Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

So Many Anticipated Fall Books

At this point, a slew of publications have released their anticipated books of fall, and I’ve rounded up a handful of them for you. Prepare for cozy season and brace your TBR:

• The 24 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2025 [TIME]
• The fall’s 10 most anticipated books, from Pynchon to (Priscilla) Presley [AP NEWS]
• 12 brand new books we can’t wait to read this fall [NPR]
• The 10 Most Anticipated Books of the Fall [ROLLING STONE]
• The Books Times Readers Are Most Excited About This Fall [NEW YORK TIMES]
• Readers’ Most Anticipated Fall Books [GOODREADS]

If you don’t have time to parse each list, I can tell you the standout repeats are:

• Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood
• The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy
• Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
• The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman
• Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon
• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
• Heart the Lover by Lily King

Delaware Signs Anti-Book Ban Legislation Into Law

Good news from Delaware. Governor Matt Meyer signed into law anti-book ban and free speech legislation, saying, “Our libraries have the potential to empower the next generation of Delawareans to think critically, to ask important questions and grow into the type of empathetic citizens and leaders we want them to be, and that’s not going to happen if we isolate or exclude certain texts or ideas from our public spaces.” Though the state has seen only one public removal of books, this will hopefully set a strong example for other states. To get the latest on book banning news, I encourage you to subscribe to our Literary Activism newsletter. In fact, we have a recent Literary Activism piece below.

We Can’t Forget People Experiencing Incarceration in Our Fight for Readers’ Rights

Last year, in honor of Prison Censorship Week, we ran three powerful pieces from individuals experiencing incarceration about where and how access to books and reading has been crucial to them. With Banned Books Week around the corner–October 6-12–and Prison Banned Books Week after that–October 19-25–it’s beyond time to talk with experts in prison book censorship to learn what’s going on right now and where advocates for intellectual freedom can support the fight for’ First Amendment Rights to those experiencing imprisonment. It is especially important to remember that, despite a wave of anti-book ban laws penned in several states across the country, most of those do not provide any protections to incarcerated individuals. Only one state addressed prison censorship in its suite of anti-book ban laws, and that was California with Assembly Bill 1986.