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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
Word nerds agreed: the 2025 word of the year is “Slop.” While Merriam-Webster crowned “slop” as its word of the year in December, certified language lovers involved in the American Dialect Society (ADS) voted “slop” as their pick, too. “Slop isn’t a new word. It has moved from the pig sty, to the algorithm, and now forms new compounds such as sloppunk, slopification, and friend slop,” said Dr. Kelly Elizabeth Wright, Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “This productivity has no end in sight.” Other words and phrases garnering votes among members of the ADS as among those most representative of 2025? Chopped (voted “most likely to succeed”), icy conditions (voted “political word of the year”), and reheat nachos (voted “most creative word of the year”).
New York City’s City Council now requires the City’s Education Department to provide data on the status of school libraries and their usage. The first report landed last month, and it’s stark. While the city’s 1,614 public schools mostly have a library on site (1,016), fewer than 15% of those schools employ either a full-time or part-time librarian. There are only 273 full-time librarians and 12 part-time librarians. This is a dire situation, and this report is among the strongest advocacy tools that New York City residents can and should use to advocate for more school librarians. “A physical space means nothing,” said Jenny Fox, a New York City public school parent and founder of Librarians = Literacy, “They’re not just checking books in and out. They’re teaching your kids about media literacy, safety online, and how to vet an article for truthfulness.”
We could debate endlessly about what does or does not constitute the literary canon. One tool that has been shorthand for it has been the Norton Anthology; if you majored in English in college, you’re very familiar with these tomes. We know the Norton Anthologies collect what they believe to be the best of the best and the most representative of good literature, but who among the authors included in such anthologies are then further read by the general public? That’s what the University of Washington wanted to know. Pulling from scads of anonymized data from the Seattle Public Library, they’ve found the top 10 most borrowed authors whose works appear in The Norton Anthology of American Literature. The top three are pleasantly surprising: Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia E. Butler, and Louise Erdrich. The top three books from canonized writers? Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders, and The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. It’s a fascinating study that tells us about both the evolution of what is deemed canonical — more genre! — and what readers are drawn to — diverse perspectives.
Speaking of genre, how about some excellent free sci-fi and fantasy short stories?
🏷️ Books_feedLet’s treat our brains to some short fiction as we weather these winter months. For readers who are having a tough time with the darker days or are in between reads, short fiction is a great palate cleanser. You don’t have to worry about making a commitment to a book you may or may not enjoy, and short fiction is a magnificent alternative to doomscrolling on social media.
Be intentional with your time; read more short fiction.
