Six thriller titles for "Reacher" fans

Dhruv Sharma is a Lead Writer in Screen Rant's New TV division.

He tagged six "standalone crime thriller novels and book series from the genre [that] are as good as Jack Reacher, if not better." One entry on the list:

Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz

The Orphan X book series focuses on a former black-ops assassin, Evan Smoak, who uses his military experience and lethal skills to protect desperate people. Similar to Jack Reacher, Smoak operates as a highly capable lone operator who steps into dangerous situations where conventional law enforcement can’t effectively intervene.

However, what makes his endeavors even more immersive is the realism with which Hurwitz captures his high-tech prep and tactical logic in each mission. Interestingly, a TV adaptation of the Orphan X book series is also currently in the works. If executed well, the upcoming show could be as good as Prime Video's Reacher.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Orphan X series is among Brittany Bunzey's top ten cat-and-mouse thrillers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine feminist myth and fairytale retellings

Tanaz Bhathena is an award-winning Zoroastrian author of contemporary and fantasy fiction. Her young adult books include Hunted by the Sky, which won the White Pine Award and the Bapsi Sidhwa Literary Prize, and The Beauty of the Moment, which won the Nautilus Gold Award for Young Adult Fiction. Her acclaimed debut, A Girl Like That, was named a Best Book of the Year by numerous outlets including The Globe and Mail, Seventeen, and The Times of India. Her debut adult fantasy, Witch Daughter, will be published in fall 2026 by Grand Central.

At Lit Hub Bhathena tagged nine feminist myth and fairytale retellings to read after watching Christopher Nolan’s big screen adaptation of The Odyssey. One title on the list:

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Palace of Illusions

When it comes to retellings of Indian mythology, nothing for me has quite compared to this novel by Divakaruni. Set during the time of the great epic, the Mahabharata, the book focuses on Panchali (or Draupadi), a princess who marries five brothers, each embodying one of the five qualities she was looking for in a husband. Panchali is not without her flaws and rejects a worthy suitor simply because of the caste he was born into. That Divakaruni is able to make her protagonist sympathetic and showcase all her shades of gray talks to her remarkable skill as a writer.

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Palace of Illusions is among Zen Cho's six SFF books about gods and pantheons.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven books that books center the intimacy of our platonic bonds

Rebecca Chace is the author of five books: Talking to the Wolf (novel), Leaving Rock Harbor (novel), Capture the Flag (novel), Chautauqua Summer (memoir), and June Sparrow and the Million Dollar Penny (children's book). Her third play, Obit, will premiere in September 2026 at Theater for the New City (NYC). A regular contributor to The New York Times, her nonfiction essays have appeared in The Yale Review, New England Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and other publications. Her fellowships include Civitella Ranieri, MacDowell, Yaddo, Dora Maar House, American Academy of Rome (Visiting Artist), among others. She is a Faculty Associate at Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking.

At Electric Lit Chace tagged seven books that "explore the complicated, private heartbreak of losing a friend." One title on the list:

Ponti by Sharlene Teo

This novel is haunted by a glamorous mother who became a B-movie horror film star. What a great premise! The story is told from three points of view: the mother, her insecure, adolescent daughter, Szu—a social outcast at her school in Singapore—and Circe, the classmate who appears to be a fellow outcast despite her wealth and beauty. Szu’s distant, cruel mother and her Auntie now scrape by as mediums (though their psychic gifts are questionable, according to Szu). Circe becomes Szu’s “best friend” for better and worse. The novel has a gothic horror sensibility that echoes the campy film that made Szu’s mother famous, but the teenage friendship, with its complex cocktail of loyalty and betrayal, is utterly real.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top literary titles by Southern writers

Suzanne Van Atten is a columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

She tagged five "summer novels more substantive than your typical beach read," including:

How to Date a Fanatic by Aruni Kashyap

Rohit is a professor at Delhi University in modern-day India who lives in a bubble of like-minded queer academics in this new novel by Aruni Kashyap, an associate professor at the University of Georgia and director of the creative writing program. Obsessed by an unrequited love, Rohit seeks solace in relationships with other men. Meanwhile, religious and ethnic unrest mounts, to which Rohit remains oblivious until the growing movement of conservative extremism threatens his insulated world.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

The best science fiction titles of the century

The experts at Book Riot tagged the best science fiction books of the century (so far). One title on the list:

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

This has been a comfort read since I first read it almost 20 years ago. A story of two childhood friends who eventually took different paths: one went to school for witchcraft while the other pursued science. They are forever bound together by fate and the mysterious man who has followed them for years. They grow up, they make mistakes, they gain knowledge, and once again cross paths as adults in warring factions who find themselves fighting to save the world from destruction. I’ve always loved tales of science vs. magic and this is my favorite. Full disclosure: I’m friends with the author but read this long before we became friends.
- Patricia Elzie-Tuttle

Read about the other books on the list.

All The Birds in The Sky is among Akemi C. Brodsky's top ten novels about mad scientists, Jeff Somers's fifty science fiction essentials written by women, Nancy Kress's five best books with ambitious birds, and Laura Lam's five top books about futuristic California.

My Book, The Movie: All the Birds in the Sky.

--Marshal Zeringue

Karin Slaughter’s favorite dark and twisty books

Karin Slaughter is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty-five novels, including the Edgar nominated Cop Town and standalone novels Pretty Girls and False Witness. An international bestseller, Slaughter is published in 120 countries with more than 40 million copies sold across the globe. Pieces of Her, based on her novel, debuted at #1 worldwide on Netflix as an original series in 2022. Her bestselling thriller series, Will Trent, is now a television and streaming sensation in its 4th season. The Good Daughter will soon be a limited series starring Rose Byrne and Meghann Fahy, and further projects are currently in development for film/TV.

Slaughter's newest novel is The Secrets We Hide.

At Oprah Daily she tagged the seven thrillers she considers essential reading. One title on the list:

King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby

The latest book from the award-winning crime writer is a Southern Noir family saga—two genres I am pulled towards in my own writing—with The Godfather vibes. King of Ashes follows Roman Carruthers, a charming and complicated Atlanta businessman, who returns to his oppressively small hometown to care for his ailing father. From the moment Roman returns to Virginia, things begin to unravel. His siblings are both a mess. The family business is falling apart. And there is an outsized debt that must be paid. This book is high-stakes from the very first pages. It’s dark, gritty, emotionally charged, and has incredible twists that all hinge on what people will do, or won’t do, to protect their family secrets. If this one doesn’t keep your heart pounding, then you might want to make sure that you still have a pulse.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top messy love stories

Alicia Upano was born and raised in Hawai‘i. She is the recipient of the Poets & Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award Hawai‘i, the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, and a Bread Loaf-Rona Jaffe Scholarship. Her short fiction has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, The Southern Review, The Best Peace Fiction: A Social Justice Anthology, and more. After living in Asia and both U.S. continental coasts, she now resides on O‘ahu with her family.

Upano's debut novel is Everything to the Sea.

At Lit Hub the author tagged seven books that are "interested in romantic love as a process of transformation, not a terminus." One title on the list:

Mohsin Hamid, Exit West

This slim book is magical. Love blooms between Saeed and Nadia as civil war breaks out in their unnamed city. The stakes could not be higher, as Hamid writes as the novel opens, “[O]ne moment we are pottering about our errands as usual and the next we are dying.” In such a landscape, what are young lovers to do?

Exit West explores the tension between duty and independence, desire and convention, and how to move forward when the present is untenable. Our young lovers must leave their families and country, fleeing through the first of many doors as refugees. This novel highlights the refugee crisis, with sharp interstitials of global violence, while also grappling with the questions of any relationship that is no longer new: How do we change through every door we pass through? Have we passed through so many doors that we are no longer the people we were? Can we continue this journey together? And will you remember me, no matter how this journey ends?

Read about the other entries on the list.

Exit West is among Andrew Forrester's ten love stories for the romance reluctant, Forbes's thirty greatest dystopian books of all time, Ore Agbaje-Williams's seven top books featuring very complicated friendships, Gian Sardar's eight of the best novels about war-torn love, C Pam Zhang's top ten novels about moving and Helen Phillips's six notable novels involving alternate realities.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine top Southern Gothic novels

Lo Patrick is a former lawyer and current novelist living in the suburbs of Atlanta.

Her debut, The Floating Girls, earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly, was a finalist for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, and was a Reader's Digest Editor's Pick.

Patrick's newest novel is The Sins of Summer Daughters.

At People magazine the author tagged nine must-read Southern Gothic novels. One title on the list:

Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell

Nobody writes the hard edge of the South better, or poverty and isolation. Winter’s Bone is also an excellent example of the often warped trajectory of adolescence in some rural communities. Kids are asked to take on adult responsibilities, leaning on years of dysfunction as their preparation.

Read about the other novels on the list.

Winter's Bone is among Louisa Luna's four difficult women characters worth celebrating, Carl Vonderau's nine greatest moral compromises in crime fiction, Adam Sternbergh's six top crime novels that double as great literature and Lauren Passell's ten must-read books that take place in the Midwest.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eight fantastic short SFF books

At Book Riot Liberty Hardy tagged “eight slim science fiction and fantasy novels you can read in one sitting." One entry on the list:

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark

This is an exciting dark fantasy about assassins and honor. Eveen the Eviscerator is a professional killer who skillfully carries out every job she is assigned. But when one job turns out to hit a little too close to home, she fails to complete it. Now she’s running from the people she used to work with, while trying to make sense of everything. (FYI, there are no dead cats in this book. They just liked the name.)

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top mysteries set in lavish fictional manors

Louise Candlish is the internationally bestselling author of The Other Passenger and Our House, winner of the British Book Awards Crime & Thriller of the Year and adapted for TV as a limited series starring Martin Compston and Tuppence Middleton. She is the winner of a Ned Kelly Award for International Crime Fiction in Australia and is a three-time nominee for the prestigious Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award in the UK.

Candlish's new novel is A Neighbor's Guide to Murder.

At CrimeReads the author tagged five favorite mysteries set in grand, intricate residences. One title on the list:

Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby

‘Old, black and elephantine’, the Bramford is a Gothic building in New York City with a history of witchcraft and murder. Not much, then, to deter Rosemary and Guy from snapping up the lease for Apartment 7E when it becomes unexpectedly available. Soon Guy has fallen under the influence of elderly neighbors the Castevets, while a pregnant Rosemary finds herself increasingly isolated and menaced.

I think most of us know what it is that makes her baby so infamous, but what are the clues that the building itself harbours satanic vibes? Well, the elevator is oak-paneled, the hallways dimly lit, the previous occupant dead—to name but three.

The Bramford was famously modeled on the Dakota, the Upper West Side icon now best known for being the scene of John Lennon’s murder in 1980. In Polanski’s classic adaptation of the novel starring Mia Farrow, the Dakota provides the exterior shots, cementing forevermore the connection between the real and the imagined.

Read about the other entries on the list at CrimeReads.

Rosemary's Baby is among Anna Barrington's six top social thrillers that will make you wonder who you can trust, Chin-Sun Lee's five best gothic novels about distressed women, Lisa Unger's five top horror novels that explore the darkest corners of our minds, Alice Blanchard's ten chilling thrillers to get you through a winter storm, Ania Ahlborn's ten scariest books of all time, Jeff Somers's twenty-one books that will give you an idea of how the horror genre has evolved and "twenty-five books that might not necessarily be the best horror novels, but are certainly the scariest," Christopher Shultz's top ten literary chillers, and Kat Rosenfield's top seven scary autumnal stories.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine splashy sea creature titles

Tessa Yang is a reader, writer, and shark enthusiast from New York State. She received her MFA from Indiana University where she served as the Editor of Indiana Review.

Yang's story collection, The Runaway Restaurant, was published by 7.13 Books in 2022. Her stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Cincinnati Review, Foglifter, and elsewhere, and her flash fiction has been featured in Best Small Fictions 2024, Flash Fiction America, and Wigleaf's Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2018 and 2019.

Her debut novel is The Jellyfish Problem.

[Q&A with Tessa Yang]

At People magazine Yang tagged nine favorite sea creature books, including:

Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman

When he’s not making you laugh out loud, Beauman will disturb you with this novel’s near-future dystopia, in which mass species extinction has been fully monetized and an unlikely duo must search for the most intelligent fish on the planet: the Venomous Lumpsucker. Beauman’s world-building cleverly balances the probably hyperbolic and the eerily plausible. The result is an eco-thriller as unsettling as it is entertaining.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten books to help you understand America

NPR staff and critics tagged ten books to help you understand America as its 250th birthday. One title on the list:

We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution, by Jill Lepore

As the U.S. approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding, it feels like an appropriate time to reflect on where we're at as a country and how we got here. We the People, by Jill Lepore, a history and law professor at Harvard University, helps satisfy that impulse. It tells the story of the U.S. Constitution, which is among the world's oldest constitutions. Lepore focuses on battles over amendments, which were fought not just by politicians but by ordinary Americans. The founders designed the Constitution to be amended, but it has become much more difficult to do so over the years. As the Constitution becomes harder to amend, Lepore writes, the risk of political violence becomes greater.
— Milton Guevara, producer, Morning Edition and Up First

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles that feel like a movie

Marion Winik is the author of nine books, including The Big Book of the Dead (2019) and First Comes Love (1996; reissued with a new introduction in 2026). Her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and elsewhere; her column at BaltimoreFishbowl.com has been running since 2011.

[Coffee with a Canine: Marion Winik and Beau (December 2009); Coffee with a Canine: Marion Winik and Beau (June 2013); Writers Read: Marion Winik (June 2013)]

A professor at the University of Baltimore, she reviews books for The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, and People, among others, and hosts the NPR podcast The Weekly Reader. She was a commentator on All Things Considered for fifteen years. She is the recipient of the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Service Award.

At Oprah Daily Winik tagged seven books with fast-paced, visual storytelling, including:

She's Under Here by Karen Palmer

For a memoir that grabs you on page one and doesn't let go, pick up this chilling account of one woman's escape from domestic abuse. One day in 1989, the freshly minted “Karen Palmer” and her husband of about a week, “Vinnie,” packed up a carload of possessions, every cent they had, and Palmer’s two daughters, aged three and seven, and left California for what the author calls “do-it-yourself witness protection.” They were running from Palmer’s ex-husband, an older man she had been with since she was in high school. When she left the coercive, controlling relationship to pursue a romance with an old friend, her spouse turned violent and dangerous. Palmer's story combines the energy of a psychological thriller with the deep resonance of heartfelt personal truth, as she courageously considers the moral implications of her decision to disappear.

Read about the other entries on the list.

-Marshal Zeringue

Six titles that invert horror tropes

Michael J. Seidlinger is the Filipino-American author of On Submission, Anybody Home?, and other books. He has written for, among others, Wired, Buzzfeed, The Believer, and Publishers Weekly. He teaches at Portland State University and has led workshops at Catapult, Kettle Pond Writers’ Conference, and Sarah Lawrence.

Seidlinger's new novel is Brokeula.

At CrimeReads the author tagged six novels that spin horror tropes in interesting ways. One title on the list:

Carissa Orlando, The September House

If you happen to end up living in a haunted house, odds are you’re going to want to pick up roots post-haste and peace out. Not the case with Margaret, Carissa Orlando’s protagonist in her addictive and inventive redesign of the haunted house trope, The September House.

Even after her husband leaves, unable to deal with the paranormal activity, Margaret stays. She is not leaving. You cannot even imagine what she gets into, and it’s not just the usual “bump in the night.” The September House is as much fun as it is frightening, and a great spin on a touchstone trope.

Read about the other novels on Seidlinger's list at CrimeReads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top titles about fresh starts

Alex Luppens-Dale won the “Enthusiastic Reader Award” all four years of high school. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and received her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. Her favorite genres are memoir, witches, and anything with cults. She lives in New Jersey.

At Book Riot Luppens-Dale tagged seven "books in various genres that celebrate fresh starts and new lives in all of their forms." One title on the list:

Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum

Yeongju did everything she was supposed to do and is burnt out. She decides to do something different: quit her high-level career and open up a book shop. She and her community of staff members and customers find something very special in the community that forms there.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nine great books about survival at sea

Kathleen Rooney is the nationally bestselling author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, as well as Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey and From Dust to Stardust. She has won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from Poetry magazine and the Adam Morgan Literary Citizen Award from the Chicago Review of Books. Rooney’s criticism can be found in The New York Times, The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Brooklyn Rail, Chicago magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and beyond. She lives in Chicago with her spouse, the writer Martin Seay, and teaches English and creative writing at DePaul University.

Rooney's new novel is Man Overboard!.

[The Page 99 Test: Live Nude Girl; The Page 99 Test: For You, for You I Am Trilling These Songs; My Book, The Movie: For You, for You I Am Trilling These Songs; My Book, The Movie: Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk; The Page 69 Test: Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey; My Book, The Movie: Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey; Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (July 2022); The Page 69 Test: Where Are the Snows; Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (September 2022); The Page 69 Test: From Dust to Stardust; My Book, The Movie: From Dust to Stardust; Q&A with Kathleen Rooney; Writers Read: Kathleen Rooney (September 2023); The Page 69 Test: Man Overboard!]

