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Gen Z Hooks Up with “Read Dating”

Gen Z has become so bored of dating apps (Boda) that some of them have even created a business named after their ennui. The startup began hosting IRL dating events in bookstores in New York in 2023, and now they’ve taken the trend across the pond. Ceci Brown recounts her experience at a “read dating” event where attendees were instructed to bring a book inscribed with their contact info to share with someone they wanted to get to know better. It sounds exactly as cute and much less awkward than you might expect.

The NYT Picks 22 Reads for August

Let’s be real, we’re all biding time until Katabasis comes out on August 26th. Dante’s Inferno meets Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi? Put it in my veins. And it’s gorgeous to boot! In the meantime, you can surely find something else on the New York Times’s round-up of 22 interesting new books coming out this month. I can vouch for People Like Us; I’m only halfway through, but it’s fantastic.

Stream On

No time like late summer for a good old-fashioned couch party, and Lit Hub has your line-up of literary TV and movies to stream this month. Fire up Practical Magic, Devil in a Blue Dress, or Clueless (can you name the book it’s based on?) while you wait for Netflix’s adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club to drop on the 28th.

The Anti-Book Ban Laws Passed This Year & What They Mean

Here’s one for the good news file: several states have passed legislation that protects the right to read so far in 2025. Kelly Jensen breaks down the new laws and what they mean.