Reviews
A Little Less Greek Tragedy, a Little More Genesis: The Book of Chuck by LaToya Watkins
With The Book of Chuck, Watkins cements her place as an essential storyteller of Black life in America and one of Toni Morrison’s heir apparents.
Lisa Butts
Lisa Butts is a book critic and an editor in academic publishing. She studied poetry and creative nonfiction at the New School and Sarah Lawrence College.
Monthly Book Lists
Books We Like the Looks Of: New Releases in August 2026
We have great taste and you should subscribe to Who Even Reads to discover the Next Big Thing before the Booker people get their grubby hands all over everything. Here are the Books We Like the Looks Of coming out this August.
Reviews
“I want to throw myself in front of a speeding car”: Claudia Rankine's Triage and the Toomuchness of It All
How can one live like this, Triage asks, at the same time it declares the question beside the point. What is the alternative?
Monthly Book Lists
Books We Like the Looks Of: New Releases in July 2026
This month, in the midst of deodorant-testing heat and confused displays of patriotism, we bring you an all-fiction batch of July books, including Colson Whitehead's appealingly named Cool Machine.
Reading Lists
Paperbacks for Pride: 14 Banger Contemporary Books by QTBIPOC
This June, we celebrate Pride with contemporary books by QTBIPOC, including those with identities beyond Western conceptions of queerness. They are transformative, culture-shifting forces, capable of making and unmaking worlds.
Reviews
Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim and Wild Speculation on Universal's TV Adaptation
Every detail and plot turn in Sublimation is clearly part of a meticulously well-considered arc. I’m very curious what the adaptation will be like. Whitewashing would be a disaster in this scenario, given the significance of instancing as metaphor for diaspora.
Monthly Book Lists
Books We Like the Looks Of: New Releases in June 2026
This month's upcoming books include several debuts, including an enticing fable that draws from Minnesota's racial history, a nonlinear story of queer rural Florida, and a television-ready immigration narrative (at least one).
Reviews
Review: A Shot of Urgent Hope in Deb Olin Unferth's Earth 7
Earth 7 really sings in small moments that show deep respect for life, for its remarkable diversity, its endurance and durability. Unferth’s admiration for the inhabitants of Earth, its many creatures large and small, is infectious, at times exhilarating—a shot of urgent hope.
Features
Indie Bookstores Promoting Masking and Covid Consciousness in 2026
The trajectory of Covid awareness may not go exactly as many expect, and in the meantime, bookstores are one of the community spaces that can offer a transition point to a different possible future.
Monthly Book Lists
Books We Like the Looks Of: New Releases in May 2026
Our monthly book list for May includes nonfiction from Jesmyn Ward, a speculative novel by Tom Lin following Chinese immigrants in South Dakota who encounter a secret government program, and more.
Reviews
Review: No God But Us by Bobuq Sayed and the Refugee Liminal State
No God But Us vividly illuminates what life is like for the many queer refugees who live in liminal space for years, whose only home is the state of uncertainty.
Stories in the World
I Am the Ghost Here: Kim Samek and the Ghost of Pandemic Present
Given that many of the stories in Kim Samek’s debut story collection I Am the Ghost Here feature surreal elements, borrowing tropes from science fiction and fantasy, I was surprised to find honest, genuine explorations of the pandemic as a mass disabling event in its fourth and fifth stories.