Welcome to The Best of Book Riot, our daily round-up of what’s on offer across our site, newsletters, podcasts, and social channels. Not everything is for everyone, but there is something for everyone.
Whether you’re looking for a traditional, elaborate design, or something more sleek and simple, the bookish tarot options are overflowing on shirts, mugs, pins, totes, and all manner of swag that makes a reader’s heart beat faster.
Happy Halloween, sci-fi fans! In honor of the holiday this week, I have five sci-fi horror books set in space, because space is SCARY. There are a million things that can go wrong in space, the tiniest little things, and then, welp, that’s it for you. And that’s only the stuff we know about, like mechanical failure or tears in a spacesuit. There are also the things we don’t know about. Because let’s face it, we don’t know everything about space. We don’t even know that much about our brains, and they are with us everywhere we go! So not knowing everything about an infinite universe is completely understandable.
That leaves plenty of room for space monsters, extraterrestrial contagions, killer robots, and anything else that hangs out in the back of your imagination when you’re in space. And I do mean you. Because I’m not going. These five frightening sci-fi books have menacing monsters, scary ships, creepy caves, spine-chilling sentients, and addled androids. So get your glass of Tang and get ready to blast off with these books, And remember, in space, no one can hear you read.
All the way back in January, I wrote about queer BIPOC books coming out in 2024 that I was most excited for in our newsletter In Reading Color. Turns out, past me has great taste, because I think the list is full of books to make sure you read before the year ends. It also serves as a “books you may have missed from earlier this year” list, since it favors spring 2024 releases (because, let’s be real, there are 50-11 books coming out every month, and it was hard to look past one season).
In honor of Halloween, let’s travel to a hand full of haunted libraries across the United States. These libraries lean into their spirited histories, and several provide an array of opportunities to learn more about their ghostly inhabitants. As a bonus, I’ve got a story of a haunted book to share, too!
What percentage of all books that are purchased actually get read? If you’re the kind of book nerd who wishes you could get an answer to that question, this episode of the Book Riot Podcast is for you.
