Books

book review

The Romance of Being Unreadable

 In his debut novel, Ocean Vuong took pains to be illegible, then blamed the reader for reading. In his new book, he is finally ready to talk. By Andrea Long Chu
book review

Susan Choi Is Still Outlandishly Talented

 A father’s disappearance, and the black hole of uncertainty surrounding it, are the subject of her prickly new novel. By Sam Worley
must reads

8 New Books You Should Read This May

 A grumpy bookshop employee’s musings, an investigation of parenthood in the digital age, and an essential history of OpenAI. By Emma Alpern and Jasmine Vojdani
  1. spellcasting
    Harry Potter and the Next Generation of British CelebritiesHBO’s new Draco gets Johnny Flynn as his father, Lucius Malfoy.
    By Rebecca Alter
  2. remembrance
    How I’ll Remember Edmund WhiteBooks and boys and big dinners at home.
    By Christopher Bollen
  3. best of 2025
    The Best Books of 2025 (So Far)Including the millennial answer to bell hooks’s All About Love.
    By Vulture Editors
  4. vulture lists
    50 Book-to-Screen Adaptations to Add to Your 2025 Reading ListMike Flanagan is back with another Stephen King movie.
    By Emily Maskell
  5. must reads
    8 New Books You Should Read This JuneA family epic from a National Book Award winner, a gonzo account of Britney Spears’s unraveling, and an inner monologue of an obsessive snob.
    By Emma Alpern and Jasmine Vojdani
  7. vulture lists
    6 Great Audiobooks to Listen to This MonthIncluding a thriller this is as preposterous as it is genius.
    By Marshall Heyman
  8. coming soon
    The Sun Hasn’t Set on the Sunrise on the Reaping CastKieran Culkin will play a young Stanley Tucci in the Hunger Games mid-quel.
    By Bethy Squires
  9. summer preview 2025
    28 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This SummerWhether you want to make sense of reality or escape it — through climate fiction, searing memoirs, and tight thrillers.
    By Isle McElroy
  10. chapters
    Twilight Was Just What an Oversexualized Generation NeededIn its depictions of teenage desire, the series took a cue from chaste high-school movies of long ago.
    By Bruce Handy
  11. up next
    ACOTAR Book 6: Everything Sarah J. Maas Has Said So FarSarah J. Maas confirmed she’s been working on the next installment of A Court of Thorns and Roses.
    By Alejandra Gularte
  12. and the winner is…
    Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Finally Wins His First Pulitzer for PurposeAnd New York theater critic Sara Holdren is a finalist in Criticism.
    By Jason P. Frank
  13. graphic design is my passion
    What Kind of Ugly Should a Book Cover Be?The new Europa all-in-one edition of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet is the wrong kind of garish.
    By Fran Hoepfner
  14. a long talk
    ‘I’m Looking for Someone to Fight, Not Someone to Run Over With My Car’Andrea Long Chu on her new book, Authority; the so-called crisis of criticism; and how she chooses her subjects.
    By Arielle Angel
  15. the uptown girl
    Christie Brinkley Gave Billy Joel One Too Many ChancesIn her new memoir, the model recounts her ex-husband’s drunken outbursts, including a chaise longue thrown through patio doors.
    By Devon Ivie
  16. shameless
    ‘It’s Cynical, Manipulative, and Cruel’Booksellers are not happy about the tech giant’s decision to hold its big annual book sale during Independent Bookstore Day.
    By Emma Alpern
  17. coming soon
    Belly Faces the Battle of the BrothersOne final decision for the last season of The Summer I Turned Pretty.
    By Alejandra Gularte
  18. azkaban for all
    The Harry Potter TV Show Casting Is Getting MessyBook fans are spamming HBO’s socials begging the channel to recast Snape.
    By Fran Hoepfner
  19. careers
    Carol Leifer’s Many Comedy LivesShe wrote on SNL’s weirdest season, dozens of Seinfeld episodes, and the Conan-hosted Oscars. She’s got stories.
    By Andy Hoglund
  20. books
    There Is No Safe WordHow the best-selling fantasy author Neil Gaiman hid the darkest parts of himself for decades.
    By Lila Shapiro
  21. well read
    McNally Jackson Is Starting a Book FestivalThe city’s big little indie-bookstore chain is betting on the idea that readers want something more than the standard launch party.
    By Emma Alpern
  22. chapters
    “It Feels Like We’re Lost in the East Village and Can’t Find a Way Out”Jeffrey Seller, co-producer of ‘Rent,’ on Jonathan Larson and his show’s bumpy road to success.
    By Jeffrey Seller
  23. say it ain’t so
    Weezer Bassist’s Wife Shot by Police, Arrested for Attempted MurderJillian Lauren is “all right,” her husband said — and so is his band’s Coachella set.
    By Justin Curto
  24. endings
    What Sunrise on the Reaping Means for the World of the Hunger GamesSpoiler warning for just about every book in the series.
    By Ashley Wolfgang
  25. book review
