We’re in the thick of our 15th anniversary celebrations at Book Riot and having a great time. We invite you to follow along on social (@BookRiot everywhere), subscribe to the Book Riot Podcast, and visit us at BookRiot.com for all of our 15th anniversary content.

We kicked things off last week with Part 1 of our look at the biggest literary controversies of the last 15 years.

But wait! There’s more! Today, we have a whole new batch of book world shakeups, including:

Settle in for this second serving of literary tea. —VD

On the most recent episode of The Book Riot podcast, we took the occasion of Book Riot’s 15th anniversary to look back at some of the stories from our podcast agenda: the same one we have been using since the beginning of the show. It’s now a 650+ Google doc, whose principal merit is that we have just kept using it, and as a side effect, have a bit of an archeological object for the internet age.

I fired up random.org to take us to 15 random pages from the agenda to see what we were talking about. Here are a few highlights, both banal and enduring:

You can listen to our full discussion here, though if you are interested in this sort of thing, you probably should just subscribe to the show.

Book Girl Summer is still stomping the runway. The fashion trend gained traction after Vogue crowned summer 2024 the season for literary looks. Most recently, high fashion put its nose in a book at Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève in Paris for Valentino Antibiblioteca.

“Antibiblioteca” might make you shudder, but the Maison Valentino show for their Spring/Summer 2027 collection was very pro-library, beginning with invitations that included a green library card asking guests to bring books for donation to local libraries.

Watch the show on the fashion house’s site, which includes this quote from Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb:

You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.

Books brought by guests included:

This isn’t Maison Valentino’s first foray into the world of books. The house previously sponsored the International Booker Prize 2024 ceremony.

Books have always been and will always be in fashion. – SZW

Feminine rage horror is, well, all the rage right now. These stories of women who are at their wits’ end with systemic injustice, societal expectations, and daily sexism give voice to real-life struggles. They also give readers an outlet for this frustration, allowing characters to lean into their rage, anger, and power while confronting these issues in bloody and satisfying ways.

The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim 

After her dad cheats on her mom and leaves the family behind for another woman, Ji-won’s mom starts dating a man named George. George’s bravado, wandering eye, and condescension toward Ji-won and her sister soon grate on Ji-won’s nerves. With pressure mounting in her freshman year of college and dreams of eyes haunting her nights, Ji-won’s irritation escalates until she has to do something about it.

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker 

Cora Zeng is still reeling from the death of her sister, which she witnessed when a stranger pushed her in front of an oncoming train right in front of Cora. Now, as a crime scene cleaner, she starts to notice a pattern in the scenes she is called to clean up. At the same time, Cora starts to see her sister’s ghost. This gory, haunting novel builds to a brutal end as Cora’s grief, work, and ghosts collide.

Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy

Middle-aged, quiet, and normal, Mary has been noticing changes lately, things like seeing visions and hearing things that she blames on menopause. After losing her job in New York City, she moves back to her hometown to regroup and care for her elderly aunt. But her symptoms get worse, including hallucinating when she looks in the mirror and writing strange phrases. As the hallucinations start to mirror a serial killer case from 50 years ago, Mary’s normal life becomes not quite so normal after all.

Even more recs are waiting for you here. —AC

Kindle Unlimited members get access to over 5 million titles every month. Here are five titles to kickstart your October reading, from cozy romance and mystery to historical and horror reads. 

The Secret Book Society by Madeline Martin – a historical gothic mystery set in Victorian London about a forbidden book club

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark – The Ku Klux Klan’s reign of terror gets a supernatural twist in this dark fantasy novella 

Burn Down Master’s House by Clay Cane – Historical fiction focused on acts of rebellion and revolution, inspired by real stories of enslaved people

Impractical Magic by Emily Grimoire – A witch’s magic goes horribly wrong in this cozy, small-town second-chance romance 

Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne – A private guard and a powerful mage dream of opening a bookshop in this cozy fantasy + sapphic romance —VD

Natalie Baszile is the author of Queen Sugar and Friends and Family, which is out this week from Pamela Dorman Books. Below, she recommends three books celebrating complicated women.

When it comes to writing female characters, authors must often negotiate the tension between making them interesting and complicated and making them “relatable”—which to my mind is code for making them likable.

Female characters can be angry, but not too angry; they can be imperfect and flawed, but they can’t offend.

Back in 2013, Claire Messud spoke to this tension in her Publishers Weekly interview when asked about her character Nora in her novel The Woman Upstairs:

“If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t ‘is this a potential friend for me?’ but ‘is this character alive?'”

Here are three books whose authors celebrate complicated women. Readers might not care for every choice they make, but they can’t deny that they’ll come away from these books with a deeper appreciation for life’s delicious messiness.

This is an excerpt. Read Natalie Baszile’s full recommendations on Book Riot.

Did you know? Messud was about 50 pages into a manuscript for a new novel when 9/11 happened. She abandoned it shortly thereafter.

Celebrate Latine Heritage Month with these must-read books by Latine authors.

Audiobook walking groups are becoming a thing.

The fancy new Kindle‘s features have some folks feeling left out.

Costume recs based on your favorite mystery books.

The NHL’s ‘Hot For Hockey’ romance campaign is… something

Written by Vanessa Diaz, Jeff O’Neal, Sharifah Williams, and Addison Ciuchta. Thanks to Vanessa Diaz for copy editing.

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