At Lit Hub the author tagged nine great "accounts of people lost at sea, struggling to be found." One title on the list:

Outerbridge Reach by Robert Stone

Everybody read this thriller so we can all talk about it. Cool, dry, sexy, and philosophical, it tells the story of ex-Navy Vietnam War veteran Owen Browne’s courageous yet foolish attempt to win a highly publicized race by sailing solo around the world. It’s like if Joan Didion wrote manly adventure stories. Robert Stone said he based this, his fifth novel, loosely on the real-life businessman and amateur sailor Donald Crowhurst, but the genius of his fictional approach lies not only in the character of Browne, but also in those of Browne’s ambitious wife Anne and of Ron Strickland, the sleazy countercultural documentarian that Browne’s boat-manufacturer employer hires to make a film about the feat.

Dread hangs over this book like fog over the sea. In the end, the story is as much about how, if at all, a person can make meaning in a meaningless world as it is about trying not to drown: “Carefully, he examined his imagined positions on the chart. All the stories were embroidered, so it was said. Sailors privately ridiculed each other’s accounts. No one had ever brought the truth ashore. It was not to be had.”

Read about the other books on Rooney's list at Lit Hub.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sixteen historical fiction novels to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary

At People magazine Shyla Watson and Lizz Schumer tagged sixteen "historical novels transport readers to pivotal moments in the nation’s past ... and illuminate the many stories woven into America’s history." One title on the list:

The Harvey Girls by Juliette Fay

Two women train in the hospitality industry as “Harvey Girls,” or waitresses who serve in America’s first hospitality chain on the Santa Fe railroad in the 1920s American Southwest. Initially bound together by their shared dislike of one another, the roommates also each carry a secret that could end their employment.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles that blur the boundary between fact and fiction

Meg Charlton is a writer based in New York City. Her debut novel Voyagers is now out from Harper. Other work has appeared in The Yale Review, Slate, Lux, Atlas Obscura, and Vice, and the anthology Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us. Her writing has been supported by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and covered in Indiewire, Above the Law, and Australian National Radio's Future Tense. She holds an MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College and teaches at Sackett Street Writers.

At Electric Lit Charleton tagged seven books that "live in that borderland of uncertainty, peering over the edge of consensus reality into the irresolvable." One title on the list:

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell

Structured as a kind of cross-examination between a dying woman named Amanda and a young boy named David, Fever Dream retraces the events that led to Amanda’s mysterious illness. “Keep going, don’t forget the details,” David urges. But as the details accrete, the investigation grows only more unsettling and irresolvable. Why does David insist certain seemingly minor moments are essential while others are deemed irrelevant? Is David’s interrogation even real? Or is it all in Amanda’s head? And what, exactly, has poisoned David and Amanda both? Ultimately a horror story about parenting, Fever Dream is about the terror of trying to protect a child from the most frightening dangers of all: those you didn’t even know existed.

Read about the other entries on the list.

Fever Dream is among Stephanie Feldman's five scary novels that use setting to embody horror.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six epic fantasy romances

At Book Riot Megan Mabee tagged six "swoon-worthy stories [that] take place in different worlds, include immersive fantasy world-building and epic plots, while also promising a strong romance." One title on the list:

Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher

T. Kingfisher excels at building compelling fantasy worlds and interweaving romance within them. I also love how relatable Kingfisher’s characters are. They’re often awkward, average-looking, and trying their best rather than being beautiful and perfect protagonists. It’s one of my favorite things about her writing. After Stephen’s god dies, he lives as a paladin trying to find purpose again. When he saves a fugitive named Grace in an alley, the pair soon get caught up in a twisty assassination plot with a killer trailing behind them!

Read about the other novels on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six titles that make us question those closest to us

Lucy Ashe trained at The Royal Ballet School for eight years, first as a Junior Associate and then at White Lodge. She has a Diploma in Dance Teaching with the British Ballet Organisation. Her first two novels, The Dance of the Dolls and The Sleeping Beauties, were inspired by her years immersed in the world of classical dance.

Ashe's new novel is The Model Patient.

