The Book News We Covered This Week

Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are the stories we covered ourselves on Book Riot this week.

• Here Are The 2025 L.A. Times Book Prizes Winners
• The Bestselling Books of the Week, According to All the Lists
• The Most Read Books on Goodreads This Week
• Utah Bans Four More Books, Bringing Total to 32

Utah passed one of the strictest bills related to books in public schools in 2024. House Bill 29  (HB 29) allows parents to challenge books they deem “sensitive material” and it also outright bans books from all public schools in the state if those books have been deemed “objective sensitive material” or “pornographic” per state code in at least three public school districts or two public school districts and five charter schools statewide. The bill went into effect July 1, 2024, and it started with 13 titles on it.

• The 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist Has Been Announced
• Veronica Roth Announces New Books Set in the World of DIVERGENT. Sort of.
• These Were The Most Challenged Books in the US Last Year, According to the American Library Association
• THE HOUSEMAID Author Freida McFadden Shares Her Real Identity

And for All Access members, here are all the interesting links we bookmarked that didn’t make the cut for full Today in Books coverage.