must reads

7 New Books You Should Read This October

Thomas Pynchon’s account of rising fascism, a millennial cheating novel, and a memoir from a James Beard winner.
must reads

7 New Books You Should Read This November

A queer thriller about ’70s Italian cinema, Salman Rushdie’s return to fiction, and an ambitious examination of sexual trauma.
book review

Is Immigration Really So Lonely?

Kiran Desai’s highly anticipated novel seems to think so, but it doesn’t quite cohere.
  1. she knew
    David Szalay Wins Booker Prize for FleshDua Lipa featured the novel in her book club last month.
  2. close read
    A New Jewish PlotlineIn the wake of Gaza, should Jewish American writers be tackling different stories?
  3. best of 2025
    The Best Books of 2025 (So Far)Including memoirs about sex — both having lots and going without.
  4. chapters
    15 Years Capturing Lightning in a BottleFrank Ockenfels 3, longtime David Bowie collaborator, shares eight unseen photographs of the music legend from his new book.
  5. vulture lists
    8 Great Audiobooks to Listen to This MonthWhat do Michael J. Fox and K-Fed have in common? Compelling audiobooks.
  6. you thought you knew
    7 Revealing Takeaways From Kevin Federline’s New MemoirOn Snoop Dogg, his partying, and, yes, when Britney Spears allegedly held a knife to their kids.
  7. america’s most hated
    Kevin Federline Wants to Be the HeroBritney Spears’s most infamous ex uses his new memoir to rebrand as a #BoyDad.
  8. book review
    Brandon Taylor’s Limited Notions of BlacknessHis Black characters treat whiteness as all-powerful but also blameless and beyond reproach.
  9. scary stories
    The 16 Best Horror Books of 2025 (So Far)From techno-terrors to rural cannibalism, angelic visitations to squirmy alien sex, there is a new novel for every spooky vibe.
  10. encounter
    Susan Orlean Knows She’s Had a Charmed CareerBut the longtime New Yorker writer doesn’t want to dwell on journalism’s bygone days.
  11. chat room
    ‘I’ve Overshared Already, and I’m Bored of It’In his upcoming memoir, I Wrote This for Attention, Lukas Gage finds a new way to go viral.
  12. spellcasting
    Harry Potter and the Next Generation of British CelebritiesThey’ve got John Lithgow’s Dumbledore casting an all-new spell: “Vamos a la playa!”
  13. book review
    Pynchon-heads, This One’s for UsShadow Ticket is about rising fascism. It’s his most urgent novel yet.
  14. lawsuits
    Judge Dismisses Sexual Assault Lawsuit Against Neil GaimanA federal judge in Wisconsin ruled that the accuser’s suit should be refiled in New Zealand.
  15. vulture lists
    73 Book-to-Screen Adaptations to Add to Your 2025 Reading ListGet kissed by the Spider Woman in theaters and on the page this October.
  16. take a look
    Reading Rainbow Is Back for a RereadMychal the Librarian takes over from LeVar Burton.
  17. chapters
    ‘I Look in the Camera. And I Hump My Ass Off.’Penn Badgley on the art of filming a sex scene for You.
  18. famous families
    Priscilla Presley Describes the Night Lisa Marie Died in MemoirThe press tour for Softly, As I Leave You rejects the dark lawsuit against the once-matriarch of the Presley family.
  19. book review
    Patricia Lockwood’s Pleasant Fever DreamWill There Be Ever Be Another You is a purposefully disorienting novel, studded with passages of extreme beauty.
  20. close read
    The Anxiety Plaguing Male Fiction WritersA recent batch of novels attempts to speak to the disaffected male reader, for better and for worse.
  21. books
    The National Book Foundation’s 2025 Fiction LonglistFeaturing two debut novels and one story collection.
  22. chapters
    ‘The Moment Everything Changed’9/11 set the course of American history and politics — it also irrevocably shaped a generation.
  23. fall preview 2025
    Hopecore, Bad Dads, and Moms Gone MadTen trends happening across pop culture this fall.
  24. fall preview 2025
    10 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This FallFrom Thomas Pynchon’s return to a few long-awaited memoirs.
  25. it was the ’80s
    Charlie Sheen’s Memoir Is Characteristically SleazyAll the stories about paid sex, tiger’s blood, and everything in between while he glosses over the most glaring allegations of wrongdoing.
  26. cooking the books
    The Worst Part of Tiny Bookshop Is Also the Most AccurateA new cozy management game is surprisingly close to the retail experience — for better and worse.
  27. chapters
    Axl Rose Stole My CoatZosia Mamet on her wayward years as a New York club kid.
  28. chapters
    How Composer John Williams Saved Home AloneThe Star Wars composer’s last-minute score gave gravitas to the now-classic comedy.
  29. must reads
    8 New Books You Should Read This SeptemberA Patricia Lockwood novel, an unsparing memoir from Arundhati Roy, and self-described “nepito baby” Zosia Mamet’s essay collection.
  30. book review
    A Rebel Writer’s First RevoltA memoir by Arundhati Roy chronicles her tumultuous relationship with her mother.
  31. tv specials
    Emma Heming Willis Says Bruce Willis ‘Is Still Very Much Here’She sat down with Diane Sawyer to discuss her husband’s life with frontotemporal dementia.
  32. today’s controversy
    Sally Rooney Is Only Guilty of Emotional TerrorismThe Irish novelist faces outlandish accusations of terrorism after writing in support of banned protest group Palestine Action.
  33. celebrity memoirs
    Kid Cudi Says His Relationship With Cassie ‘Bruised’ Diddy’s Ego“And that also made me feel good, because I was the underdog in the industry at that time,” he writes in his new memoir.
  34. extremely online
    Keith McNally Will Probably Post About ThisThe voracious Instagram poster has become a documentarian of New York in the 2020s — whether he likes it or not.
  35. book review
    Zero ToleranceFive years after the George Floyd protests, many liberals blame “wokeness” for stifling open debate. So why can’t they handle being disagreed with?
  36. must reads
    8 New Books You Should Read This AugustA new James Baldwin biography, a Chloé Caldwell memoir about trying to get pregnant, and a romance that might keep you up at night.
  37. celebrity authors
    Kamala Harris Is Booking ItHer memoir 107 Days will document her short-lived presidential run.
  38. books
    Fraught Female Friendship, But Make It QueerStephanie Wambugu’s Lonely Crowds explores the ambiguous space between friendship and romantic love.
  39. books
    The Juiciest, Goopiest Reveals From the Gwyneth Paltrow BiographyRemember when Winona Ryder and Gwyneth Paltrow were roommates?
  40. get gooped
    Gwyneth Paltrow Was Never NormalAmy Odell, author of Gwyneth: The Biography, on Paltrow’s relationship to Brad Pitt, Weinstein, Goop, and elitism.
  41. syllabus
    Decades of Weird Fantastic Four Comics Paved Their ‘First Steps’Solve everything — from Galactus to Dinosaur Doom — with this reading list.
  42. books
    George Saunders Is Publishing a New Novel Early Next YearVigil is about an oil-company CEO who’s traveling to the afterlife and answering for his misdeeds.
  43. memoirs
    Let’s Check In on Scheana Shay for OnceBefore Vanderpump Rules and before Brock cheated on her when she was pregnant, Scheana Shay was just a girl partying at Les Deux on a Wednesday night.
  44. chapters
    Ozzy Osbourne Always Had No FilterThe Osbournes changed reality TV thanks to that “swearing bloke on the telly.”
  45. beach read book club
    ‘You Need to Look Within, Babe’Our book club discusses the first section of Rob Franklin’s Great Black Hope.
  46. by the book
    How Ballard Mashes Up the Bosch UniverseThe first season of the Maggie Q–starring spinoff lands in a very different place than the books on which it’s based.
  47. vulture lists
    19 of Our Favorite Books of the Year Are Really Cheap Right NowAnd so is one Kindle.
  48. a long talk
    Parvati Shallow Is More Than a VillainIn her new memoir, Nice Girls Don’t Win, the reality-TV legend unpacks her turbulent history — and how she became a survivor.
  49. chapters
    ‘Are You Worried You’ll Look More Plus-Size?’America’s Next Top Model tried to give me an embarrassing new look, but I had never felt more like myself.
  50. close read
    Substack Is Where Writers Go to Be WeirdIt has become the premier destination for literary types’ unpublished musings.
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