At CrimeReads the author tagged "six novels that reveal how terrifying it is to have one’s sense of reality systematically dismantled by the person we are supposed to love and trust." One title on the list:

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

In this gothic horror novel, Noemí Taboada travels to her newlywed cousin Catalina’s home in the mountains to help investigate her claims that her husband wants to poison her. When Noemí enters High Place, her intelligence and logic are weaponized against her and the Doyle family use medical claims about inherited mental stability and supernatural elements to make her question everything. The novel is part of a long tradition of gothic novels —Jane Eyre, The Mysteries of Udolpho, Rebecca—where a woman’s ability to trust her instincts begins to unravel. The isolation of the setting makes her particularly vulnerable in this beautifully written and deeply unsettling novel.

Read about the other entries on Ashe's list at CrimeReads.

Mexican Gothic is among C.J. Dotson's five novels featuring decaying settings and Samsun Knight's seven horror novels about mysticism.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six books that take you behind the scenes of Black Hollywood

Rasheed Newson is the author of the national bestseller My Government Means to Kill Me, which was selected as a Lambda Literary finalist for Gay Fiction and was named one of the “100 Notable Books of 2022” by The New York Times. He is also a television drama writer, producer, and showrunner. He codeveloped Bel-Air and worked on The Chi, Animal Kingdom, and Narcos, among other drama series. Newson is a 2025–26 American Library in Paris Visiting Fellow. He currently lives with his husband and their two children in Pasadena.

Newson's new novel is There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood.

At Oprah Daily he tagged six books "that brilliantly capture the balancing act required of Black stars in Hollywood and give non–Hollywood insiders a peek behind the velvet curtain at a world that creates alluring idols for the masses." One title on the list:

A More Perfect Party by Juanita Tolliver

Civil Rights–era stars like Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Sidney Poitier, and Diahann Carroll are often remembered for their public activism: marching, giving interviews, and speaking out on television when doing so came with real risk. But some of their most consequential work happened far from the cameras. They were strategists, connectors, and funders, using their fame to help turn moral urgency into political power.

In A More Perfect Party, MSNBC political analyst Juanita Tolliver offers a lively, behind-the-scenes look at one especially dazzling example: the 1972 fundraiser Carroll hosted in her home for Shirley Chisholm’s groundbreaking presidential campaign.

The guest list alone is worth the price of admission; it brought together strange bedfellows, including Black Panther Huey P. Newton, comedian Flip Wilson, and rising starlet Goldie Hawn on a shared mission: electing the first Black woman to the highest office in the land.

Tolliver makes a persuasive case that Chisholm and Carroll’s coalition-building playbook echoed far beyond that night, shaping the kind of grassroots fundraising and cross-cultural organizing later used by campaigns like Barack Obama’s. Chisholm may not have won the presidency, but she changed what political possibility looked like. And Carroll emerges as more than a glamorous star: She was a woman who understood the power of her Rolodex, her reputation, and her living room. Today’s celebrities should take notes.

Read about the other titles on Newson's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books on the American Revolution

Thomas S. Kidd serves as Research Professor of Church History at Midwestern and the John and Sharon Yeats Endowed Chair of Baptist Studies. Kidd completed a Ph.D. in history at the University of Notre Dame, where he worked with historian of religion George Marsden. He also earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees at Clemson University in South Carolina.

His books include Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh, Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father, American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism, and Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis.

[The Page 99 Test: American Christians and Islam]

He tagged "five excellent books that would be a great start on learning about the Revolution and American independence." One title on the list:

Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (1997).

A definitive history of the Declaration, its creation, and the way that Americans came to revere it as a quasi-sacred document.

Read about the other entries on Kidd's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven titles that explore the lives of wayward youth

Susan Wiggs is the author of more than fifty novels, including the beloved Lakeshore Chronicles series and the recent New York Times bestsellers The Lost and Found Bookshop, The Oysterville Sewing Circle, and Family Tree. Her award-winning books have been translated into two dozen languages. She lives with her husband on an island in Washington State’s Puget Sound.

Her newest novel is Wayward Girls.

At Lit Hub Wiggs tagged seven "books that offer a haunting, unsparing look at hidden histories and the enduring spirit of those who survived." One title on the list:

A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power

Spanning three generations of Dakhóta women and filled with the imagery of dolls, this is another profound story of the Indian residential school system. From the 19th century to the present, Power explores how the state sought to “kill the Indian, save the man” by stripping children of their culture and family ties. The sense of intergenerational trauma is palpable, as is the power of storytelling to shine a light on the human spirit.

Read about the other titles on Wiggs's list at Lit Hub.

--Marshal Zeringue

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