The Best Books of 2026 So Far, According to Amazon

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are the biggest headlines from last week, from Amazon’s picks for the best books of 2026 so far to the winners of this year’s Nebula awards, and more.

Amazon’s List of the Best Books of the Year So Far

I want to say that Amazon’s list of the best books of the year so far  is robust because it is, in a way. There’s an overall roundup of the top 20 books of all genres, then expanded lists of different genres, like Biographies & Memoirs, Children’s Books, Literature & Fiction, Romantasy, and more. This year, they’ve also added a Book Club section.

What’s holding me back from fully calling this list extensive is its glaring lack of diversity. Within the top 20 overall list, there are only two lists by authors of color— Kin by Tayari Jones and Night Objects by Eli Raphael—and the expanded lists by genre don’t seem to do too much better. Just wild to think of in 2026. As an aside, I see Jones’s Kin as being named The Book of the Year for quite a few lists.

What the Most Popular Book Clubs Are Reading Right Now

Book clubs are really in their bag right now, and I can’t complain. There are general ones, niche ones, famous ones, and small ones, and Jamie Canaves has all the tea on what some of the biggest book clubs are reading this month. The selections are a decent mix of new, 2026 It Books (like  John of John by Douglas Stuart, which was selected by Roxane Gay’s book club) and backlist titles (like The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong, selected by book influencer Jack Edwards’ book club, Inklings).

The Winners of the 61st Nebula Awards Have Been Announced

This year’s Nebula Awards got a little extra something with their introduction of two award categories: Poem and Comic. I have to admit that I am a little surprised that the Comic category has just now been added, especially considering the plethora of amazing science fiction and fantasy comics that come out yearly. With that said, the Poem category is pleasantly unexpected.

As for the winners, one of my favorite books from last year—Stephen Graham Jones’s  The Buffalo Hunter Hunter—won the Nebula Award for Novel. For the Award for Novella, I’m not surprised to see Amal El-Mohtar’s The River Has Roots as the winner. I haven’t read it, but I read  This Is How You Lose the Time War, which I loved. It even had a viral moment on  Twitter. Good times.

House Lawmakers Vote to Have the Power to Appoint the Librarian of Congress

In the latest piece of America fighting for its ever-living soul news (because that’s exactly what a second Trump term demands), House lawmakers passed a bill just yesterday that prevents the president from appointing the Librarian of Congress. This comes a year after Trump fired  the person holding that position, the trailblazing Dr. Carla Hayden. The bill is now heading to the Senate, where it needs significant bipartisan support to make it. If the Senate votes for it, it’ll mean that House and Senate leaders will have the power to appoint the heads of the Library of Congress and the Government Publishing Office.

The Staffers at People Magazine Share Their Favorite Queer Books

And  the list is pretty solid. There’s the National Book Award-winning experimental Blackouts by Justin Torres, the Nigeria-set Necessary Fiction  by Eloghosa Osunde, the vampiric Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil  by V. E. Schwab, and more. The list has both introduced me to books I need to become more acquainted with (the music-filled The Maidenheads by Benny B. Peterson, for example) and reminded me of some that I’ve been meaning to get to (like YA horror  You Weren’t Meant to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White and  All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews).