Unprofessional Book “Review” Sites to Know
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BookLooks, RatedBooks, and Other Unprofessional Book “Review” Sites to Know
One of the trends we’ll see in book censorship over 2025 is the increased use of unprofessional, politically-driven book review websites like BookLooks to make decisions in professional library and educational settings. Just days after writing that—including an example from Warren County Public Libraries in New Jersey which happened at the time of writing—another library made headlines nationwide for their decision to begin using BookLooks to make library decisions. This time, it was Anoka County, Minnesota, public schools. Many online shared anger and frustration by this decision, while others talked about how glad they were to be in a safe state with anti-book ban laws. The latter, of course, being an attitude that we’ll see continue to increase in 2025, too, and it’s an uninformed one at that. Minnesota is among the states that have an anti-book ban law in effect.
2025 BIPOC Horror Novels for the Read Harder Challenge
Horror fans, are you ready to embark on another year of Read Harder Challenges? The 2025 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge features a lot of great prompts to encourage you to read outside of your comfort zone and even explore new favorites. But going outside your comfort zone doesn’t mean you can’t also read the genre you love most. These upcoming 2025 horror books by BIPOC authors would be a great way to fulfill the first prompt of the Read Harder Challenge, potentially discover a new-to-you author, and definitely uncover a new favorite horror novel this year.
Trump vs. Luthor: Who Presidented Worse?
Luthor was elected in 2000, much to the shock and dismay of Superman, who assumed the American people were smart enough not to hand the nuclear codes to a self-obsessed, unrepentant criminal (you sweet, summer child). Before that, Luthor was a criminal mastermind and a cunning and ruthless businessman. While comparing the two men’s business acumen, or lack thereof, is beyond the scope of this article, I would like to point out that Luthor built on his fortune by using mysterious alien tech to make things like “repair spiderbots,” which, while scary, is also kind of awesome.
Spotify’s New Audiobooks Wrapped Editorial Hub Makes Its Debut
This year, they launched their new Audiobooks Wrapped editorial hub, a place where users can see the top audiobooks listened to in 2024. There, listeners can find the top audiobooks of the year and lists of editorial picks. While the majority of the titles are fiction, let’s have a look at their top 10 nonfiction audiobooks of the year…
The Most Read Books on Goodreads This Week
Because these are familiar titles, I’ve also included the most read books in three countries across the world. This time, we’re looking at the reading habits of Goodreads users in Brazil, Indonesia, and Norway. There is some overlap with the global list, but there are also titles uniquely popular in each country, including one that isn’t available in English: the Portuguese book Ainda estou aqui by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, which is one the most popular titles in Brazil at the moment.
