasn’t read the stories, because her mother, Ella Proserpine, forbids it.

Alice and Ella have moved from place to place in an attempt to avoid the “bad luck” that seems to follow them. Weird things have happened. As a child, Alice was kidnapped by a man who took her on a road trip to find her grandmother; he was stopped by the police before they did so. When at 17 she sees that man again, unchanged despite the years, Alice panics. Then Ella goes missing, and Alice turns to Ellery Finch, a schoolmate who’s an Althea Proserpine superfan, for help in tracking down her mother. Not only has Finch read every fairy tale in the collection, but handily, he remembers them, sharing them with Alice as they journey to the mysterious Hazel Wood, the estate of her now-dead grandmother, where they hope to find Ella.

“The Hazel Wood” starts out strange and gets stranger, in the best way possible. (The fairy stories Finch relays, which Albert includes as their own chapters, are as creepy and evocative as you’d hope.) Albert seamlessly combines contemporary realism with fantasy, blurring the edges in a way that highlights that place where stories and real life convene, where magic contains truth and the world as it appears is false, where just about anything can happen, particularly in the pages of a very good book. It’s a captivating debut. […]

James reviews Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight, Moon on Goodreads:

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown is one of the books that followers of my blog voted as a must-read for our Children's Book August 2018 Readathon. Come check it out and join the next few weeks!

This picture book was such a delight. I hadn't remembered reading it when I was a child, but it might have been read to me... either way, it was like a whole new experience! It's always so difficult to convince a child to fall asleep at night. I don't have kids, but I do have a 5-month-old puppy who whines for 5 minutes every night when he goes in his cage/crate (hopefully he'll be fully housebroken soon so he can roam around when he wants). I can only imagine! I babysat a lot as a teenager and I have tons of younger cousins, nieces, and nephews, so I've been through it before, too. This was a believable experience, and it really helps show kids how to relax and just let go when it's time to sleep.

The bunny's are adorable. The rhymes are exquisite. I found it pretty fun, but possibly a little dated given many of those things aren't normal routines anymore. But the lessons to take from it are still powerful. Loved it! I want to sample some more books by this fine author and her illustrators.

Publishers Weekly reviews Elizabeth Lilly’s Geraldine :

This funny, thoroughly accomplished debut opens with two words: “I’m moving.” They’re spoken by the title character while she swoons across her family’s ottoman, and because Geraldine is a giraffe, her full-on melancholy mode is quite a spectacle. But while Geraldine may be a drama queen (even her mother says so), it won’t take readers long to warm up to her. The move takes Geraldine from Giraffe City, where everyone is like her, to a new school, where everyone else is human. Suddenly, the former extrovert becomes “That Giraffe Girl,” and all she wants to do is hide, which is pretty much impossible. “Even my voice tries to hide,” she says, in the book’s most poignant moment. “It’s gotten quiet and whispery.” Then she meets Cassie, who, though human, is also an outlier (“I’m that girl who wears glasses and likes MATH and always organizes her food”), and things begin to look up.

Lilly’s watercolor-and-ink drawings are as vividly comic and emotionally astute as her writing; just when readers think there are no more ways for Geraldine to contort her long neck, this highly promising talent comes up with something new.

Examples of genre fiction book reviews

Karlyn P reviews Nora Roberts’ Dark Witch , a paranormal romance novel , on Goodreads:

4 stars. Great world-building, weak romance, but still worth the read.

I hesitate to describe this book as a 'romance' novel simply because the book spent little time actually exploring the romance between Iona and Boyle. Sure, there IS a romance in this novel. Sprinkled throughout the book are a few scenes where Iona and Boyle meet, chat, wink at each, flirt some more, sleep together, have a misunderstanding, make up, and then profess their undying love. Very formulaic stuff, and all woven around the more important parts of this book.

The meat of this book is far more focused on the story of the Dark witch and her magically-gifted descendants living in Ireland. Despite being weak on the romance, I really enjoyed it. I think the book is probably better for it, because the romance itself was pretty lackluster stuff.

I absolutely plan to stick with this series as I enjoyed the world building, loved the Ireland setting, and was intrigued by all of the secondary characters. However, If you read Nora Roberts strictly for the romance scenes, this one might disappoint. But if you enjoy a solid background story with some dark magic and prophesies, you might enjoy it as much as I did.

I listened to this one on audio, and felt the narration was excellent.

Emily May reviews R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy Wars , an epic fantasy novel , on Goodreads:

“But I warn you, little warrior. The price of power is pain.”

Holy hell, what did I just read??

➽ A fantasy military school

➽ A rich world based on modern Chinese history

➽ Shamans and gods

➽ Detailed characterization leading to unforgettable characters

➽ Adorable, opium-smoking mentors

That's a basic list, but this book is all of that and SO MUCH MORE. I know 100% that The Poppy War will be one of my best reads of 2018.

Isn't it just so great when you find one of those books that completely drags you in, makes you fall in love with the characters, and demands that you sit on the edge of your seat for every horrific, nail-biting moment of it? This is one of those books for me. And I must issue a serious content warning: this book explores some very dark themes. Proceed with caution (or not at all) if you are particularly sensitive to scenes of war, drug use and addiction, genocide, racism, sexism, ableism, self-harm, torture, and rape (off-page but extremely horrific).

Because, despite the fairly innocuous first 200 pages, the title speaks the truth: this is a book about war. All of its horrors and atrocities. It is not sugar-coated, and it is often graphic. The "poppy" aspect refers to opium, which is a big part of this book. It is a fantasy, but the book draws inspiration from the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Rape of Nanking.

Crime Fiction Lover reviews Jessica Barry’s Freefall , a crime novel:

In some crime novels, the wrongdoing hits you between the eyes from page one. With others it’s a more subtle process, and that’s OK too. So where does Freefall fit into the sliding scale?

In truth, it’s not clear. This is a novel with a thrilling concept at its core. A woman survives plane crash, then runs for her life. However, it is the subtleties at play that will draw you in like a spider beckoning to an unwitting fly.

Like the heroine in Sharon Bolton’s Dead Woman Walking, Allison is lucky to be alive. She was the only passenger in a private plane, belonging to her fiancé, Ben, who was piloting the expensive aircraft, when it came down in woodlands in the Colorado Rockies. Ally is also the only survivor, but rather than sitting back and waiting for rescue, she is soon pulling together items that may help her survive a little longer – first aid kit, energy bars, warm clothes, trainers – before fleeing the scene. If you’re hearing the faint sound of alarm bells ringing, get used to it. There’s much, much more to learn about Ally before this tale is over.

Kirkus Reviews reviews Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One , a science-fiction novel :

Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.

The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three.

Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.

Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.

Book review examples for non-fiction books

Nonfiction books are generally written to inform readers about a certain topic. As such, the focus of a nonfiction book review will be on the clarity and effectiveness of this communication . In carrying this out, a book review may analyze the author’s source materials and assess the thesis in order to determine whether or not the book meets expectations.

Again, we’ve included abbreviated versions of long reviews here, so feel free to click on the link to read the entire piece!

The Washington Post reviews David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon :

The arc of David Grann’s career reminds one of a software whiz-kid or a latest-thing talk-show host — certainly not an investigative reporter, even if he is one of the best in the business. The newly released movie of his first book, “The Lost City of Z,” is generating all kinds of Oscar talk, and now comes the release of his second book, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” the film rights to which have already been sold for $5 million in what one industry journal called the “biggest and wildest book rights auction in memory.”

Grann deserves the attention. He’s canny about the stories he chases, he’s willing to go anywhere to chase them, and he’s a maestro in his ability to parcel out information at just the right clip: a hint here, a shading of meaning there, a smartly paced buildup of multiple possibilities followed by an inevitable reversal of readerly expectations or, in some cases, by a thrilling and dislocating pull of the entire narrative rug.

