The Biggest Book News of the Week

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are biggest stories from last week.

Barnes & Noble’s Book of the Year is….

James is Barnes & Noble’s Book of the Year. I had a little fun with this announcement on Instagram, but this is the right selection. I will cannibalize what I wrote about James for Book Riot’s forthcoming Best Books of the Year post:

“James was my most anticipated book of 2024 from the moment I heard that it was coming. A Huck Finn reimagining from the literary Morpheus that is Percival Everett was reason enough to be excited, but add to that the heat around him from American Fiction and his move to Doubleday, and this thing was set up to be major. And it is a modern masterpiece. By turns hilarious, beguiling, provocative, and terrifying, James is virtuosic. It is a miracle of page-turning readerly entertainment paired with god-tier literary experimentation and thematic depth. We don’t get ones like this very often, so when we do it is cause for celebration.”