Seven books that foresaw our digital lives

At Mental Floss Nicolle Sloan tagged seven novels that eerily predicted technological advancements of today. One title on the list:

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart (2010)

In this oddly tender, darkly funny novel, Gary Shteyngart imagines a crumbling America where everyone’s value is visible. You carry a device that ranks you on desirability, credit score, income, and political status. Dating profiles scroll overhead. Privacy is extinct, and the government is mostly broke.

At the center of it all is Lenny, a sweet old school guy in love with Eunice, a digitally native, emotionally unavailable millennial. Their relationship unfolds in a world that’s part Black Mirror and part Love Story.

Shteyngart captures the queasy reality of being ranked, rated, and datamined in public, long before influencer culture made it feel normal.

Read about the other novels on the list.

Super Sad True Love Story appears on Raul Palma's list of seven books about falling into debt, Olivia Sudjic’s list of five of the best books to explain how we behave in the digital world, Leslie Berlin's top ten list of books about high-tech, Corey J. White's list of five books about the collapse of New York City, Ginni Chen's list of seven books that belong on your social media–obsessed friend’s shelf, Molly Schoemann-McCann's list of five of the best--and more familiar--tropes in fiction, Charlie Jane Anders's lists of ten great science fiction novels, published since 2000, that raise huge, important questions and ten satirical novels that could teach you to survive the future, and Nicholas Carr's list of five notable books on the impact of the Information Age.

--Marshal Zeringue

Three books that celebrate complicated women

Natalie Baszile's novel Queen Sugar was adapted for seven television seasons by writer/director Ava DuVernay, and co-produced by Oprah Winfrey.

Her new novel is Friends and Family.

At Book Riot Baszile tagged three books celebrating complicated women. One entry on the list:

Take What You Can by Naima Coster

Set in France and New York, this novel explores the lives of best friends Milly and Val, two young Black women whose bond is forged during their year abroad and stretches into their thirties. What they share is the pain of having lost their mothers and a shared history with a woman from their past. Now, young mothers themselves, both living in Brooklyn, Milly and Val soon discover that love for each other might not be enough to bridge the divide that’s growing between them. Differences in their economic and familial circumstances, marital tensions, plus divergent responses to the demands of raising a child soon breed resentment and jealousy, misunderstandings. Take What You Can is a meditation on motherhood, class, and the deep satisfaction that comes from being complicated women.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Twelve creepy small town horror titles

Richard Chizmar is the author of New York Times bestselling novels Chasing the Boogeyman, Becoming the Boogeyman, Memorials, and Widow’s Point: The Complete Haunting (cowritten with son, W.H. Chizmar), and coauthor (with Stephen King) of the New York Times bestselling novella Gwendy’s Button Box, the novel Gwendy’s Final Task, and the solo novella Gwendy’s Magic Feather. His short fiction has appeared in dozens of publications, most recently, the bestselling anthology, The End of The World as We Know It: New Stories of Stephen King’s The Stand.

Chizmar's new novel is Killing the Boogeyman.

At People magazine the author tagged twelve top creepy small town horror novels, including:

Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge

With echoes of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Stephen King’s The Long Walk, Dark Harvest serves up a tasty Halloween treat — or is it a trick? — for all seasons. Set in a small midwestern farming town in 1963, Partridge gives us the story of the October Boy and a strange and violent All Hallow’s Eve tradition. If you’re thinking it sounds like a modern-day Ray Bradbury tale, you would be right.

Read about the other novels on the list.

The Page 99 Test: Dark Harvest.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top historical mysteries set in the early modern era

Jane Bitomsky is an award-winning author of historical fiction. Her debut historical mystery novel is Death by Misadventure.

Bitomsky has a PhD in early modern English history, a BA (Hons) and an LLB (Hons) from the University of Queensland. She’s published in academic journals, and volunteers as a baker (specialising in brownies and cheesecake) for New Zealand charity Good Bitches Baking.

At CrimeReads Bitomsky tagged six favorite historical mysteries set in the early modern era, including:

Elsa Hart, Jade Dragon Mountain

Former imperial librarian Li Du arrives in a mountainous Chinese outpost by the Tibetan border to find it teeming with traders, astronomers and soldiers, who are gathered to witness the spectacle of a solar eclipse in 1708. During the celebrations, an elderly Jesuit astronomer, and Li Du’s recent acquaintance, is murdered. The ex-librarian takes it upon himself to investigate.

What ensues is a Poirot-esque whodunit, where Li Du uses a combination of logic and luck to break down the clues, and gather suspects. There’s a colourful cast of side characters, a glimpse into everyday life in eighteenth-century China, and the reader is thoroughly educated on the proper way to prepare tea.

Read about the other titles on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six horror books about feminine rage

Addison Ciuchta loves writing, reading, and writing about what she reads. She has an MA in Professional Writing, a BA in English, and a lifelong love of books. In addition to Book Riot, has written for Publishers Weekly and Independent Book Review.

At Book Riot Ciuchta tagged "six horror books about feminine rage [that will] leave readers saying, Good for her!" One title on the list:

Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth

Despite a rocky relationship with her own mother and her mother-in-law, Abby Lamb wants to be a mother more than anything. As a caretaker at an elderly home, Abby makes everything she does about fostering motherly skills. When her husband Ralph’s mother dies, though, he falls into a deep depression, and their perfect future is threatened. Especially after he starts to believe his mother’s ghost is haunting them. Abby will do whatever it takes to get her husband out of his despair and break the enduring hold his mother has on him, even in death.

Read about the other books on the list.

Motherthing is among Leah Rowan's six thrillers with troubled parent-child relationships.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight top utopian fiction novels

At Mental Floss Chris Wheatley tagged eight utopian fiction novels to get us through these dystopian times, including:

The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974) by Ursula K. Le Guin

This novel from acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin numbers among only a handful of works to achieve the feat of winning all of the “big three” science fiction awards: the Hugo, Locus, and Nebula. The setting for each chapter in The Dispossessed alternates between the planet Urras and its moon Anarres. Urras is a deeply hierarchical and authoritarian capitalist society; Anarres has no laws and is essentially cooperative in nature. Le Guin offers no easy answers and highlights the difficulties that arise from the struggle between individualism and collectivism.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Dispossessed is among Daisy Atterbury's eight titles about space that reimagine what it means to live on Earth, Naomi Klein's six favorite books, and Luke Rhinehart's five favorite sci-fi satires.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine titles about being the poorest person in the room

Carla Vass holds a degree in English literature and economics from Barnard College, Columbia University. She began her career at Goldman Sachs before joining Uber in 2013. At Uber, she helped build the rideshare business in New York City and was part of the founding UberEATS team. In 2018, Vass was recruited by Waymo, Google's self-driving car division, to develop their delivery business, and then went on to found Civi in 2020, a tech startup focused on safety in Latin America. Born in New York City, Vass and her husband now live in Miami, Florida. When not writing or reading, she enjoys spending time with loved ones, traveling, cooking, and horseback riding.

Vass's new novel is The Rally.

At Lit Hub the author tagged nine novels featuring the poorest person among rich people behaving badly. One title on the list:

Pineapple Street, Jenny Jackson

The RPBB supergenre in a very specific subworld. Jackson gives you a whole clan of old-money Brooklyn Heights Stocktons, but the character who carries the thesis is Sasha, the middle-class New England girl who marries in and is instantly, permanently cast as the arriviste. It’s a beach read with a sharp eye for the machinery of inherited money: the tennis, the trust funds, the very particular cruelty of people who’ve never had to think about money toward the one person in the room who has. Funny, sharp, and a fascinating dissection of how money works inside a family.

Read about the other books on the list at Lit Hub.

Pineapple Street is among Glenn R. Miller's five novels of generational wealth & income inequality.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five horror titles set in grand country homes

Jennifer Thorne is the USA Today bestselling author of Diavola and Lute, as well as several books for younger readers. With Lee Kelly, she is the co-writer of novels The Midnight Show, My Fair Frauds, The Starlets, and The Antiquity Affair. Born in the US, she now lives with her husband and two sons in the west of England.

Thorne's latest novel is Newbourne Park.

At CrimeReads she tagged "five literary country houses that also play host to devils." One title on the list:

T.H. Huddleston, The Cracks

What if the only way out of a desperate financial situation is to take up your rich friend’s offer to stay at the historic family home of his aristocratic wife while you get back on your feet? And if you happen to have certain skills in the kitchen, why wouldn’t you take on some of the domestic tasks as a means of showing your thanks? And if the ghosts of Hautmond Hall, perhaps even the house itself, would prefer to keep you in service forever…how on earth can you fight back?

This deliciously satirical horror novel shows that class distinctions are insidiously pernicious traps, even in the year 2026.

Read about the other books on Thorne's list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six of the best YA mysteries/thrillers for adult readers

Jamie Canaves is a contributing editor at Book Riot. She tagged six "excellent books written for young adults that understand and love the crime genre in a way that adults will deeply appreciate, from revenge plots to a retelling of a Gen X classic," including:

The Initial Insult by Mindy McGinnis

If you’re ever worried that YA won’t feel dark enough or will feel like you’re being spoken down to, you can rest assured that Mindy McGinnis’ books are brutal; there’s no hand-holding here.

What this YA duology does have is an exploration of family secrets, class, anger, and revenge. Tress Montor decides to get revenge on her ex-best friend, convinced that Felicity Turnado knows who graffitied her home, fed her dog to an alligator, and what happened to her parents. How exactly will she get this revenge? By forcing a confession out of her by slowly bricking her in à la Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado.” Claustrophobia inducing much?

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight Agatha Christie-inspired mysteries

Katherine Reay is a national bestselling and award-winning author who has enjoyed a lifelong affair with books. She publishes both fiction and nonfiction, holds a BA and MS from Northwestern University, and currently lives outside Bozeman, MT, with her husband and too many dogs.

Her new novel is The Undercover Bookshop.

At People magazine Reay tagged eight "contemporary novels I’ve devoured this past year and offerings I believe any Christie aficionado will love." One title on the list:

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

This novel made a splash in 2020 but good books never lose their power so it’s equally worth picking up today. I’ve included it here particularly for its sense of place. Just like Michaelides and Christie, Foley takes advantage of her isolated location — this time an island off the coast of Ireland — and throws in storms, tension and the requisite twists and turns, to create an incredibly satisfying and page-turning mystery.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Guest List is among Celia Laskey's eight wedding novels for all the lovers and the haters.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine titles with big secrets

Julia Cohen's latest book is Freak Lip (2026). She is the author of I Was Not Born (2014), a collection of lyric essays, which was translated into German and released by Literaturverlag Droschl. She’s also written two books of poetry, Collateral Light (2014) and Triggermoon Triggermoon (2011). Her nonfiction and poetry appear in issues of The Georgia Review, Southeast Review, The New England Review, Fugue, Heavy Feather Review, Boston Review, and BOMB.

Cohen has a BA from Wesleyan University, an MFA from The New School, and a PhD from the University of Denver. She’s an Associate Professor of English and Literature at Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design. She teaches creative writing, literature, and composition courses. Cohen lives in Colorado Springs with her husband and fellow writer, Noel Black, and their kids.

At Lit Hub she tagged "nine books that guided my understanding of how holding or exposing long-kept secrets creates a palpable tension between regret and relief." One title on the list:

Latoya Watkins, Holler, Child: Stories

Watkins is a master of dialogue, dialect, and narrative intimacy. In this stunning collection, which centers Black women in West Texas, Watkins perfectly balances familial interactions with protagonists’ internal thoughts, creating immersive, local rhythms that invite you right into the living rooms of her characters. Their secrets manifest in different ways: infidelity, the truths hidden underneath the lies mothers tell children to protect them and the secrets children keep to shield their mothers from grief, the apologies never given.

In both “The Mother” and “Holler, Child” mothers keep from their sons their fathers’ identities to minimize potential pain and embarrassment, only to see the negative ripple effect this has on their sons’ choices as they grow. In “Vigil,” the protagonist has a simmering hatred for her childhood friend’s Muslim husband, whose gay relationship with his best friend is an indiscrete secret. She reflects on what no one will say aloud: “Thala and me ain’t close enough for me to tell her that her husband supposed to come home to her at night. Snuggle up to her at night. Not with his best friend, La Mare. La Mare who lived with them for the first three months of their marriage. La Mare who slept on their couch while Wale slept on the floor close to him.” These stories wrestle with the entanglement between desperate love and unknowability, what might be gained from speaking up, and why sometimes, we still can’t.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Four bewitching books for fans of "Practical Magic"

At Book Riot Megan Mabee tagged "four beautifully written books for fans of Practical Magic." One title on the list:

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

When it comes to authors like Alice Hoffman, Alix E. Harrow is an excellent readalike option. Like Hoffman, Harrow’s writing style includes lush world-building, intriguing magic systems enmeshed in the real world, and thoughtful reflections on deep topics. As with Practical Magic, this novel by Harrow explores themes of witches and the bonds between sisters. The story takes place in 1893 as the Eastwood sisters—James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna—join forces with the suffragettes of New Salem. Perhaps the women’s movement may also become the witches movement.

Read about the other titles on the list.

The Once and Future Witches is among Chelsea Iversen's five supernatural sister stories, Kim DeRose's seven top books about witches and badass covens, Mark Skinner's twenty top witch lit titles, Sarah Pinsker's five SFF books that showcase siblings at their core, and Heather Walter's five SFF books about wicked women.

--Marshal Zeringue