There are many books in the production offices of Judd Apatow — bookshelves full of books in rooms full of bookshelves. All sorts of books. Biographies, photo books, children's books, essays, stories. Has he read them? "So little," he says. "But as long you buy them, that's 90% of it. As long as I have a lot of books, I'm immortal — you can'...Read more

It’s dark outside, and teenager Casey Becker is home alone, making popcorn on the stove and preparing to pop a scary movie into the VCR while she waits for the arrival of her boyfriend, Steve.

The teen, portrayed by actress Drew Barrymore, picks up the phone and hears a deep, ominous voice on the other end.

It’s one of the most chilling ...Read more

A new expanded edition of Maia Kobabe's award-winning graphic memoir "Gender Queer" will be released next year.

Oni Press has announced that "Gender Queer: The Annotated Edition" will be available in May. The special hardcover edition of the seminal LGBTQ+ coming of age memoir includes commentary by Kobabe as well as other comic creators and ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Oct. 18, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "Remain: A ...Read more

Twenty-five years after "Almost Famous" put his origin story on movie screens, Cameron Crowe is thinking again about his roots as a teenage music journalist.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker's new memoir, "The Uncool," is a tender and insightful account of his adventures covering the likes of the Eagles, Led Zeppelin and Joni Mitchell for Rolling ...Read more

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald turned heads when she was launched in Detroit in 1958. The ship was longer and could carry more taconite than any other Great Lakes freighter, and it boasted plush quarters for the captain and sailors (carpeting! AC!), making it a sure bet to draw the best crew on the lakes.

So the 17-year-old vessel was already famous ...Read more

At just a hair more than 200 pages, “A Guardian and a Thief” manages superbly (and efficiently) to be many things: A beguilingly simple tale. A complicated morality play. A sensitive evocation of a time — the near future — and a place — Kolkata, India — during a period of flooding, drastic food shortages and heat like “a hand ...Read more

For years, the most beloved part of my personal library was my two-volume set of the Oxford English Dictionary (“the OED,” to word nerds everywhere). Poring over its tissue-thin pages, tracing a word’s etymology, scouring a follow-up entry then another and another, realizing hours later I’d fallen down a logophile’s rabbit hole. Bliss....Read more

First, you get stuck with a crappy mom. Then she lives to be 95. That’s nearly a century of terribleness.

In “Bad Bad Girl” author Gish Jen’s case, “terrible” doesn’t quite cover it. Her Chinese mother, who came to the United States in 1947, was mean, abusive, unapologetic and unchanging.

Still, as Jen says in an author’s note,...Read more

Can a cover doom a book?

I’d argue that’s what happens with “The Four Spent the Day Together.” It’s 304 pages long but the event that’s detailed on its back cover — three young people on the Iron Range murder an acquaintance while on a meth binge — does not happen until page 182. That incident also gives the book its title, and ...Read more

Add the tuba to the list of book subjects you probably thought you didn’t care about but that is suddenly compelling as heck.

We’ve had entire books about salt, the digestive system and the color mauve and every one of them was oddly riveting. So, too, is “The Perfect Tuba.” Author Sam Quinones, who was bummed out by the bleak reporting...Read more

Banned Books Week just ended, but the fight it highlights continues every other week of the year. This year’s theme was Censorship is So 1984: Read for Your Rights, invoking George Orwell’s famous novel to warn against the dangers of banning books.

It was a powerful rallying cry. But now that the week has ended, we need to face two ...Read more

Right now, I find reading horror cathartic. No matter how bad things get, at least my house isn’t haunted, an ancient entity hasn’t possessed my husband (as far as I know) and the penguins I’ve seen recently at the Minnesota Zoo didn’t peck out my eyes.

In his introduction to Ira Levin’s horror classic “Rosemary’s Baby,” Chuck ...Read more

It’s been four decades since John Grisham was a small-town Mississippi lawyer, but that experience continues to provide material for his bestselling novels.

That was true of his first, “A Time to Kill,” published in 1989, and it’s true of his latest, “The Widow,” which he’ll discuss at the Minnesota Star Tribune and MPR News’ ...Read more

NEW YORK — With her latest book, “The Look,” Michelle Obama is kicking off a live tour for a new podcast series in Brooklyn.

The former first lady, producer and bestselling author will be joined by actress Tracee Ellis Ross at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Nov. 5, the same day a special, six-part podcast series, “IMO: The Look,” ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Oct. 11, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "The Intruder"...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan is dipping his hands into the world of literature and is revisiting the small screen.

On Monday, Variety reported that the Shyamalan will direct "Magic 8 Ball," a live-action series based on the popular Mattel fortune-telling toy.

“Been working on this for a couple years … Who’s in?,” ...Read more

CHICAGO — “When I daydream,” Nick Offerman says, “it’s of having quiet moments with a cup of tea, sitting out by the birdfeeder and coming to know my neighborhood birds by name as they come to eat out of my hand.”

The fantasy, however, has yet to become a reality. “I’m moving too fast to do that right now.”

Offerman's newest ...Read more