Welcome to Today in Books, our round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more. Here are the biggest stories from the last week in books.
Barnes & Noble’s Best Books of 2024
B&N is out of the gate first among the major makers of annual (and semi-annual, and monthly, and, and, and) best books lists. This year, they’ve dialed back on the the more bespoke (precious?) categories from last year and gone back to familiar genres, though with a couple of notable wrinkles. First: “smart thinking books” becomes a category for the sort of non-fiction that encompasses productivity, idea-forward business books, and other kinds of books that are non-academic, but claim to help you understand the world, and yourself better. That long, fuzzy description shows that “smart thinking” is a good moniker.
Second, and this is a first as far as I can remember, there is a section for the best Spanish language books of the year. This is a) very cool and b) another manifestation of something I have been told by major publishers themselves–they want to get into the lives of more Spanish-speaking readers and also Latinx people who don’t speak/read Spanish. Trend to watch in 2025 and beyond.