All of these strengths are on display in “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Around the turn of the 20th century, oil was discovered underneath Osage lands in the Oklahoma Territory, lands that were soon to become part of the state of Oklahoma. Through foresight and legal maneuvering, the Osage found a way to permanently attach that oil to themselves and shield it from the prying hands of white interlopers; this mechanism was known as “headrights,” which forbade the outright sale of oil rights and granted each full member of the tribe — and, supposedly, no one else — a share in the proceeds from any lease arrangement. For a while, the fail-safes did their job, and the Osage got rich — diamond-ring and chauffeured-car and imported-French-fashion rich — following which quite a large group of white men started to work like devils to separate the Osage from their money. And soon enough, and predictably enough, this work involved murder. Here in Jazz Age America’s most isolated of locales, dozens or even hundreds of Osage in possession of great fortunes — and of the potential for even greater fortunes in the future — were dispatched by poison, by gunshot and by dynamite. […]

Stacked Books reviews Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers :

I’ve heard a lot of great things about Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Friends and co-workers tell me that his subjects are interesting and his writing style is easy to follow without talking down to the reader. I wasn’t disappointed with Outliers. In it, Gladwell tackles the subject of success – how people obtain it and what contributes to extraordinary success as opposed to everyday success.

The thesis – that our success depends much more on circumstances out of our control than any effort we put forth – isn’t exactly revolutionary. Most of us know it to be true. However, I don’t think I’m lying when I say that most of us also believe that we if we just try that much harder and develop our talent that much further, it will be enough to become wildly successful, despite bad or just mediocre beginnings. Not so, says Gladwell.

Most of the evidence Gladwell gives us is anecdotal, which is my favorite kind to read. I can’t really speak to how scientifically valid it is, but it sure makes for engrossing listening. For example, did you know that successful hockey players are almost all born in January, February, or March? Kids born during these months are older than the others kids when they start playing in the youth leagues, which means they’re already better at the game (because they’re bigger). Thus, they get more play time, which means their skill increases at a faster rate, and it compounds as time goes by. Within a few years, they’re much, much better than the kids born just a few months later in the year. Basically, these kids’ birthdates are a huge factor in their success as adults – and it’s nothing they can do anything about. If anyone could make hockey interesting to a Texan who only grudgingly admits the sport even exists, it’s Gladwell. […]

Quill and Quire reviews Rick Prashaw’s Soar, Adam, Soar :

Ten years ago, I read a book called Almost Perfect. The young-adult novel by Brian Katcher won some awards and was held up as a powerful, nuanced portrayal of a young trans person. But the reality did not live up to the book’s billing. Instead, it turned out to be a one-dimensional and highly fetishized portrait of a trans person’s life, one that was nevertheless repeatedly dubbed “realistic” and “affecting” by non-transgender readers possessing only a vague, mass-market understanding of trans experiences.

In the intervening decade, trans narratives have emerged further into the literary spotlight, but those authored by trans people ourselves – and by trans men in particular – have seemed to fall under the shadow of cisgender sensationalized imaginings. Two current Canadian releases – Soar, Adam, Soar and This One Looks Like a Boy – provide a pointed object lesson into why trans-authored work about transgender experiences remains critical.

To be fair, Soar, Adam, Soar isn’t just a story about a trans man. It’s also a story about epilepsy, the medical establishment, and coming of age as seen through a grieving father’s eyes. Adam, Prashaw’s trans son, died unexpectedly at age 22. Woven through the elder Prashaw’s narrative are excerpts from Adam’s social media posts, giving us glimpses into the young man’s interior life as he traverses his late teens and early 20s. […]

Book Geeks reviews Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love :

WRITING STYLE: 3.5/5

SUBJECT: 4/5

CANDIDNESS: 4.5/5

RELEVANCE: 3.5/5

ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3.5/5

“Eat Pray Love” is so popular that it is almost impossible to not read it. Having felt ashamed many times on my not having read this book, I quietly ordered the book (before I saw the movie) from amazon.in and sat down to read it. I don’t remember what I expected it to be – maybe more like a chick lit thing but it turned out quite different. The book is a real story and is a short journal from the time when its writer went travelling to three different countries in pursuit of three different things – Italy (Pleasure), India (Spirituality), Bali (Balance) and this is what corresponds to the book’s name – EAT (in Italy), PRAY (in India) and LOVE (in Bali, Indonesia). These are also the three Is – ITALY, INDIA, INDONESIA.

Though she had everything a middle-aged American woman can aspire for – MONEY, CAREER, FRIENDS, HUSBAND; Elizabeth was not happy in her life, she wasn’t happy in her marriage. Having suffered a terrible divorce and terrible breakup soon after, Elizabeth was shattered. She didn’t know where to go and what to do – all she knew was that she wanted to run away. So she set out on a weird adventure – she will go to three countries in a year and see if she can find out what she was looking for in life. This book is about that life changing journey that she takes for one whole year. […]

Emily May reviews Michelle Obama’s Becoming on Goodreads:

Look, I'm not a happy crier. I might cry at songs about leaving and missing someone; I might cry at books where things don't work out; I might cry at movies where someone dies. I've just never really understood why people get all choked up over happy, inspirational things. But Michelle Obama's kindness and empathy changed that. This book had me in tears for all the right reasons.

This is not really a book about politics, though political experiences obviously do come into it. It's a shame that some will dismiss this book because of a difference in political opinion, when it is really about a woman's life. About growing up poor and black on the South Side of Chicago; about getting married and struggling to maintain that marriage; about motherhood; about being thrown into an amazing and terrifying position.

I hate words like "inspirational" because they've become so overdone and cheesy, but I just have to say it-- Michelle Obama is an inspiration. I had the privilege of seeing her speak at The Forum in Inglewood, and she is one of the warmest, funniest, smartest, down-to-earth people I have ever seen in this world.

And yes, I know we present what we want the world to see, but I truly do think it's genuine. I think she is someone who really cares about people - especially kids - and wants to give them better lives and opportunities.

She's obviously intelligent, but she also doesn't gussy up her words. She talks straight, with an openness and honesty rarely seen. She's been one of the most powerful women in the world, she's been a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, she's had her own successful career, and yet she has remained throughout that same girl - Michelle Robinson - from a working class family in Chicago.

I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't benefit from reading this book.

Hopefully, this post has given you a better idea of how to write a book review. You might be wondering how to put all of this knowledge into action now! Many book reviewers start out by setting up a book blog. If you don’t have time to research the intricacies of HTML, check out Reedsy Discovery — where you can read indie books for free and review them without going through the hassle of creating a blog. To register as a book reviewer , go here .

And if you’d like to see even more book review examples, simply go to this directory of book review blogs and click on any one of them to see a wealth of good book reviews. Beyond that, it's up to you to pick up a book and pen — and start reviewing!

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Book Lists, Book Reviews, and Editing Tips

January 25, 2024

66 Best Book Club Books of All Time | 2024 5-Star Reads

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links—at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure for more information.

What makes a good book club book ? Whether you’re just starting a book club or you’ve been a part of one forever, I’ve got you covered! These are the best book club books of all time.

They’re well written, propulsive, atmospheric, full of lovable characters you want to root for, and ripe for a good discussion.

Best 5-Star Book Club Books to Spark Amazing Discussions

From the most uplifting book club books and the best fiction and nonfiction book club books to the shortest book club books and the best picks for women, these are the books every book club should read !

1. Top 20 Best Book Club Books of All Time 2. The Best Classic Book Club Books to Choose 3. The Most Popular Book Club Books for Women to Enjoy 4. The Best Nonfiction Book Club Books of All Time 5. The Best Book Club Books for Discussion 6. Addictive Book Club Reads to Keep the Pages Turning 7. Uplifting Book Club Books to Give You All the Feels 8. Short Book Club Books to Squeeze in to Your Reading Year 9. What Makes a Good Book Club Book? 10. My Favorite Book Club Planning Tool (Bookclubs) 11. What Are Book Clubs Reading Now in 2024?

Top 20 Book Club Books Your Group Needs to Read

Each book club has a different focus and purpose, and there are so many books to choose from. Even so, I have a top recommended reading list for book clubs .

These 20 books are hands down my favorite book club books of all time.

Peace like a river by leif enger.

Oh, Peace Like a River is powerful. It just stays with you. This historical fiction book will make you cry, smile, and leave you with the most heartwarming feeling ready to gush with your fellow bookworms.

Also, pssst: Leif Enger is coming out with another book this year and it’s on my most anticipated books of 2024 reading list . We’ll see if I Cheerfully Refuse is up to snuff for my 2024 book club books list.

Read the synopsis here .

Peace Like a River was published on August 2, 2001, from Grove Pr.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah is one of the most amazing books for book club! It’s about a Nigerian woman who moves to the United States. I learned so much because of this book—and there’s so much room for discussion for book club, specifically about race, cultural identification, immigration, and so much more!

Plus, it’s beautifully written, and the characters are so complex and interesting. Definitely check this book out if you want a hard-hitting book to really “marinate” on for your book club.

Americanah was published on May 14, 2013, from Alfred A. Knopf.

📚 Book Club Tip: Figuring out what book to choose for book club is tricky enough, but managing all the logistics of book club can quickly fill up your time when you could be reading. My favorite book club app is a free web and mobile app called Bookclubs . Since launching my virtual book club , I’ve been able to facilitate and encourage communication easily, from automated meeting reminders to interactive member polls to quickly vote on our next book club book. Check out Bookclubs to better reach your book club reading goals, track reading history, and host group discussions!

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

This historical literary fiction book is the perfect book club pick! Honestly, any Ann Patchett is a great book club book, imo.

And here’s a hint: If you like to get into audiobooks , this is one of my absolute favorite audiobooks ! Tom Hanks narrates. Need I say more?

Anyway, from the sibling dynamics and family saga to the compelling prose and the setting of the house being almost a character in and of itself, The Dutch House is without a doubt among the top 5-star book club books.

The Dutch House was published on September 24, 2019, from Harper.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is for the literary fiction–leaning book club. It’s about much more than video games—it’s a complicated story about friendship and love, too.

This book is also the winner of the Goodreads best books of 2022 , fiction category. So you shouldn’t have to convince your book club too much. 😉

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was published on July 5, 2022, from Knopf.

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

This Tender Land is one of the most heartfelt epic adventure and coming-of-age stories I’ve ever read! This is definitely one of the good, clean books for book clubs you could pick in 2024.

There’s many themes you could dive into for book club, including a sense of belonging, found family, loyalty, love, betrayal, and hope.

Not to mention the setting (1930s Minnesota to St. Louis ) and the historical impact of the Great Depression . . . what a book!

This Tender Land was published on September 3, 2019, from Atria Books.

One, Two, Three by Laurie Frankel

Laurie Frankel’s books are perfect for book club, in my opinion! They’re compelling and easy to read, but they tackle some heavier themes with plenty of room for discussion.

If you’re looking for unique book club books, One, Two, Three should be at the top of your list.

The character development, premise, and disability representation is all incredible. I’m also reading her newest book, Family, Family , which comes out in a few weeks, is also on my most anticipated 2024 new releases list. I think it will make a great book club pick, too.

One, Two, Three was published on June 8, 2021, from Henry Holt and Co.

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

The Berry Pickers is an immersive family drama that pulled me in immediately.

There’s so much to discuss for book club, from family ties and carrying the emotional burdens of your family to forgiveness, loyalty, and what it looks like to belong.

There are heavy themes here, of course, but The Berry Pickers is a wonderful, short book for book club.

The Berry Pickers was published on April 4, 2023, from Catapult.

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

Obviously I loved This Time Tomorrow , which is the perfect literary time-slip novel! I loved gushing about this book with my friends, and I know it would make a great book club book.

This Time Tomorrow is a lighthearted page-turner, but there’s some heavier topics to discuss as well, like aging and loving yourself through that process, seeing your parents through the lens of time, reevaluating what you want in life and who you love . . . the list goes on and on!

This Time Tomorrow was published on May 17, 2022, from Riverhead Books.

Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett

Unlikely Animals is one of the best books I’ve ever read (check out my book review here!), but I also think it’s a great book club pick. If you’re looking for quirky or unique book club books, this is the one.

A literary tragicomedy (one of my favorite genres) is ideal for book club because it’s lighthearted and funny at times but also has heavy themes and a bit more depth. The POV of the ghosts at the local cemetery gives this book an different spin, which is fun to discuss in book club!

Unlikely Animals was published on April 12, 2022, from Ballantine Books.

Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club by J. Ryan Stradal

Thank you to @prhaudio and Pamela Dorman Books for the complimentary book! This is a cozy book to curl up with, and it is very character driven. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club is a heartwarming, heartbreaking book that will leave you and your book club thinking about it for months to come.

If you’re a part of a midwestern book club, you should definitely add this one to your book club reading list.

Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club was published on April 18, 2023, from Pamela Dorman Books.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

If you’ve been following my reading journey online at all, you know this is one of my most favorite books of all time. The Shadow of the Wind has a chilling mystery, intrigue, a romantic and gothic setting, and characters you root for.

This gothic thriller is the perfect book for book club. After you read it, you will want to hug this book, trust me! You’ll also want to dive into the premise and the plot while gushing about the book lover setting.

The Shadow of the Wind was published on May 1, 2001, from Penguin Books.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Remarkably Bright Creatures is a beautiful, quirky, unique book perfect for book club.

It might take a second to get the gals in your book club on board with an Octopus POV, but trust me, this is an endearing, heartwarming, feel-good book that also tackles some tough issues.

This is a relatively short book club read, but it’s one that will stick with you for a long time. It was also a nominee for best fiction and best debut for 2022 on Goodreads .

Remarkably Bright Creatures was published on May 3, 2022, from Ecco.

All Adults Here by Emma Straub

Another Emma Straub! All Adults Here is a great book club pick for women’s fiction. If you like the dysfunctional family gossip feel mixed with lovable characters, you will love All Adults Here .

When I read this book, I didn’t want it to end. Your book club will feel the same way—and if some of the members don’t agree, it will make for an interesting discussion!

All Adults Here was published on May 4, 2020, from Riverhead Books.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read, and if you like to annotate your books for book club, this is the one for you. This post-apocalyptic literary fiction book will give you all the feels and provide a lot of discussion about humanity, art, self-preservation, and so many interesting hypotheticals!

Bonus: You can do a book adaptation night after reading the book and watch the TV show together (which is incredible, by the way!).

Station Eleven was published on September 9, 2014, from Knopf.

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

Ask Again, Yes is a wonderful character-driven book about marriage, family, and the power of forgiveness.

As you may already know, I loved it . With the family drama and emotional honesty masterfully crafted, this is the perfect book club book.

I thought about this book for a long time after reading, which is always a sign of a great book club pick.

Ask Again, Yes was published on May 28, 2019, from Scribner.

The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo

Thank you to Doubleday for the complimentary book! The Most Fun We Ever Had is a wonderful book club book because there are so many different characters within a family, and it feels like you’re a fly on the wall for all the drama!

Even though this is somewhat chunky for a typical book club pick, Claire Lombardo’s writing style makes it easy to fly through this book.

Back when I went to an IRL book club, we read this book together, and it was such a fun one to do!

The Most Fun We Ever Had was published on June 25, 2019, from Doubleday.

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

Thank you to Ballantine Books for the complimentary book! Black Cake is a Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for historical fiction and debut novel from 2022, so you know it’d be a great book club pick. I loved this one, and with the TV show coming out soon, I think it would make a great book club selection.

Historical and literary fiction with a mystery and driving secret? These are the best ingredients for the perfect book club book.

Black Cake was published on February 1, 2022, from Ballantine Books.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

This is the book my virtual book club is reading right now! It’s definitely perfect for a cozy winter book club read —the descriptions of winter in the wilderness of Alaska are otherworldly. The Snow Child is a retelling of a Russian fairy tale.

This historical fiction book is irresistibly absorbing, tender, and oh my goodness, Eowyn Ivey can write a beautiful scene. The premise is so magical!

The Snow Child was published on February 1, 2012, from Reagan Arthur Books.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

I read Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine several years ago, but it still sticks with me. Eleanor is a complex, intriguing, flawed character who experiences such transformation throughout the book.

There’s a lot to unpack in this story—mental health being the biggest topic. Broken characters and tragicomedy literary fiction stories with endings that don’t tie up in a perfect little bow are my kryptonite.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine was published on May 9, 2017, from HarperCollins.

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Thank you to @prhaudio and Berkley for this complimentary book! Vera Wong is the most perfect character, and a cozy mystery is a really fun genre to explore for book club! I absolutely adored it. Check out my review !

