Ten of the best books on the World Cup

At the Waterstones blog, Mark Skinner tagged ten top books on the World Cup, including:

World Cup Fever by Simon Kuper

Kuper pops up again in our run-down with his latest book World Cup Fever, in which the veteran sports journalist recounts his personal experience of covering every tournament since Italia '90, thirty-six years ago. A fascinating and highly entertaining exploration of how the World Cup has changed and evolved over the decades - from half-empty stadia to international political protest - Kuper is the perfect guide to this ethically complex and ever-more glamorous competition.

Read about the other titles on the list.

Also see ten soccer titles to read during World Cup 2026.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top seven monsters in literature

McKayla Coyle (they/them) is a lesbian writer from Alaska currently living in Washington. They're the author of the cozy lifestyle guide Goblin Mode and the cryptid romance collection Mothman Is My Boyfriend. McKayla is the publishing coordinator for Lit Hub and they hold an MFA in fiction from The New School. In their free time, they read a lot of fantasy novels and make a lot of jam.

At Lit Hub Coyle tagged seven of her "favorite contemporary works of monster literature." One title on the list:

Samanta Schweblin, tr. Megan McDowell, Little Eyes

Personally, I feel that the panopticon Furbies in Little Eyes count as monsters. What else would you call an iDog that lives in your home and watches your every move and is being controlled by a stranger? In Schweblin’s sci-fi horror novel, stuffed animals called “kentukis” are an international hit. Kentuki owners are watched at all times by a random stranger on the internet, and the internet strangers get to control a kentuki and observe the life of a random individual. Sometimes this leads to moments of beautiful connection, sometimes it leads to something darker. But such is the life of a monster—they aren’t inherently good or bad, they’re just unexpected.

Read about the other books on the list at LitHub.

Little Eyes is among Laura Venita Green's ten books featuring devils, doppelgängers, ghosts, and creepy dolls, Sara Sligar's four tech thrillers rooted in the tensions between technology & human nature and Rabeea Saleem's six technothrillers featuring digital surveillance and voyeurism.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top novels that read like bad trips, fever dreams, or reality warps

Lindsay Kent, a.k.a. The Hallucinarrator, is a multimedia storyteller whose work explores the luminous edges of consciousness and culture. Over the past decade, she's directed three international feature films, produced a Hulu documentary on LGBTQ+ families, and created branded films for nonprofits and Fortune 500s alike. Her 2014 documentary "Going Furthur" retraced the arc of America's counterculture through a psychedelic lens, and her docuseries, "Plant Medicine," follows an Ayahuasca retreat center in Costa Rica. A few years ago, Kent returned to her first love―fiction. Blending the vision of a filmmaker with the curiosity of a psychonaut, her stories blur the boundaries between science and spirit, cinema and literature. At the heart of her work lies a singular mission―to bridge the gap between reality and the beyond, welcoming more seekers into the mystery through stories anyone can access, and everyone can feel.

Kent's new novel is My Twin the Murderer.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five "favorite trippy novels, where time distorts and nothing is what it seems." One title on the list:

Mona Awad, Bunny

Samantha Heather Mackey, an isolated outsider in a prestigious MFA program, is drawn into the glittering orbit of the Bunnies—a clique of unsettlingly sweet, wealthy young women whose saccharine charm masks something deeply bizarre. What begins as a razor-sharp satire of elite creative culture gradually warps into a surreal descent where artistic ambition, obsession, and identity blur into something increasingly monstrous, as the boundaries between performance and transformation start to dissolve.

I love this book. It has everything sharp and vicious I loved about Heathers but somehow gets even weirder. What makes Bunny so effective is the way it takes pastel, hyper-feminine aesthetics and slowly turns them unsettling. Awad fills the novel with surreal social dynamics, abrupt tonal shifts, and just enough dream logic to keep you constantly questioning what’s real—is this performance, delusion, or something supernatural?

The pacing is fast, strange, and increasingly unhinged, pushing sweetness so far that it becomes disturbing, then grotesque.

Read about the other novels on the list at CrimeReads.

Bunny is among Catriona Silvey's five Gothic novels about cults, Isabelle McConville's six novels for novelists, Chris Wheatley's six top dark academia novels, and Gnesis Villar's seven books about the struggle of being a writer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten titles that bring back the wild magic of the ’80s

At Oprah Daily Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne tagged ten standout "books about the nightlife scene, late-night culture, and comedy of the ’80s." One title on their list:

My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson

TV writer and producer Rasheed Newson’s electric, hilarious, critically acclaimed debut novel gives readers a seat on main character Trey Singleton’s roller-coaster journey to finding himself in New York City’s East Village in the mid-’80s. A Black gay man born to a privileged family in the Midwest, Singleton escapes to New York, gets involved in AIDS crisis advocacy, experiences sexual liberation, and grapples with who and what is worth fighting for during this charged, tumultuous era in the city’s history. Presented as a memoir, complete with footnoted references to actual historical events and real individuals, this cinematic coming-of-age tale seamlessly recreates ’80s New York and introduces a relatable and unforgettable protagonist.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Thirteen top mysteries & thrillers from 2025

