The Biggest Book News of the Week

⚓ Books    📅 2026-02-21    👤 surdeus    👁️ 3      

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Welcome to Today in Books. Here’s the highlight reel of book news readers were most interested in this week.

Is BookTok Dying?

There’s an old adage that any headline that ends with a question mark can be answered with “no,” and it seems to hold for the latest round of concern about what’s going on with BookTok. Literary agent and BookTok expert Alyssa Morris identifies “a real sense of fatigue” across social media and notes TikTok users’ worries that new ownership will negatively impact the algorithm but wisely advises a wait-and-see approach. Even if readers are growing tired of long series, “spicy” romantasy, and trope-based reading selections, there are more than enough standalone titles and genre-defying books to keep them going.

These shifts may feel alarming to younger readers and folks whose bookish internet experience has been limited to TikTok, but take it from someone who was there when the old magic was written: this is just the cycle. We saw it on blogs. We saw it on Twitter. We saw it on BookTube, Tumblr, and Pinterest. I hear it’s happening on Threads, but I value my sanity too much to go find out. A thing is big for a while, and then it’s not. When spicy romantasy’s day is done, there will be another sub-genre to take its place.

Goodreads is Finally Going to Have a DNF Shelf

I don’t know who the first Goodreads user to create a DNF shelf was or when they did it, but I can’t imagine it was long after the site’s 2006 launch. Twenty years later, Goodreads has decided to acknowledge this widely used convention and make DNFing official. In an email to users earlier this week, the platform announced that DNF shelves are “coming soon” (our best guess is March 1).

Per that email, here’s what to expect and how to tell if you need to take any action:

  • If you created an exclusive custom shelf named exactly “did not finish,” “dnf,” “abandoned,” “unfinished,” “didn-t-finish,” or “dropped”, we’ll automatically convert it to the new default Did Not Finish shelf. Your reviews, ratings, and reading history stay with your book.
  • If you created a tag or non-exclusive custom shelf, it will remain unchanged with one exception. Those currently named exactly “did-not-finish” will be automatically renamed to “did-not-finish-2” to avoid duplication.
  • If you prefer to keep your current setup, rename your shelf or tag to anything else before Feb. 28.

Kingsolver Returns October 6

HarperCollins announced yesterday that Barbara Kingsolver will publish her first novel since 2022’s blockbuster Demon Cooperhead this fall. Partita, due out October 6 from the Harper imprint, is about “a married woman whose modest life in farm country is disrupted when an old lover from her days as a music conservatory student wants to reconnect.” Put it right into my veins.

The Best Nonfiction of the 21st Century So Far

Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns, an epic oral history of America’s Great Migration, claimed the #2 spot on the New York Times‘s list of the 100 best books of the 21st century, but it’s #1 in our hearts. Whether you’re an established reader of nonfiction looking for a first-rate experience or a newcomer eager to discover nonfiction that reads like a novel, you will not be disappointed. We had a terrific time discussing it on this week’s episode of Zero to Well-Read, and we hope you’ll check it out.

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