Give it up for the best coast. More than 194 library systems from Washington, Oregon, and California have combined their powers to create One Book, One Coast, "a shared community reading program that celebrates literacy, learning, community, and civil discourse."

• The book: They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, a graphic memoir about the actor, author, and activist’s childhood experience in an American concentration camp during World War II.

Anyone can join.

• Physical copies of the book are available from all participating locations.
• Unlimited ebooks in both English and Spanish will be available in the Libby app from April 1 to June 6.
• Check your local library for activities and programs inspired by the book.
• Turn up for an author talk from Takei at the East Los Angeles Library on June 6 (register here), or tune in for the livestream (link active May 31).

Why this book? One Book, One Coast sums it up: "Confronting questions of patriotism, family, loyalty, and community, George’s work is a stunning examination of what it means to be American, both long ago and today."

East coast, you’re up next. - RJS

Two big names are back this week.

It’s been a decade since Karan Mahajan’s The Association of Small Bombs swept best-of lists and made the National Book Awards shortlist. The Complex, a high-voltage novel that moves between the U.S. and contemporary India to chart the shenanigans of a powerful Delhi family, promises to be just as big in every sense of the word. Will this be the Age of Vice readalike we’ve been waiting for?

T. Kira Madden, whose 2019 memoir Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls was one of the year’s biggest hits, makes her fiction debut with a literary thriller about three women connected by the death of one man. We’re in a golden age of elevated genre, and this has the potential to be the next God of the Woods.

Additional highlights:

• Shut Up and Read by Jeannine A. Cook: The true story of how Harriet Tubman inspired a Philadelphia writer to open a beloved independent bookstore.
• Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall: What does "Gideon the Ninth meets Moby-Dick" even mean? No idea, but we’re gonna have fun finding out.
• Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! by Liza Minnelli: An EGOT-winning icon tells her own story

📘 Bust your TBR with more new releases. - RJS

Killing Eve meets Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

The Fox and the Devil by Kiersten White is an electrifying gothic fantasy from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lucy Undying.

A vampire hunter’s daughter tracks the immortal woman she believes responsible for her father’s death and a trail of murders that follow her everywhere. She doesn’t expect to find something human still beating in that undead body. Something that beats for her alone.

Don’t miss this sapphic serial killer romance wrapped in supernatural mystery from "horror’s most versatile author" (Jennifer Thorne).

If there were an Oscar for Best-Known Movie Based on the Least-Known Book, One Battle After Another would surely take home this year’s trophy.

The Best Picture contender and Best Adapted Screenplay frontrunner is less of an adaptation than it is a translation of Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland. Aging revolutionaries, fascist surveillance, and existential exhaustion abound in both, but Pynchon’s novel is a lot weirder and more absurd than Paul Thomas Anderson’s film (which is really saying something).

What do you do when you can’t win, but you won’t count yourself out? As Jeff puts it in our conversation about Vineland: go into the woods, smoke some weed, and wait them out. Learn more on Zero to Well-Read.

You know what’s better than a book roundup? A roundup of book list roundups. Here are a bunch of lists of what other people and publications are recommending this month:

• 27 Books Coming in March [The New York Times]
• 12 Noteworthy Debuts to Read in March [Debutiful]
• What to Read This March [BookTrib]
• The Best Books of March 2026 [Barnes & Noble]
• 20 Best Books to Read in March [Kirkus]
• Best Books of March [People]
• Books We’re Reading and Loving This March [Globe & Mail]
• 10 New Books You Should Read in March [Time]
• The Most Popular Books Published in March 2026 [Goodreads]
• Best Books of March 2026 [Amazon]
• Our Most Anticipated Books of March 2026 [Book Culture]
• 8 New Books to Read in March [Vulture]

For readers who like their fantasy ruthless and their romance complicated.

At Bloodwing Academy, power isn’t given. It’s taken...and it always costs something. In The Wings That Bind , Briar Boleyn returns to the brutal world where survival is never guaranteed and every advancement demands sacrifice. But the stakes have shifted: the characters are no longer just trying to endure the academy; they’re being forged into weapons in a much larger political game.

This is morally gray storytelling at its sharpest. Alliances crack under pressure, love is as dangerous as any spell, and every bond formed has the potential to become a chain.

Book Riot All Access members get a pile of benefits, including unlimited reading on bookriot.com, recommendations for the Read Harder Challenge, and access to our New Release Index to curate your TBR. Here are a few recent highlights:

• 💕 The 13 Most Anticipated Romantasy Books Out in 2026
• 🔍 A Reader’s Guide to Freida McFadden
• 📚 Read Harder With These New Books Out in March
• ❤️ 5 Romance Books That Subvert Common Tropes
• 🎬 11 Criminally Good Adaptations To Travel the World With
• 📖 Black Horror Novels Coming Out in 2026

🔓  Unlock access  for just $6/month.

Mark Oppenheimer is the author of Judy Blume: A Life, out now from G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

As a bookish boy growing up in the 1980s, I read Judy Blume over and over again—sure, her characters were mostly girls, but her topics were universal: adolescence, crushes, bullying, sibling rivalry. So, when she asked me five years ago to write her biography, it was the great thrill of my life (and the answer was an easy yes).

I think all readers of Judy Blume: A Life will have their own favorite parts, but here are five of my favorite surprises from the book:

• Writing books was not her first choice as an artistic career—she had first tried songwriting and making art out of felt.
• She met her second husband on an airplane (while still married to her first husband).
• As a girl, she really did the bust-increasing exercise that she made famous in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
• The turtle-swallowing episode in Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing was based on the true story of a two-year-old Utah boy named Brad Haines (who must still be alive, but I can’t find him!).
• She once turned down an offer from composer Robert Lopez to write a musical based on Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great—and he would go on to write Frozen.

Get your next three audiobooks completely free from  Audiobooks.com.

Choose from over 500,000 titles, like the book behind the newest sizzling season of Bridgerton: Julia Quinn’s An Offer from a Gentleman. Claim your three free audiobooks and start your free 30-day  Audiobooks.com trial today! 

Did you know? Douglas Adams once hiked Mount Kilimanjaro in a rhinoceros costume. (It was for a "Save the Rhino" fundraiser. Not the result of an improbability drive.)

💅 Class up your Kindle with a customizable case.**

🧹 Spring clean your books.

🐦‍⬛ Touch grass and read these 6 essential books about birds.

🍿 Don’t miss major casting news about Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

✍️ Study up with these nonfiction books about resistance.