NPR staff and critics tagged thirteen of the best mysteries and thrillers from 2025. One title on the list:

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, by Grady Hendrix

In the 1970s, young women who got pregnant before marriage were sent to homes to have their babies away from prying eyes. It was like a magic trick — a practice in concealment, disappearance and forgetting. In a state of complete powerlessness, hidden away in the stifling heat of St. Augustine, Fla., Fern — not her real name, never give your real name — meets other young girls like herself. Then a visiting librarian gives Fern a book on witchcraft, and she learns what she is willing to give up in return for that power.
— Christina Cala, senior producer, Code Switch

Read about the other mysteries and thrillers on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top near-future sci-fi novels

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged five “great near-future novels that may be coming soon to a reality near you!" One entry on the list:

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

This one is a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award! Doug has recently acquired Annie Bot, an AI robot created to be the optimal girlfriend. But when Doug tells Annie that his favorite thing about her is her ability to seem human, her AI begins to adjust and learn. So, to please him, her system tries to be more human and starts to change. Soon, Annie begins questioning everything, becoming less perfect, making mistakes, and wondering what she really wants for herself. You know, like a human.

Read about the other titles on the list.

Annie Bot is among Liberty Hardy's five great sci-fi books about robots.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine queer titles in which animals take on a mythical importance

Joseph Osmundson is a scientist and writer. His research has been published in leading scientific journals including Cell, PNAS, and most recently, Nature Communications. His writing has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. His previous book Virology was a finalist for the NBCC and Lambda Literary Awards in Nonfiction. His latest book is Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood.

At Electric Lit Osmundson tagged nine "books by queer writers [in which] animals play an essential, mythical role, inextricable from the narrator or the story." One entry on the list:

How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler

Ever curious and endlessly probing, Sabrina Imbler’s How Far the Light Reaches is a memoir told through close examination of sea creatures: gold fish, octopus, sturgeon, bobbitt worm. Through telling these stories of the natural world, Imbler is able to narrate their childhood, their life, the forces that invariably shape us, so many of which are out of our control. Imbler’s writing about animal life is tender, intimate. “Imagine you are something like a snail . . . You are not a fast swimmer, but you make do, bobbing around the blue and sealing off your body in spiraled chambers that buoy you up and down the water column.” I can feel myself move with the water. In a recent interview for Orion Magazine, Imbler explained, “I found it far easier to find empathy and tenderness for animals like fish than I did with former versions of myself.” This reaching outward, toward animals, to find love for our own queer selves, given a world that constructs disgust around our touch and identities, undergirds all these books. Given how cruel humans can be, indeed are, to queer and trans people, it is no wonder we give voice and witness to other creatures—a fox, a fish—that we yearn for their protection.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five mysteries that skewer the worlds of wellness and self-help

Asia Mackay is the author of A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage and two additional novels published in the UK. After a career in television in China, she returned to London, where she worked for Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman on their round-the-world motorbike documentaries. She started writing her debut novel, Killing It, on maternity leave—it was the runner-up in Richard and Judy's Search for a Bestseller competition and runner-up and exceptionally recognized for the Comedy Women In Print Prize.

Mackay's latest novel is Self-Help for Serial Killers.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five "excellent books [that] focus on what happens when the wellness world and the criminal world collide." One title on the list:

Lawrence Block, Hit Man

John Keller is an ordinary New York City resident who does crosswords, watches television, and visits a therapist when he has a mid-career crisis. He is polite, deeply introspective, and entirely relatable—except for the fact his chosen profession is contract murder.

Hit Man is a linked collection of stories with Keller at the center of each and we’re given such a complete picture of him we start to not only understand but forgive him for his violent occupation. Keller might be an incredibly efficient hitman, but he also collects stamps, frets over the price of earplugs, and frequently turns to his handlers and life coaches to reconcile his mundane personality with his grim profession. He frequently daydreams about retiring to a peaceful life in the countryside.

Block brilliantly pulls off making a ruthless assassin thoroughly charming and deeply sympathetic.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven notable dark academia thrillers

Ande Pliego began writing stories when she discovered she could actually wield her overactive imagination for good. A lover of stories with teeth, she writes books involving mind games, dark humor, general murder and mayhem, and most importantly, finding the hope in the dark.

When not reading or writing, she can usually be found dabbling in art, scheming up her next trip, or making constant expeditions to the library. Born in Florida, raised in France, and having left footprints all over the globe, Pliego is settled in the Pacific Northwest, USA, with her craftsman husband and little son.

She is the bestselling author of You Are Fatally Invited and The Library After Dark.

At Oprah Daily the author tagged seven top dark academia thrillers. One title on the list:

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

Strikingly creative and delightfully crafted, The Woman in the Library follows four strangers—an aspiring writer, a psychology student, a law student, and a mysterious established author—whose peaceful moment in the Boston Public Library comes to a screeching (screaming?) halt when they hear the shriek of a woman soon found dead. Their friendship blossoms in the unlikeliest of circumstances, and they band together to use their individual skills and studies to uncover—or conceal—which of them is the killer.

Even more delightful than this cat-and-mouse setup is the meta-narrative of the novel. Between each chapter, we have a one-sided correspondence from a reader named Leo to Hannah, an Australian author writing the story of the woman killed in the library we are in the process of reading. Leo’s letters grow increasingly sinister as he argues with her decisions for the characters and offers, shall we say, alarmingly specific advice on writing crime scenes. Whip-smart, tongue-in-cheek, and full of bookish debates, Gentill’s novel is an academia-infused murder mystery with a delicious twist.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Coffee with a Canine: Sulari Gentill & Rowly, Alfie, Miss Higgins and Pig.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six historical fiction titles set in the Middle East

Katie Moench is a librarian, runner, and lover of baked goods. A school librarian in the Upper Midwest, Moench lives with her husband and dog and spends her free time drinking coffee, trying new recipes, and adding to her TBR list.

At Book Riot she tagged six historical fiction novels set in the Middle East, including:

The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani

In seventeenth-century Isfahan, Persia, a young woman’s future is shattered when her father dies without leaving her with a dowry. With a lack of marriage prospects, she must move in with her uncle, a rug designer for the Shah’s court, and work in his household as a servant. Told with an emotional, first-person narrative style, The Blood of Flowers follows her growth as a gifted rug maker and the choices she must make in order to achieve autonomy in her life.

Read about the other novels on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six crime fiction books set in Florida

Erica Wright's novel Hollow Bones, a contemporary retelling of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, came out in 2024. "Daniela Petrova called it a "twisty and engrossing thriller." Snake was released as part of Bloomsbury's Object Lessons series. Her mystery Famous in Cedarville received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and was called "a clever little whodunnit" in The New York Times Book Review. She is the author of five other books, including the poetry collections Instructions for Killing the Jackal and All the Bayou Stories End with Drowned. Her poems have appeared in Blackbird, Denver Quarterly, New Orleans Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Wright was the senior poetry editor at Guernica Magazine for more than a decade and currently teaches at Bellevue University. Her latest novel is The Museum of Unusual Occurrence.

[My Book, The Movie: Famous in Cedarville; The Page 99 Test: Snake; Q&A with Erica Wright]

At Novel Suspects Wright tagged some her favorite crime fiction books set in Florida, including:

Silent City by Alex Segura

Fans of down-on-their-luck PIs can do no better than Pete Fernandez. Silent City, the first in Alex Segura’s critically acclaimed series, finds Pete in pretty dire straights, mostly of his own creation. A missing person’s case pulls him back from the brink of self-destruction only to be thrown into the path of a vicious killer. One of the delights of this series is watching Pete evolve from an unlikely PI into a bonafide hero. Also a delight is the way Segura leans into the noir vibes of Miami.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six suspense novels about art, museums, and forgers

Called “an author to watch” by Booklist, Carol Snow has written numerous novels for teens and adults. A former contributor to Salon’s “Mothers Who Think” column, her writing has also appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books and Park City Magazine.

Snow holds a BA in psychology from Brown University and a MAT in English from Boston College. A native of New Jersey, she now splits her time between Cape Cod and Southern California.

[My Book, The Movie: Just Like Me, Only Better; My Book, The Movie: What Came First; The Page 69 Test: Bubble World]

Snow's new novel is The Girl on the Beach.

At CrimeReads the author tagged six "suspenseful reads about art and artists worth checking out." One title on the list:

Katie Lattari, Dark Things I Adore

If you’ve ever fantasized about spending the summer at a picture-perfect art retreat, complete with towering pines, a glistening lake, and, best of all, not just “a room of your own” but your own log cabin, this one’s for you…assuming your fantasy also includes simmering class tensions, mental illness, and a young woman who may or may not have been murdered.

At the book’s center, Max Durant, a professor and renowned painter whose best work is behind him, acts as mentor—and aspiring lover—to Audra Colfax, an MFA student as inscrutable as she is gifted. When Audra takes Max to her house in the wilds of Maine, prey becomes predator as Audra’s motivations, revealed in a split timeline, become clear. Lattari uses Audra’s MFA thesis as a narrative device while exploring themes of control, authenticity, and exploitation among artists.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue