A Wealth of Nonfiction Summer Reading
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.
All the Nonfiction Summer Reading Lists
It’s summer reading season! Everyone and their mother’s brother seems on board, especially after the Chicago Sun-Times published a summer reading list written by AI that featured 10 books that didn’t actually exist. So let’s jump into some book lists featuring titles that really are coming out.
Must Read Historical Fiction Set in Amsterdam
The books below will give you just a taste of Amsterdam’s history, through the eyes of novelists. Whether you’re interested in the machinations of the Golden Age, the harsh realities of the Dutch colonies, or the resistance fighters of World War II, these books will give a glimpse into the past of the city.
Are Reading Parties The Next Big Thing?
Reading communities are everywhere online. From Storygraph to Fable to BookTube to BookTok, the growth of online reading buddies feels exponential. The problem with social media as it exists online, however, is that it’s a stand-in for the true connections we all seek over the things we love. As much as reading roundups and reading tracking can be fun, meeting up with in-person book lovers is a great book lover community event. With that in mind, reading parties could be the next big thing.
Queer Graphic Novels That Celebrate Chosen Family
Family bonds aren’t defined through our relation to one another but through the relationships we build with intention. That’s especially true for queer people. We find solidarity and community with each other, even when we can’t find it anywhere else. That often leads to queer people creating found or chosen families made up of the people who show up for them. That’s something that’s captured really wonderfully in these queer graphic novels about found and chosen family. From hockey teams and alien father figures to drunk mermaids trying to figure out life on land, these graphic novels show just how many different forms a chosen family can take.
8 of the Best New Steampunk Books
Many argue that steampunk isn’t really a genre per se, but rather an aesthetic, similar to cottagecore or dark academia, where the subjects are pursuing knowledge or learning. The aesthetic of steam-powered trains, aviation goggles, clockwork machinery, and retrofuturistic technology in a Victorian England setting is applicable to a variety of genres, including science fiction and fantasy. Some romance novels even include some quintessential steampunk elements. But in general, steampunk novels typically fall under the sci-fi and fantasy (SFF) umbrella.