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers is funny, heartwarming, and just plain endearing.

If you have an in-person book club and like to include more elaborately themed dinners, snacks, or drinks, this would be a really fun book to select. The food and the tea and all the cozy meals made me soo hungry and ready to curl up with a warm beverage. 😂

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers was published on March 14, 2023, from Berkley.

The Best Classic Book Club Books to Choose

If your book club is more of a classic, high brow type, you need to check out these top classic book club books.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a beloved American classic and coming-of-age story at the turn of the century. Anyone who’s read it was moved to tears. Just a poignant, special book that will stick with you.

If you want to know what life was like for folks, especially young girls, in Brooklyn in the early 20th century, this is the book for you.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was published on August 18, 1943, from HarperCollins.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

If your book club hasn’t read Jane Austen yet, it’s time! Start with Persuasion .

It’s highly regarded as the most approachable Austen book, and there’s plenty to dive into about a variety of themes, including second chance love, letting go of expectations, and the issues of social mobility, and so much more.

Persuasion was first published on December 20, 1817, from Oxford University Press.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre is another amazing classic to revisit with your book club! The audiobook is incredible, too.

The heartbreak, mystery, and romance is up to par with every modern literary mystery, and it’s fascinating to discuss Victorian society with other readers!

Jane Eyre was first published on October 16, 1847, from Penguin.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a beautiful coming-of-age story that touches on so much, including masculinity vs. femininity, power, race, and identity.

If you read the American folklorist Zora Neal Hurston back in high school, it’s time to revisit it as an adult!

Their Eyes Were Watching God was first published on January 1, 1937, from Amistad.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

If your book club likes a good gothic mystery or thriller and you all want to read more classics, Rebecca should definitely be on your list.

This book will probably be slower than your average domestic thriller, but the payoff is worth it. This is an engrossing, atmospheric read for everyone in your book club to enjoy.

Rebecca was first published on 1938, from Little, Brown and Company.

The Most Popular Book Club Books for Women to Enjoy

I think any of my top 20 best book club books are generally great picks for women, but here are some of the most popular women’s domestic fiction books for book club.

These are a lot of the titles you’ll see on Oprah’s book club list, Reese’s book club list, and Read With Jenna’s book club picks. Hey, if it’s good enough for Oprah Winfrey, it’s good enough for me!

Most of them are fun romantic comedies to fly through, family dramas, mysteries, or have some sentimental element—typically struggles with class, religion, marriage, or friendship.

There are usually other themes at play, but these are the most popular.

The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

The Nest is a family drama and literary fiction book perfect for book club!

There’s so much to unpack, and the omniscient POV makes the reader feel like a fly on the wall, getting aaalll the juicy gossip.

This book is tender, funny, and definitely has some morally grey characters.

The Nest was published March 22, 2016, from HarperCollins.

Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan

Thank you to @libro.fm and G. P. Putnam’s Sons for this complimentary book! Nora Goes Off Script is also on my best books for summer reading list , so perhaps this is a book you nominate for your book club in July or August!

This book is sweet, easy to read, and will definitely get your book club talking. It’s one of the most heartwarming romance books , funny, charming, and Nora and her kids are so precious.

Nora Goes Off Script was published on June 7, 2022, from G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Quick note: Annabel Monaghan has another book coming out in 2024 called Summer Romance (releases June 4, 2024). It looks sooo good, and it’s definitely on my most anticipated 2024 book releases list .

The Switch by Beth O’Leary

The romance community loves Beth O’Leary! I thought The Switch was so adorable and charming, and it’s such a quick contemporary romance read.

The Switch was a nominee for Best Romance in 2020 on Goodreads , so you should be able to easily convince your book club members!

The Switch was published on April 16, 2020, from Quercus.

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

In Five Years is a wonderful contemporary romance time travel book!

There are some heavier themes, so sensitive readers should be sure to check content warnings. But in general, I think this book would make a great book club pick.

I love books that make you think about interesting hypotheticals. What would you do if you could see glimpses into your future? How would you change? The premise for this one is really interesting.

In Five Years was published on March, 10, 2020, from Atria Books.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

If your book club wants to read nonfiction that feels like fiction, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone should be your next pick! The mental health examination and behind-the-scenes world of a therapist is fascinating.

There’s so much to unpack in this memoir, and Lori Gottlieb’s background as a journalist really makes the book so engaging.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone was published on April 2, 2019, from Harper.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Little Fires Everywhere is perfect for book club because it’s an intriguing and compelling domestic drama. There’s so much to dig into, from motherhood and adolescence to race, following the rules of society, and the tragic power of misunderstandings.

If you want to shake up your book club with a fun domestic drama you can pick apart and analyze, this is a great pick for you.

Little Fires Everywhere was published on September 12, 2017, from Penguin Press.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

If your book club likes to read backlist books and you missed the hype train on Where’d You Go, Bernadette , you simply must revisit it for book club! This is such a fun contemporary women’s fiction book to read with your friends.

The mystery will keep you turning pages, and the humor and characters will stay with you for a long time!

Where’d You Go, Bernadette was published on August 14, 2012, from Little, Brown and Company.

Beach Read by Emily Henry

It wouldn’t be a “best of all time” list without throwing Emily Henry into the mix! Beach Read is the ultimate feel-good romance with drama, heavier themes to discuss, and characters you fully swoon over—all to gush about at book club!

I think any book by Emily Henry would be perfect for book club (you know I loved Happy Place so, so much), but Beach Read seems to have the most universal appeal.

Beach Read was published on May 19, 2020, from Berkley.

Ghosted by Rosie Walsh

I’ve loved Rosie Walsh ever since I interviewed her on the podcast , way back when. This is a really fun contemporary fiction with a little romance and a little mystery thrown in.

Ghosted is a page-turner, and Rosie Walsh’s writing style is very similar to Liane Moriarty (another wonderful book club author!).

Ghosted was published on May 1, 2018, from Pamela Dorman Books.

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Malibu Rising would be one of the most amazing books for book club in the summer! If you like a beachy, atmospheric family drama with rich-kid-summer vibes, Malibu Rising is for you.

All Taylor Jenkins Reid books would be great for book club, but this historical fiction/contemporary romance has a lot of interesting elements to discuss in a group.

Malibu Rising was published on May 27, 2021, from Ballantine Books.

The Best Nonfiction Book Club Books of All Time

I am, i am, i am: seventeen brushes with death by maggie o’farrell.

To me, the best nonfiction books for book club are the ones that feel like fiction. And that’s definitely the case with I Am, I Am, I Am . This memoir is made up of memories curated in the most interesting way.

This is an astonishing memoir with so many stories to get your book club talking. Sensitive readers should definitely look into content warnings, but overall, this is a win.

I Am, I Am, I Am was published on August 2, 2017, from Knopf.

Educated by Tara Westover

Educated is the winner of the Good Reads Choice Award for Best Memoir & Autobiography in 2018, so really, I don’t need to convince you.

Tara Westover’s words are addictive. This book is so hard to read and so hard to put down.

This memoir is vulnerable, raw, and mesmerizing. From religion and mental health to her troubled background and the theme of hope threaded throughout the book, there’s so much to dive into with this book.

Educated was published on February 20, 2018, from Random House.

Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg

Editor of Genius is an excellent nonfiction book club pick for book club members who love F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe.

For literary lovers who find the behind-the-scenes creation process of publishing to be really interesting, Editor of Genius is one of the best book club suggestions.

Editor of Genius was published on January 1, 1978, from Riverhead Trade.

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

Brain on Fire is a wild, true story! You may think it’s a little clinical to read about Susannah’s most intimate moments during her “month of madness,” but it was actually quite enthralling the whole way through.

I would love to read this book with my book club. The psychology and emphasis on mental health is so interesting, and Susannah’s inspiring family brought me to tears multiple times.

Brain on Fire was published on November 13, 2012, from Free Press.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Whether your book club members are introverts or live with or work with introverts, Quiet is a really interesting book to explore. This book truly has the power to change how we see ourselves and others.

Susan Cain talks about “restorative niches,” the places introverts retreat to when they need to recharge their energy. Discussing terms like this and exploring them together in a group really will change the way you think about introverts.

Quiet was published on January 24, 2012, from Crown Publishing Group.

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Forms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown

Daring Greatly is an incredible book to read for book club if you’re looking for a nonfiction or self-help book. Brené Brown is a great author to pick in general!

If your book club is new and you’re hoping to get to know one another a bit better, why not dive into a book on vulnerability? This book explores shame, fear, vulnerability, and how we’re hard-wired to connect with others.

Daring Greatly was published on September 11, 2012, from Avery.

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Atomic Habits is the ideal book club pick for a club full of motivated members who love to be productive. If you’re trying to form positive habits together—like reading more books in 2024 !—this would be a great book to read and discuss together.

Learn about habit stacking and how to set up and form micro goals and habits to change your life for the better. Doing this in a group and having accountability is a game-changer.

Atomic Habits was published on October 16, 2018, from Avery.

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Thank you to @libro.fm and Simon Schuster for this complimentary book! This book won’t be for every book club because of the sensitive and heavier topics discussed. Plus, it’s a bit of a controversial read. You’ll need to make sure your group is okay with the content warnings first!

But for any group of people who love reading celebrity memoirs and discussing child stardom, I’m Glad My Mom Died is a fascinating read.

There’s a lot to get your group talking in this one, from TV and acting culture to mental health, creating boundaries in toxic relationships, and so much more. It’s also deeply moving, intriguing, and funny.

I’m Glad My Mom Died was published on August 9, 2022, from Simon Schuster.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Another Jeannette! The Glass Castle is one of my favorite memoirs of all time. This book is gorgeously written and reads like fiction.

It’s such a beautiful book about resilience and redemption and how Jeannette Walls defeats the odds to chase her dreams while growing up in a dysfunctional (and vibrant!) family.

The Glass Castle was published on January 1, 2005, from Scribner.

Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan

Another family dysfunction memoir! 😂 But really, Kelly Corrigan so intimately captures a mother-daughter relationship in Glitter and Glue . Her awareness and humor is what makes this book!

If your book club is made up of moms, you’ll have some great talking points about what motherhood really means, whether or not we become our mothers, and so on.

Glitter and Glue was published on February 4, 2014, from Ballantine Books.

The Best Book Club Books for Discussion

All great book club books are perfect for book club because they get members talking. They shake things up! They make you think.

These books, however, take the discussion to another level. These are the books you won’t soon forget—the ones that tackle big themes and topics.

Long Bright River by Liz Moore

Long Bright River was a nominee for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Mystery and Thriller in 2020 . I loved this heart-wrenching story with remarkable characters.

There’s a lot of room for important discussion, especially about the opioid crisis in small towns, but also about sisterhood bonding, the concept of addiction, the importance of community and neighbors, and the layered and well-developed characters.

Long Bright River was published on January 7, 2020, by Riverhead Books.

True Biz by Sara Nović

Thank you to Random House for this complimentary book! True Biz is a great book club pick because it’s (1) compulsively readable and (2) fascinating if you’re a reader who’s generally unfamiliar with Deaf culture and American Sign Language.

I learned so much from this book, and I was thoroughly entertained!

This book will get your book club talking about Deaf and Hearing culture, disability and civil rights, isolation, love, loss, familial trust, race and how racism shows up in Deaf culture . . . the power of human connection, and so much more! It’s also a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, which a lot of book clubs are interested in.

True Biz was published on April 5, 2022, from Random House.

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

Once Upon a River is an enthralling, whimsical historical fiction story with a little magical realism thrown in. Who doesn’t love that kind of book? There’s a lot to unpack in book club for this book.

This book weaves folklore and science, and it’s suspenseful, romantic, and atmospheric. You’ll have the best time discussing whether the story is magic or myth—miracle or science.

Once Upon a River was published on December 3, 2018, from Atria.

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

Thank you to Alfred A. Knopf for this complimentary book! Another Emily St. John Mandel book—are we surprised? The Glass Hotel is a dreamlike literary fiction book, and it’s (no surprise, again) beautifully written.

If you read this book by yourself and don’t discuss it at all, you really miss out on an enriched reading experience.

Your book club can really pick apart the ideas of love and delusion, the concept of consequences and how they change the course of our lives, the way we search for meaning, and so much more. Plus, there’s a mystery thrown in that will keep you reading!

The Glass Hotel was published in March 24, 2020, from Alfred A. Knopf.

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende has been regarded as the queen of magical realism for so long! This is a historical fiction, Spanish literature book that you could read slowly and discuss often with a reading schedule. The House of the Spirits could be on your historical fiction book club reading list, too.

It’s an incredible saga to dive into, and there’s a lot of political and personal turmoil to discuss. The themes of magic, true love, and fate are thrown in—perfect fodder for book club!

The House of the Spirits was published on 1982 from Dial Press.

These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy Card

Thank you to @libro.fm and Simon & Schuster for this complimentary book. These Ghosts Are Family is an incredible generational saga about a Jamaican family. There’s so much to discuss here, from how trauma informs our decisions, migration, forming your identity outside of family, the history of slavery, and so much more.

If you like juicy stories about family secrets, you will love this book.

These Ghosts Are Family was published on March 3, 2020, from Simon & Schuster.

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for this complimentary book! Anxious People is a literary fiction and mystery book with a lot of heart and humor. We love a poignant comedy! Fredrik Backman has a way with words and is so good at communicating universal truths—which is why his books are perfect for book club.

Any book that is essentially an in-depth look at the human condition is going to be a great book club pick.

Anxious People was published on April 25, 2019, from Simon & Schuster Canada.

The Fury by Alex Michaelides

Thank you to Celadon Books for this complimentary book! The Fury is an incredible book club pick! This murder mystery thriller is captivating from start to finish, and the narrator/POV is one of the freshest voices I’ve read in a long time. We get to know him from the time he was a young man, and he tells the story so intimately.

A tale of murder and a spin on the classic whodunit, The Fury will be a fun story for your book club members who love juicy secrets among the rich and terrible!

The Fury was published on January 16, 2024, from Celadon Books.

Addictive Book Club Reads to Keep the Pages Turning

All good book club books should be page-turners, but these are my favorite book club books that come to mind when I think of propulsive, addictive, unputdownable books.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

It had to be said!! Gillian Flynn’s books are made for book club, IMO. If you haven’t read Sharp Objects yet, just know it will have you on the edge of your seat.

The suspense, the secrets, the character development . . . it’s all complex and compelling from the start to the last page!

If your book club tends to love a dark, psychological thriller, you have to try this book.

Sharp Objects was published on September 26, 2006, from Broadway Paperbacks.

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

The Nightingale is one of my favorite historical fiction books of all time. This is one of those must-read books for book club about strong women.

The Nightingale isn’t particularly short, but you will tear through this book. It’s incredibly easy to read—I know many people who read this book for the first time in one sitting.

The Nightingale was published in February 3, 2015, from St. Martin’s Press.

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

The Guest List is a fun, atomospheric whodunit that will have you turning pages as fast as possible! I couldn’t put this book down. A wedding celebration turns dark and deadly!? Are you kidding?

This would be a great book club pick for an in-person book club that likes to do a theme with food and drinks. The decadence on an island off the coast of Ireland adds to the festive vibe (that is, until everything goes wrong).

The Guest List was published on February 20, 2020, from William Morrow.

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Thank you to G. P. Putnam’s Sons for this complimentary book! Such a Fun Age is compulsively readable and perfect for book club discussion. I devoured this book so quickly—all the way to the last page. The micro-aggressions in this book were so perfectly captured—it’s such a smart social commentary.

If you want to read a fun page-turner that also touches on deeper topics like race and privilege, you should definitely nominate Such a Fun Age for your book club pick.

Such a Fun Age was published on December 31, 2019, from G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Thank you to @libro.fm and HarperTeen for this complimentary book! This book is so compelling—you will fly through it because it’s a novel-in-verse young adult book.

Clap When You Land is a story of sisterhood, familial ties, identity, and the power of forgiveness. Even though it’s a page-turner, your book club can dive into a deeper exploration of grief.

Clap When You Land was published on May 5, 2020, from HarperTeen.

Uplifting Book Club Books to Give You All the Feels

Sweep: the story of a girl and her monster by jonathan auxier.

Sweep is a beautiful historical fiction middle grade book that will, simply put, make you cry in the best way.

Your book club may be hesitant at first since this is a middle grade book, but it’s one of the most heartwarming middle grade books you’ll ever read.

Sweep was published on September 25, 2018, from Puffin Canada.

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

From the sleepy seaside small town in Maine to the lovable characters and the transformational storyline, Evvie Drake Starts Over is one of the best feel-good contemporary romance books.

It’s sweet, funny, and heartwarming as the main protagonist, a young woman named Evvie, deals with life after the death of her husband. It sounds heavy, but it’s quite lighthearted and charming.

Evvie Drake Starts Over was published on June 25, 2019, from Ballantine Books.

Last Call at the Local by Sarah Grunder Ruiz

Thank you to @prhaudio and Berkley for this complimentary book! I loved this neurodivergent romance book , and so will your book club! If you’re familiar with the sunshine x grump trope in romance, Last Call at the Local has two sunshine characters fall in love, and it’s literally the most charming feel-good novel!

Set in a cozy Irish pub, Raine meets Jack, and it’s the cutest. Raine has ADHD and Jack has OCD, so there’s a lot to learn and discuss about neurodiverse characters with your book club

Last Call at the Local was published on January 2, 2024, from Berkley.

The Burnout by Sophie Kinsella

Thank you to @prhaudio and The Dial Press for this complimentary book! The Burnout by Sophie Kinsella was a cute, charming, feel-good contemporary romance book! I really enjoyed this one—I was interested the whole time, and even though there’s some heavier topics discussed, it felt lighthearted and sweet.

I really think most people who have experienced burnout or bone-deep exhaustion will find this book to be refreshing, thoughtful, and inspiring.

The Burnout was published on October 10, 2023, from The Dial Press.

The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise by Colleen Oakley

Thank you to @prhaudio and Berkley for this complimentary book! This roadtrip book with a dear, sweet, unlikely friendship just made me smile the whole time. The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise has such a fun premise and a heartwarming transformation among the two main characters.

There’s a mystery thrown in, but really, this book is about friendship. Perfect for book club.

The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise was published on March 28, 2023, from Berkley.

Short Book Club Books to Squeeze in to Your Reading Year

My sister, the serial killer by oyinkan braithwaite.

My Sister, the Serial Killer is an absolute trip! This mystery thriller is darkly funny and so smart. If your book club is looking for a short book to read and discuss during a busy month, like November or December, this is a great pick.

The premise is fascinating, the characters are remarkable, and the pacing is impeccable.

My Sister, the Serial Killer was published on November 20, 2018, from Doubleday.

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

Red at the Bone surprised me in the best way. This short book is powerful! It packs a punch. Jacqueline Woodson’s prose actually took my breath away. It’s also a New York Times Notable Book of the Year from 2019.

It’s a hard-hitting book about parenting, identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and how young adults sometimes have to make decisions that affect the course of their lives forever.

Red at the Bone was published on September 17, 2019, from Riverhead Books.

Sula by Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison is a fantastic author to explore with your book club! There’s so much to unpack in all of her books, but Sula is especially great if you’re looking for a short read to dive in to together. In this book, we follow a Black woman, Sula, and her friend, Nel.

Sula is a best friend story and, honestly, a literary masterpiece. This novella explores many themes, from Black masculinity to what life looks like for a Black single mother of three in this period of time.

Sula was published on January 1, 1973, from Plume.

What Makes a Good Book Club Book?

In my opinion, what makes a good book club book is the main ingredients of good characterization, an engrossing story/premise, captivating prose, and themes throughout the book that lead to bigger, more important discussions.

So, what books are good for book club, exactly? Books with . . .

• Funny, quirky, and flawed characters you want to root for
• Complex relationships you could analyze with your book club besties
• Interesting historical time periods, settings, or worldbuilding
• Some sort of critique on culture and society at large
• Interesting themes that lead to more in-depth discussion
• Shorter pages, if possible (or books that are so propulsive they feel short)
• A wider availability, unless you have some savvy book club members
• Universal appeal, or at least they don’t alienate your members
• A lot of emotion, mystery, or a driving question

Different Books for Different Book Clubs

Every book club is different. Your book club may want more hard-hitting literary fiction while another book club is really only interested in lighthearted, funny, or uplifting books.

The best book club book recommendations come from really knowing the people in your book club and gauging everyone’s preferences and interests.

Read Widely and Diversely

You won’t find a book club book everyone will enjoy equally, and it’s okay to disagree about a book ! In fact, those book club meetings might be the most fun and interesting!

One of the best things about book club is having the opportunity to read widely and diversely—to discover a book you might not have otherwise picked up.

Read What Sticks

So if you’re wondering how to choose a book for book club, ask yourself, which book would provide the most universal appeal, evoke emotion or interesting questions for discussion, and likely stick with readers for a long time?

My Favorite Book Club Planning Tool (Bookclubs)

If you’re a booknerd like me, you probably also hem and haw over how to choose a book for book club . It can feel like a lot of pressure to pick a book for everyone!

That’s why I personally love Bookclubs , the free web and mobile app that helps book clubs manage and organize their groups! The app serves more than 65,000 book clubs worldwide and offers everything you need to start and manage a successful book club.

+ Invite anyone you want with a single click. + Easily automate your meeting reminders and calendar invites + Create fun and interactive member polls + Track your group’s reading history and collective to-be-read list so you can narrow down books your club wants to eventually read + Host discussions, virtually or in a chat thread When it’s time to pick a new book for my virtual book club , we nominate books in a chat thread, and then I throw up a poll with the selected book titles and descriptions.

Here’s what that looks like in the mobile app:

I can’t tell you how easy it is to pick books for book club now! Giving folks the option to vote on a book and see the results instantly . . . it’s so great. You can also make voting anonymous, if you want.

Even if you’d rather select the book yourself and not have members vote on the book, the polls are perfect for picking meeting times.

They don’t have to be just functional polls, either. Create icebreaker polls, polls about the book content, or fun and silly would-you-rather questions. 😊

What Are Book Clubs Reading Now in 2024?

Here’s a list of the most popular books for book club right now, in 2024:

• Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
• Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
• The Heires s by Rachel Hawkins (psssst, this is my book club’s pick for February! Join us !)
• None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell
• Tom Lake by Anne Patchett

We love a popular, buzzy book! In my book club, we select one new release a month and a backlist book the next month.

What are your book club book lists for 2024 or the best book club reads you’ve ever brought to your group? I’d love to know. I’ll have more specific book club lists coming soon, but for now, these are my top 20 best book club books of all time !

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6 New Books We Recommend This Week

Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.

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Longtime readers of The New York Times may recognize the name Margalit Fox from the byline of some of our most memorable obituaries . But Fox (who worked at the Book Review before she started reporting on dead people, and who retired from The Times in 2018) has also written five books, on topics ranging from linguistics to true crime ; her latest, “The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum,” explains how a 19th-century Jewish immigrant worked her way up from street peddler to mastermind of a vast criminal enterprise that made her one of America’s first mob bosses. That’s one of our recommended books this week. Maybe read it with Dan Slater’s “The Incorruptibles,” which takes the story of Jewish organized crime in New York into the 20th century?

Also up: a surprisingly fascinating look at the science of keeping things cold, and new novels from Lev Grossman, Claire Lombardo and Liz Moore. Happy reading. — Gregory Cowles

FROSTBITE: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves Nicola Twilley

In this absorbing exploration of the vast network of refrigerated trucks, rail cars and shipping containers that bring us bananas and avocados all year round, Twilley illuminates the impact on our food as well as the colorful characters who keep the system going.

“Engrossing. … Combines lucid history, science and a thoughtful consideration of how daily life today is both dependent on and deformed by this matrix of artificial cold.”

From Sallie Tisdale’s review

Penguin Press | $30

THE BRIGHT SWORD: A Novel of King Arthur Lev Grossman

Grossman’s latest is a winning dive into the world of King Arthur. The novel follows a knight who dreams of joining the Round Table, but when he arrives, the king is dead. Disappointed but not defeated, he embarks on a quest with the remaining knights to figure out the future of Camelot.