    Katie Kitamura Gets Too AbstractAudition’s lack of novelistic detail is both a strength and a weakness.
    By Emma Alpern
  26. books
    The National Book Foundation’s New ‘5 Under 35’ Is HereFrom a heady tale of non-monogamy to a haunted voice assistant, this year’s nominees confront a changing world.
    By Emma Alpern
  27. beast mode
    MrBeast Starts a New Chapter As a James Patterson Co-AuthorTheir joint thriller novel is reportedly already at the center of an eight-figure bidding war.
    By Jennifer Zhan
  28. we tell ourselves stories
    A First Look Into the Joan Didion ArchivesHer papers and John Gregory Dunne’s open to researchers at the New York Public Library today.
    By Christopher Bonanos
  29. chat room
    Mike Campbell Doesn’t Know How He Got So LuckyThe Heartbreaker on his unspoken bond with Tom Petty, “sideman syndrome,” and Bob Dylan being jealous of “The Boys of Summer.”
    By Devon Ivie
  30. chat room
    Bob the Drag Queen Doesn’t Play About Harriet TubmanHis debut novel imagines the abolitionist as a modern hip-hop artist, and he’s already writing a stage adaptation with a dream cast in mind.
    By Jennifer Zhan
  31. encounter
    Can Simon & Schuster Become the A24 of Books?The imprint’s new publisher is betting on it.
    By Cat Zhang
  32. let me in your window
    This Is Not the First Miscast Wuthering HeightsMargot Robbie doesn’t look like Cathy Linton — but neither do most Cathy Lintons.
    By Fran Hoepfner
  33. backstories
    The Gag Order That Birthed a BestsellerBehind the making of Careless People, the Facebook tell-all that its publisher insists is “not a book of news.”
    By Madeline Leung Coleman
  34. diet pepsi by addison rae
    How Did Colleen Hoover Get Here?Breaking down the romance author’s success and stagnation.
    By Fran Hoepfner
  35. a long talk
    Michelle Zauner’s Success Nearly Destroyed HerAnd then the Crying in H Mart film fell apart. But she’s changing her fortune with a new Japanese Breakfast album.
    By Delia Cai
  36. double trouble boil bubble etc.
    Now These Two Are Fighting?The rapper and author go head-to-head on X.
    By Fran Hoepfner
  37. book review
    The Gay Dirtbag Lives OnKristen Arnett’s specialty is queer women in Florida who are Going Through Some Stuff.
    By Sam Worley
  38. books
    Torrey Peters Speaks LumberjackThe Stag Dance author on exploring transness as a feeling through logger slang. “I was like, I just want to write these weird words.”
    By Andrea Long Chu
  39. metafiction vibes
    “It’s Pretty Human, But It’s Still Bad.”Analyzing OpenAI’s ‘metafictional literary short story’ with an open-minded English professor.
    By Emma Alpern
  40. books
    Cynthia Ozick Is UndiminishedNearing 97, she’s universally praised, freshly republished, and (maybe even) more widely read than ever. She’s also a world-class emailer.
    By Linda Hall
  41. cheat sheet
    Say ‘I Do’ to the Divorce MemoirEveryone’s writing about the end of their marriage, for better or worse.
    By Emma Alpern
  42. book review
    Transness Gets Metaphorical in Torrey Peters’s Stag DanceShe examines the messy underbelly of DIY trans culture, diving into the cringier aspects of queer growing pains.
    By Grace Byron
  43. backstories
    Toni Morrison’s Lost PlayWhy did the novelist’s only staged drama disappear for so long?
    By Elon Green
  44. book review
    The Minority Report Gets a Trump-Era UpdateLaila Lalami’s The Dream Hotel is an alarming dystopian approximation of what we might be headed toward.
    By Sam Worley
  45. book review
    Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Frustrating ReturnHer new novel Dream Count suffers from the retrograde gender politics and bad writing that has defined her career of late.
    By Sanjena Sathian
  46. neighborhood news
    ‘So You All Got the Email …’At the launch for Susan Morrison’s Lorne after a reply-all blizzard.
    By Paula Aceves
  47. jang-jang-jang-jang
    The Monkey Saves the Stephen King Adaptation by Skewering ItThe closer you look at The Monkey, the more you can see its deliberate subversions of the tropes that have come to define the Stephen King movie.
    By Louis Peitzman
  48. julianne ‘the resistance’ moore
    Why Is the Pentagon So Scared of Julianne Moore?Book-ban insanity comes for Freckleface Strawberry.
    By Rebecca Alter
  49. done
    A Court of Thorns and Roses TV Series Doesn’t Survive Valentine’s DayA rose by any other name still dies in development hell.
    By Alejandra Gularte
  50. coming soon ;)
    Miranda July and STARZ Go Public With Their RelationshipThe All Fours author says the network “really digs into the reality of who women are and what we want.”
    By Fran Hoepfner
  51. testimonies
    Salman Rushdie Relived His Stabbing Attack in Court Testimony“It occurred to me that I was dying,” the author recalled.
    By Jennifer Zhan
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