Riot Headline Book Riot’s 2025 Read Harder Challenge

New Releases and More for February 27, 2024

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This week, Liberty and Patricia discuss The Other Valley, The Butcher of the Forest, The American Daughters, and more great books!

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2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Visit bookriot.com/readharder to sign up.

Books Discussed On the Show:

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed

Kindling by Traci Chee

The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

Gay Girl Prayers by Emily Austin 

Murmur by Cameron Barnett

Fathomfolk (Drowned World) by Eliza Chan

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Paperback Releases:

An Autobiography of Skin by Lakiesha Carr

The Unfortunates by J K Chukwu

Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller by Oliver Darkshire 

The Headmaster’s List by Melissa de la Cruz

Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult: a Memoir by Michelle Dowd 

Revelator by Daryl Gregory

Weyward by Emilia Hart 

Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein

Take What You Need by Idra Novey 

Cold People by Tom Rob Smith 

Finally Seen by Kelly Yang

What We’re Reading:

Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender

Archangels of Funk by Andrea Hairston

Roland Rogers Isn’t Dead Yet by Samantha Allen

More Books Out This Week:

American Negra: A Memoir by Natasha S. Alford

Fate Breaker (Realm Breaker, 3) by Victoria Aveyard 

King Nyx by Kirsten Bakis

Right on Cue by Falon Ballard

My Name Was Eden by Eleanor Barker-White

Brooklyn by Tracy Brown

Under the Storm by Christoffer Carlsson, Rachel Willson-Broyles (translator)

Dead Weight: Essays on Hunger and Harm by Emmeline Clein

A Haunting in the Arctic by C.J. Cooke

Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley

I Only Read Murder by Will Ferguson, Ian Ferguson

The Partner Plot by Kristina Forest

Green Dot by Madeleine Gray

Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History by Philippa Gregory

Piglet by Lottie Hazell

A Fate Inked in Blood: Book One of the Saga of the Unfated by Danielle L. Jensen 

Everything I Learned About Racism I Learned in School by Tiffany Jewell

The Moorings of Mackerel Sky by MZ 

In Ascension by Martin MacInnes

The Rumor Game by Thomas Mullen 

A Woman of Pleasure by Kiyoko Murata, Juliet Winters Carpenter (translator)

Birding to Change the World: A Memoir by Trish O’Kane

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

Snowglobe by Soyoung Park, Joungmin Lee Comfort (translator)

Hope Ablaze by Sarah Mughal Rana

Moon Of The Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice

Tender Beasts by Liselle Sambury

Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella 

Lore of the Wilds by Analeigh Sbrana

Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood by Gretchen Sisson

Daughter of the Bone Forest by Jasmine Skye

The Deerfield Massacre: A Surprise Attack, a Forced March, and the Fight for Survival in Early America by James L. Swanson  

Whiskey Tender: A Memoir by Deborah Jackson Taffa

The Book of Ile-Rien: The Element of Fire & The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells