Welcome to The Best of Book Riot, our daily round-up of what’s on offer across our site, newsletters, podcasts, and social channels. Not everything is for everyone, but there is something for everyone.
Audiobook listenership has skyrocketed. Last year, the industry reported its 11th year of double-digit percentage growth in sales and noted that 53% of adults had listened to an audiobook at some point. That was up from 45% only a year prior. Spotify reported that since introducing audiobooks to their Premium memberships, 25% had engaged with them.
It should come as little surprise that celebrating audiobooks is on the rise, too. Find below a range of fun bookish finds for audiobook lovers. They include mugs, stickers, shirts, and so many other ways to show off a love for and support of all things audiobook.
November is another stacked month, so of course I couldn’t pull all the new romance books I’m excited about into this list. I got it down to 15! As usual, we’re leaning pretty heavily into contemporary romances: we’ve got sports, we’ve got adventure, and of course, since it’s November, we’ve got some winter holiday goodness. We’ve also got a few time travel romances, with a balance between those set in the present and a couple of others set mostly in the past.
We’ve also got a bunch of new BIPOC romances to keep you warm.
Welcome to a new month filled with new mystery and thriller releases! I like to imagine November as the month that publishing puts out all the books that pair well with leftovers and pie — and maybe Halloween candy if you stocked up on the November 1st leftover Halloween candy sale. And, whether you’re a reader on the cozy side of the mystery spectrum or enjoy a crime novel, there is a brand new mystery or thriller publishing this month that is happy to join your TBR pile.
For task #23 of the 2024 Read Harder Challenge, “Read a ‘howdunit’ or ‘whydunit’ mystery,” we’re shining a spotlight on these other ways of telling a mystery. I’ve included mostly whydunit mysteries here, because howdunits are a little more common and easy to find: just search for locked room mysteries and you’ll get plenty more recommendations. I also want to give you permission to stretch the definition of “mystery” for this one: some might be closer to thrillers or even literary fiction, but the whydunit or howdunit focus keeps them within the bounds of this task.
Time travel stories come in many flavors, and these nine comics truly reflect the diversity of time travel storytelling. There are reality-defining tales from the big superhero publishers. There are stories that use time travel to highlight social justice issues. And there’s a story here that’s just trippy and psychedelic. And manga and Minecraft and…well, you get the idea. Whatever your preferred flavor of time travel story, there’s a comic here for you.