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• Laptop Reviews

Asus Zenbook S 16 review: AMD stays in the game

Amd stands up to qualcomm with its new ryzen ai chips, showing it’s nowhere near out of this race..

By Joanna Nelius , laptop reviewer. She has covered consumer technology, with an emphasis on PC gaming, since 2018. Previous bylines: USA Today, Gizmodo, PC Gamer, Maximum PC, among others.

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Asus’ Zenbook S 16 is one of the first laptops to feature AMD’s flagship Ryzen AI processor, the one that’s supposed to be faster than Intel and Qualcomm at gaming, content creation, and AI — and fit inside a notebook that AMD says is lighter and thinner than the MacBook Air. It sounds like the makings of a perfect, do-it-all Windows laptop.

But Asus has to convince people they should buy this AMD-powered laptop now , when machines running on Qualcomm’s new chips can also do all the things most people need and with battery life that far outstrips traditional chips. To be the laptop hit of the summer, Asus would have to outshine all of the Qualcomm Snapdragon laptops that were released a few months ago in not just speed, but also in battery life, quality, comfort, apps, features, and price. That’s the mountain AMD and Asus have to climb. 

Laptops always come with some sort of compromise, whether that’s performance, battery life, or something else. I’ve found the Zenbook S 16 isn’t the perfect, do-it-all laptop. But it balances day-to-day tasks and power-user features much better than most productivity laptops — and that makes it one of the best I’ve used.

Doesn’t feel like a 16-inch laptop

The Zenbook S 16 is a slim 16-inch laptop with a base configuration of 24GB of memory, a 1TB SSD, and AMD’s Ryzen AI 9 365 processor for $1,400. It also has a 2880 x 1800 (3K) touchscreen OLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a relatively large 78Wh battery. I tested the $1,700 configuration with 32GB of memory and the faster Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip.

It’s impressive that Asus fit such a large battery into the Zenbook’s 0.47-inch thick chassis and that the whole laptop weighs only 3.31 pounds. Bigger laptops are often more annoying to carry around, and some of that has to do with the battery. But the Zenbook feels more like a 13- or 14-inch laptop, so I forgot about its actual size.

The keyboard placement makes the laptop feel smaller, too. Asus pushes the keyboard closer to the front of the laptop by keeping the trackpad to a reasonable size and placing the speaker grille in back, making it easier for me to type on it. I can reach all the way to the function row without removing my palms from the palm rests. With most 16-inch laptops, I wind up typing like I’m Thing from The Addams Family with my wrists floating up in the air. 

The keys also come close to the full, satisfying press of a low-profile desktop keyboard without sounding clacky or pingy.

It’s good-looking, too. The outer body is put through a special process that creates a hard, ceramic oxide layer over the surface of the aluminum chassis, giving it a lovely texture that feels rough and smooth at the same time. Asus also kept the same gorgeous geometric lines that sparsely decorate the lid like its previous Zenbooks.

It’s increasingly standard to see a 3K, 120Hz OLED on a machine priced like the Zenbook S 16. The display has vivid colors and deep contrasts, and it makes this laptop even more stunning.

Better performance than Qualcomm 

Performance is where this laptop has a distinct advantage over Qualcomm Snapdragon laptops. For video calls, streaming music, and other everyday tasks, AMD’s Ryzen AI chip and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips have the same responsiveness I’d expect from processors of their caliber. But AMD distinguishes itself with superior graphics performance, which makes the Zenbook S 16 surprisingly capable at gaming and content creation for such a portable machine.

Being on the x86 Windows platform means most games really will just work on the Zenbook. Shadow of the Tomb Raider will crash on an Arm-based Snapdragon laptop if I try to run the game at anything higher than 1080p resolution and low graphics. But I can run the same game on the Zenbook S 16 at the same resolution on high spec, and it’ll not only run fine — it will also get up to 20 more frames per second.

Asus Zenbook S 16 specs (as reviewed)

• Display: 16-inch (2880 x 1800) 120Hz OLED touchscreen
• CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370
• GPU: AMD Radeon 890M
• RAM: 32GB LPDDR5X 7500
• Storage: 1TB M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 SSD
• Webcam:  FHD 1080p camera with IR (supports Windows Hello)
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
• Ports: 1x USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, 2x USB 4.0 Gen 3 with DisplayPort and Power Delivery, 1x HDMI 2.1, SD card reader, headphone/mic combo
• Weight: 3.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 13.92 x 9.57 x 0.47–0.51 inches
• Battery: 78Wh
• Included extras: Asus Stylus
• Price: $1,700

The integrated GPU still isn’t powerful enough to run a game like Cyberpunk 2077 natively on such a high-resolution laptop, but AMD’s upscaling technology, FSR 2.1, can help make it playable. With that on, the resolution set to 1080p, and upscaling set to ultra performance, Cyberpunk averaged 77fps for me. The only upscaler currently available to games running on Qualcomm laptops is Auto Super Resolution, and while it’s not exclusive to those Snapdragon laptops , using it results in a lot of flickering of fine lines. I would not play this game that way. 

For creative tasks, like rendering 3D images in Blender, the Zenbook S 16 is straight-up faster than every Snapdragon laptop I’ve tested. Currently, Blender doesn’t support Qualcomm’s integrated Adreno graphics on its Snapdragon chips, even with a native Arm64 version of that program available (still in alpha). The AMD-powered Zenbook S 16 runs faster because the program can actually use both the CPU and GPU.

AMD said its Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chip would be faster than the M3 Pro in Apple’s MacBook Pro, too, but that didn’t pan out in my testing. The Zenbook S 16 didn’t feel any slower in everyday applications, but the top-tier Ryzen AI chip is actually slower than the MacBook Pro by several whole minutes in a real-world Blender test.

Blender can crash on any laptop if it doesn’t have enough video RAM, including on previous generations of AMD Zenbooks. But I didn’t have that issue with the Zenbook S 16. It has a lot of memory, and AMD now lets you allocate up to 75 percent of it directly to the GPU. When I devoted 16GB of RAM to graphics and ran Blender’s Agent 327: Operation Barbershop demo — a scene with complex lighting and a test I normally run only when I’m testing gaming or workstation laptops — it ran smoothly and didn’t crash. It didn’t render as fast, but it finished the job without issues.

Battery life comes up short

Laptop makers usually have to sacrifice something to have the thinnest and lightest laptop possible. Most often, that’s a compromise in performance — but Asus instead seems to have sacrificed some battery life to get as much performance out of AMD’s chip as it can.

The Zenbook S 16’s battery life let me down a bit, not because the laptop isn’t reasonably long-lasting, but because it gets only 11 hours with a large, 78Wh battery. Asus’ main Qualcomm Snapdragon competitor, Samsung’s 16-inch Galaxy Book4 Edge, has nearly identical weight and dimensions, and it gets 14 hours with a battery that’s 23 percent smaller. But I’m okay with this tradeoff given how I could use the Zenbook S 16 as my primary laptop for writing articles, editing high-resolution photos, and light gaming — and it has a much more comfortable keyboard.

The Zenbook S 16 is also unusually bad at estimating its own battery life. The taskbar battery icon would say 95 percent remaining with an estimated run time of 8.5 hours, then several minutes later, it would have fallen to 87 percent remaining but with an estimated runtime of 12.5 hours. This went on for hours. Sure, battery estimations can fluctuate, but they ping-ponged chaotically on this laptop, so I never could get a good idea of how much battery was left.

AI is a big no-show

Asus’ new Zenbook S 16 comes with one flagship AI app: StoryCube. It’s supposed to help you consolidate your photos and videos from the cloud onto the laptop and automatically sort and organize everything with on-device AI. It sounded like it could be useful for me since I have a bad habit of not organizing the photos I upload to the cloud. But it didn’t work at all, and Asus couldn’t tell me why. Asus says it should take just 24 minutes to generate an AI album for every gigabyte of data, but I let the program run for 24 entire hours and nothing happened. 

The Zenbook S 16 also supports the latest version of the AI image generation app Amuse. It works, but using it with AMD’s NPU makes it run slower, not faster. It took twice as long to generate photos with the NPU on, and it’s on by default when you first open the program.

