In the last big awards season drop of 2025, the National Book Critics Circle has revealed the longlists for its annual awards, which will be announced in March.

Selected by more than 700 book review editors and critics around the U.S., the 10-title longlist for fiction has real range. Nobel Prize winner Han Kang gets a nod for We Do Not Part alongside Katie Kitamura’s Audition and Karen Russell’s The Antidote, which were both nominated for multiple other awards. The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy and Heart the Lover by Lily King, which appeared on many Best of 2025 lists, are also in contention.

The NBCC is the quirkiest of the major book awards and can be relied upon to highlight small press books and under-the-radar titles that will be new to many mainstream readers. Sea, Poison by Carin Beilin and Long Distance: Stories by Aysegül Savas are among this year’s surprising picks. - RJS

🏆 See the rest of the nominees here.

Hey hey, the gang’s all here. Book Riot’s editors joined us on this week’s Book Riot Podcast to recap their years in reading and share a few favorite picks each.

If you thought the NBCC list above contained multitudes, you ain’t seen (or heard) nothin’ yet. From masterfully restrained literary writing to juicy historical fiction to a novel about a woman who is sexually obsessed with airplanes (complimentary) to the year’s most influential nonfiction, the selections are exactly as fun and diverse as you expect a Book Riot list to be, and we had a terrific time making it.

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcatcher of choice.

A missing woman. A resurfaced killer. No time to waste.

When Jennie Killingbeck vanishes on her drive back to Albuquerque, Detective Alyssa Wyatt is determined to find her alive. But the case takes a terrifying turn when FBI Agent Ryker Newlin arrives with a warning: Jennie may be the next victim of the Sunset Slayer, a serial killer who targets red-haired women and leaves an “X” carved across their lips.

With a trail of unsolved murders stretching across state lines and the New Mexico desert closing in, Alyssa and Ryker must race to stop a killer before he strikes again. Set against a stark, unforgiving landscape, The Hunting Grounds blends procedural grit with emotional intensity, delivering relentless suspense and a shocking reveal fans of the Alyssa Wyatt series won’t see coming.

In a groundbreaking cross-organization collaboration, the American Library Association, Book Riot, Florida Freedom to Read Project, PEN America, and Texas Freedom to Read Project have come together to highlight trends in this year’s book censorship activity nationwide. Each group expresses deep concern over continued book bans and celebrates the successes brought by literary and library advocates on the ground. 

Among the trends highlighted in the group’s report are: 

• Deep undercounts of book bans by various organizations and acknowledgement as to why counting is imprecise and imperfect 

• Misuse of “weeding” in libraries to remove books deemed “inappropriate”

• The growing use of Artificial Intelligence to remove and restrict materials in public schools as a result of new state legislation 

• Policies and laws at the state and federal level facilitating widespread literary censorship

• Passage of several freedom to read laws at the state level, community-level wins in local school and library board races, and success in the judicial system

By coming together, these organizations have provided as wide and deep a lens into the book censorship landscape as possible. Read the full piece here. - KJ

Over at the Our Queerest Shelves newsletter , I’ve been combing through the “Best Books of 2025” lists to see which queer titles got the most attention this year. Here are the three winners—plus a couple of honorary mentions.

• On seven lists:  The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
• On six lists:  Baldwin:  A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs
• On five lists:  Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Honorable mentions: Stag Dance by Torrey Peters and  The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar both showed up on several mid-year “Best Books of 2025 So Far” lists, but didn’t make it onto the year-end lists. That’s their loss, because The River Has Roots is one of my favorite reads of the year! -DE

Ready to level up your reading life? Become a Book Riot All Access member and explore our full library of members-only content, including must-reads, deep dives, and full access to the Read Harder Challenge. For a limited time, the first 100 new All Access annual members get a FREE copy of Meet the Newmans by Jennifer Niven courtesy of Flatiron Books! The Newmans are the perfect 1960s American family— or at least, they play one on TV. With ratings plummeting and each family member hiding secrets, their final episode marks one last chance to make history. Sign up for an annual All Access subscription today!

Earlier this month, I rounded-up the words that had already been named “word of the year” by various outlets. I noted, though, that the big one was still to come: Merriam-Webster. And I also noted that I thought AI Slop should be the word of the year (even though I first saw it in wide circulation in 2024, Al slop really started slopping in earnest this year).

I was right. Almost. Because Merriam-Webster chose “slop” as its word of the year: 

“ Like slime, sludge, and muck, slop has the wet sound of something you don’t want to touch. Slop oozes into everything. The original sense of the word, in the 1700s, was “soft mud.” In the 1800s it came to mean “food waste” (as in “pig slop”), and then more generally, “rubbish” or “a product of little or no value.”

In 2025, amid all the talk about AI threats, slop set a tone that’s less fearful, more mocking. The word sends a little message to AI: when it comes to replacing human creativity, sometimes you don’t seem too superintelligent.”

- JO

Make your list, check it twice, and give your favorite audiobook lover a gift that’s nice. A few ideas to get you started:

• A spacious tote bag to proclaim your audiobooklove
• An enamel pin to accessorize your tote bag or jacket
• An adorable (audio)bookworm sticker for your phone, laptop, whatever
• The cutest headset cover
• Customized earbud cases

🎁 More recommendations...

We all know the feeling : your TBR pile is getting taller, your shelves are groaning, and your e-reader is looking a little... dated. Well, we’re here to help you out!

Book Riot has partnered with Severn House, publishers of unputdownable genre fiction, to bring you a chance to take home a brand new Kindle Paperwhite (16 GB)! Entering is easy! All you need to do is sign up for the Severn House newsletter.

If you are reading this newsletter, you already know and care about the tidal wave of book banning and censorship over the last few years. High profile court cases, state laws, local policies: these make headlines, but which specific books are most often targeted?

PEN began counting book bans in 2021, documenting more than 21,000 challenges to individual books in U.S. public schools. Their list of the 52 most challenged books, as opponents of these bans like me often point out, could serve as a really amazing reading list in public schools in its own right. 

Here are the top 5 most-banned books, according to PEN’s tracking, with some of PEN’s notes about the titles.

#1 with 147 bans: Looking for Alaska by John Green, which appears on TIME’s list of the 100 Best Young Adult Novels of All Time.

#2 with 142 bans: Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, which is included on the American Library Association’s Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners

#3 with 136 bans: Sold by Patricia McCormick, which was a finalist for the National Book Award

#4 with 135 bans: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, which American Library Association named the Best Book for Young Adults and the Best Book for Reluctant Readers

#5 with 128 bans: Crank by Ellen Hopkins, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller. 

📫 Sign up for the Literary Activism newsletter for news you can use and tips for fighting censorship.

🧴 Our editors love this hydrating cactus oil body cream.**

📚 Check out this year’s most popular books from the New York Public Library.

🍿 Build your queue of book-to-screen adaptations coming in 2026.

🤔 How much do you know about Jane Austen?

❓ Did you know you can ask questions inside Kindle books now?

_{**This is a product recommendation from the Book Riot team. When you buy through these links, we may earn a commission.}

Written by Rebecca Schinsky, Jeff O’Neal, Kelly Jensen, and Danika Ellis. Thanks to Vanessa Diaz for copy editing.

Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here.

_{Got a tip, question, comment, or story idea? Drop us a line: thenewsletter@bookriot.com.}