The Week’s Most Popular Stories
Welcome to The Best of Book Riot. Here’s your weekend highlight reel of the week’s most popular stories.
Details Emerge in Sexual Assault Allegations Against Neil Gaiman
It’s been six months since news broke that two women were accusing author Neil Gaiman of sexual assault. A month later, more women came forward. In the time since, multiple of Gaiman’s projects have been canceled, but publishing media has remained largely silent…until today. Vulture‘s Lila Shapiro delivers a deeply reported and even more deeply disturbing piece built on interviews with four of the five women who have gone public with allegations against Gaiman, along with reviews of their diaries, contemporaneous text messages and emails with friends and Gaiman, and police documents.
9 of the Hottest Romance Reads on BookTok
BookTok, in some ways, moves at a snail’s pace and, in other ways, moves at the speed of light. Sometimes, Toks from June or October come up, and we’re having the same conversation again. And sometimes, things go wildly viral overnight.
8 Genre-Defying Sci-Fi Books That Resist Expectations
Books that defy the genre in which they’re labeled tend to use these key words to dissect, comment, and then upend the genre. Yes, these tales fall under the umbrella of science fiction in that they include robots, are set in the future, utilize technology, etc., but they also resist the expectations the general reader might have on what science fiction should be, particularly with endings. Genre-defying books do not come full circle; there is not always a happy nor even “satisfying” ending, and they often present a mirror to the readers themselves and ask: are you part of the problem? Quite often—the answer is yes.
The Most Anticipated Historical Fiction of 2025
There’s no shortage of new books from beloved and bestselling authors as well as debut releases generating all kinds of buzz, not to mention a new book from Zora Neale Hurston, which just feels like a literary jackpot. So, narrowing my list of most anticipated historical fiction books down to just a few titles is no easy task—but between their bestselling authors and/or compelling storylines, I think these four books are top contenders for the most anticipated historical fiction of 2025.
The Spring 2025 Adaptation Preview
Randy Winston of The Black List joins Rebecca and Jeff on the Book Riot Podcast to preview the spring’s most interesting literary adaptations and recent releases to stream or revisit.