And while Microsoft has made a big push around Copilot Plus PCs this summer, the Zenbook S 16 isn’t part of that program at launch, so it doesn’t have AI-powered features like Cocreator and Live Translation. Those are currently only available on Snapdragon laptops, but they are supposed to be coming to AMD Ryzen AI laptops by the end of 2024 . 

If you’re thinking about buying this laptop solely for its AI capabilities, I’d hold off. I’m still figuring out how most people can take advantage of AMD’s 50 TOPS NPU in a way that’s genuinely beneficial day-to-day.

The competition

If you’re looking for a large, powerful, relatively thin, and light machine, Zenbook S 16 is a great all-rounder laptop. I’ve tested almost all the new Qualcomm laptops , and none of them can match its overall performance or native support for apps. Even though it’s larger than most Qualcomm laptops, it doesn’t feel like it. The only thing you have to sacrifice is a few hours of battery life, and for me, the performance and size are more important. 

But if you feel differently, the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge was the best Qualcomm machine I tested this summer for its battery life and size. There’s also always Apple: despite AMD’s bold claims, Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Air beat the Zenbook on both performance and battery life in my tests.

There aren’t any Intel laptops that I’d currently recommend over the Zenbook S 16 that hit the same sweet spot. While I did like the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo’s four to six hours of extra battery life, it’s nowhere near as pretty or as easy for me to type on or carry around. And while the 2024 Dell XPS 14 also comes to mind, you’re only looking at only about an hour or two of extra battery life that’ll cost you around $500 more.

Since the Zenbook S 16 isn’t truly a dedicated gaming or creator laptop, I’d recommend the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 for that. In my tests, it gets two to three times better 1080p gaming performance without upscaling and rendered my Blender scene in mere seconds. It still manages six and a half hours of battery life in a thin-and-light chassis, too.

The Zenbook S 16 didn’t quite live up to all the performance claims AMD made about it, but it came close and really impressed me in the process. It’s a 16-inch productivity, gaming, and content creation machine that does all those things surprisingly well and is actually easy to carry around. All you have to give up in return are those few hours of battery life. It’s a combination that adds up to make this my favorite 16-inch Windows laptop of the summer.

Photography by Joanna Nelius / The Verge

Agree to Continue: Asus Zenbook S 16

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.

As with other Windows computers, the Asus Zenbook S 16 presents you with multiple things to agree to or decline upon setup.

The mandatory policies, for which an agreement is required, are:

• A request for your region and keyboard layout
• Connect to Wi-Fi network
• Set up for personal use, or work or school
• Microsoft Software License Terms
• Sign into a Microsoft account
• Create a PIN

In addition, there is a slew of optional things to agree to:

• Name your device
• Set up Windows Hello facial recognition
• Device privacy settings: Find My Device, Inking and Typing, Advertising ID, Location, Diagnostic data, Tailored experiences, Presence sensing
• Customize your device for personalized tips, ads, and recommendations (you can choose between entertainment, gaming, school, creativity, business, and family)
• Use your phone from your PC (Android and iPhone)
• Back up your phone’s photos to OneDrive
• Always have access to your recent browsing data
• Accept or decline free trial of Microsoft 365 family
• Get more cloud storage with Microsoft 365 Basic

That’s six mandatory agreements and nine optional ones.

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Trending Post : Books Made Into Movies

21 Beautiful New Picture Books, August 2024

This post may contain affiliate links.

August is a time of transition as kids head back to school and we anticipate the fall season. This August’s new picture books feel like a breath of goodness and beauty, perfect for this transition time.

In other words, you are going to LOVE these books!

New Picture Books, August 2024

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The Dictionary Story written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston STORY Artfully illustrated (with illustrations that might appeal more to adults than children) with cursive typeface (which certainly is either better for European kids who learn cursive first or adults,) this book is about a dictionary who wants to bring her words to life and create a story of her own. As you might predict, the words take on a life of their own, separate from the Dictionary’s intention. Soon, it is chaos and silliness with ghosts scaring clouds and moons, soaps on tornadoes, and queens holding rulers. The illustrations are muted earthy colors with pops of color.

Más. ¡Menos! written and illustrated by Rhode Montijo SPANISH WORDS / DAY OF THE DEAD Neon colors pop off the page in this new Día de los Muertos Skeletown book about the Spanish words more and less. Which is less and which is more when it’s fall leaves or yarn for a sweater? Watch what happens when the dog gets ahold of the yarn and drags it through town with the skeleton kids running after it. Playful fun!

Tiny Jenny Little Fairy Big Trouble written and illustrated by Briony May Smith FAIRY STORY Tiny Jenny hatches out of a wren egg, but she’s not a bird; she’s a teeny tiny…fairy. She doesn’t have wings, but she does have the mischievousness of a fairy. Her antics cause her to search out other fairies. That’s when she learns that the fairies are mean and thoughtless. Tiny Jenny realizes what’s important– and makes a brave decision. The earthy artwork and tiny characters will enchant readers.

The Most Perfect Persimmon written and illustrated by Hannah Chung GRANDPARENT / KOREAN HERITAGE Joo is excited for her grandmother’s visit. She wants to give Grandma a perfect persimmon so she waters and checks on the persimmon tree. When they’re ready to pick, Grandma still hasn’t arrived. Then, the fruit gets less perfect and more wrinkly. By the time Grandma arrives, Joo feels sad that the persimmon isn’t perfect anymore. But, Grandma likes it just the way it is. I love the adorable illustrations and the sweet, relatable story that will introduce readers to this orange-colored fruit.

The River is My Ocean written by Rio Cortez, illustrated by Ashleigh Corrin SLICE OF LIFE Mentor text alert! The writing in this beautiful story is filled with the girl’s emotions and musings. The little girl loves the Hudson River and narrates why she loves it and loves her neighborhood. This book would also make a great writing prompt or story frame for a slice-of-life story.

I Am Wriggly written by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Robert Starling PRESCHOOL HUMOR We still need books for the under five crowd, and this one will delight your toddlers and preschoolers. It’s about, you guessed it, a wriggly bunny who maybe like some kids you know, can not sit still…wiggly, giggly, wriggly, until…they get too tired and flop down.

This Book Is Not For You! written by Howard Pearlstein, illustrated by Susanna Covelli SILLY / META The narrator (whose mustache scares me) tells readers all about the book and everything it isn’t. But, of course, the joke which has been done before, is that the illustrations show the exact opposite thing the narrator says of what isn’t in the book. This includes illustrations of someone picking their nose and eating the boogers, holidays, ninas, and aliens. He finishes by explaining that this book is for his dog…to eat.

The Good Game written by Arihhonni David FOLKTALE The cover says this book is an early reader. It’s not unless you count short sentences as early readers. (I don’t– I look at the words, specifically the phonics rules used.) However, this is a great picture book folktale about the origin of the bat and flying squirrel. When the bigger animals played a ball game, the smaller animals wanted to play but were denied. The small animals figured out at good plan — and their solution helped them win the game, too!

Clack Clack! Smack! A Cherokee Stickball Story written by Traci Sorrell, illustrated by Joseph Erb CHEROKEE STICKBALL GAME Venn isn’t very good at stickball. He realizes that he doesn’t need to be the best and if he passes the ball, it will help his team win. Kids will use inference to understand the Cherokee words and can also look up the words in the back matter pages, which have the words and more information on stickball.

That’s Not Fair written and illustrated by Shinsuke Yoshitake FUNNY A little kid complains to her dad about how unfair adults treat kids. RELATABLE, no? The dad explains the reasons…and they are very silly! Bath time is because of the Bath Monsters and she gets in trouble because she’s royalty and if you don’t get sweets, they appear bigger in your dreams. The ending is silly perfect — about how kids are unfair, too.

Melissa Taylor, MA, is the creator of Imagination Soup. She's a mother, former teacher & literacy trainer, and freelance education writer. She writes Imagination Soup and freelances for publications online and in print, including Penguin Random House's Brightly website, USA Today Health, Adobe Education, Colorado Parent, and Parenting. She is passionate about matching kids with books that they'll love.

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