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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.
New Reading Rainbow Host Selected as National Library Week Honorary Chair
Librarian and new Reading Rainbow host Mychal Threets is a delight and a gift to the reading world, so is it any wonder the American Library Association (ALA) selected him as Honorary Chair of National Library Week for 2026. “Find Your Joy” is the theme of the 68th annual celebration, which may sound like a Sisyphean task these days, but perhaps Threets’ picture book debut, I’m So Happy You’re Here, aligning with this year’s theme and out in February will help us achieve this lofty goal. National Library Week, “a weeklong celebration of the important role libraries and library workers play in schools and communities across the U.S.,” is set for April 19-25, 2026. Of his role and the upcoming celebration, Threets had this to say:
Celebrating libraries, thanking library workers, visiting libraries is how I find my joy. There are so many library kids and library grown-ups who have yet to fully embrace their library joy, and I am so excited for them! When they enter the world of libraries and stories, I am confident they will find not only their library joy but their courage to believe in their own story and maybe even share it with others.
A Holiday Gift Guide for Readers From Publishers Weekly
If you’re still wrestling with uncertainty over what to buy the readers in your life, Publishers Weekly has stepped in to help you out with their annual gift guide. The lists are sorted into the following categories, for your convenience: Illustrated & Art Books; Children’s & YA; Fiction, Poetry & Comics; and Nonfiction. While PW doesn’t discuss what makes these picks gift-worthy, at a glance it looks like they’re all 2025 releases and they’re highly diverse in subject matter, so an easy assumption is that these are books giftees are less likely to have read yet and that PW is trying to cover ground for all kinds of readers. Some highlights include Ursula K. Le Guin’s Book of Cats (Illustrated & Art Books), Legendary Frybread Drive-In edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Children’s & YA), What a Time to Be Alive by Jade Chang (Fiction, Poetry & Comics), and So Many Stars by Caro De Robertis (Nonfiction). Browse the full guide and may we all be done with holiday shopping toot sweet.
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Does Less Social Media Actually Equal Reading More Books?
In a piece for The New Yorker, Jay Caspian Kang writes that spending less time on social media did not bring him closer to attacking the stacks and explores the broader question of what literacy looks like for a population that largely reads lots of text on screens but less books, and whether the digital world is a honing tool or a blinder for our reading lives. You won’t find solid answers here, but I agree with his point that the concept of literacy demands more nuance than we get from the doom and gloom conversations about how social media is wreaking havoc on book reading.
The Biggest Book Clubs Are Ending 2025 With These Books — Join Them!
If you want to join a party to cap off your year in reading, read along with a community or two. We’ve rounded up the last of this year’s book club picks and there are some great options from major and notable book clubs. There’s a book that seems to be on every book club’s reading list, an 18th century historical novel, and more titles for all sorts of readers. Find the list here.
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