THE HEADLINE

GQ’s muddled survey on the state of books and reading

GQ published a survey on the state of books and reading earlier this week, featuring responses from a range of literary folks to questions on BookTok, AI, male reading patterns, advances, and other contemporary fare.

The survey is worth browsing if only to get a feel for the brackish water everyone seems to feel like we are swimming in: we don’t know what will happen with AI; we don’t know what is going on with book sales; we don’t really know how to sell books, etc.

I am probably more optimistic on the whole, if only because I have going-on-two-decades of experience covering publishing’s perpetual “we don’t even know what the sky falling would look like” back chatter.

While I enjoyed reading the responses, there were a few bald patches in the coverage. Here are some perspectives I wish we’d heard from (plus a specific suggestion or two for each).

Agents. There is one agent (Alia Hanna Habib), but I think agents might be the single best slice of the publishing world to check in on for something like this. They see what is selling, what people are trying to sell, and, perhaps most importantly, what publishers are buying. Suggestions: former Book Riot contributor Eric Smith, Julie Barer (IYKYK)

Publishing Executives from the Big 5: Considering how dominant the Big 5 are in US books, they don’t get much run here. Now, I would imagine they were given the opportunity, but declined. They. Have. The. Data. Suggestion: Heather Fain (Senior VP of publishing, marketing, and backlist strategy at Knopf/Doubleday)

Book Podcasters: They don’t get the shine of video-based influencers, but book podcasters have thousands of people listen to them for hours every week and most of them have their own paid communities. Book events in New York are cool, but most people’s primary way of engaging with book “events” is through their headphones and a Discord channel. Suggestion: Traci Thomas (The Stacks podcast)

TREND WATCH

We’ve been brainstacking all along

illustrated brain surrounded by books hobbies and coffee

Brainstacking is a reader’s perfect trend. And it’s the newest analog obsession…trending on social, of course. Search for brainstacking on Instagram or TikTok and you’ll find videos featuring influencers sharing brainstacking items, ASMR, explainers, and more.

What is brainstacking? It’s a practice intended to reduce screen time and, more specifically, doomscrolling through hands-on analog activities. Brainstacking works best when you have tools handy whenever you might solve for boredom by reaching for your phone.

Brainstacking tools may include:

Journals Puzzles Knitting Planners Books

Brainstacking is not cognitive stacking. It’s not about multitasking to stimulate different parts of your brain but about stimulating your brain while you reduce your screen time, i.e. combating “brain rot.”

If your desk is already cluttered with books you keep meaning to read, call yourself trend-ready. – SZW

VISUAL SCARY TREATS

Scares abound in these horror comics

Halloween is this week, and while horror books won’t disappear on October 31, these next few days are prime scary reading season. The good news is that even if you don’t have the capacity to plow through a whole novel, there are plenty of great ways to get some chilling reads in and fast.

Enter horror comics.

What makes horror comics especially great is that they pair the scary writing with images that sometimes outdo whatever your own imagination may conjure. There’s a reason so many of us still have nightmares about the illustrations in Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark: those images are seared in our memories. There’s also a fantastic array of storytelling, and because horror is a mood and not a genre, there really is some kind of horror comic for every type of reader.

Here’s what to grab if you’d like your Halloweek–or beyond–to be the stuff of visual literary nightmares.

A Guest in the House by E.M. Carroll: Abby’s been lonely for a long time, so when she meets and marries a recently widowed dentist, she thinks she’s finally found happiness. But much as she tries to be a good wife and stepmother, Abby gets the sense she’s being haunted by her husband’s first wife and that her death may not have been accidental. Fall of the House of Slaughter by James Tynion IV, Tate Brombal, Werther Dell’Edera, Adriano Turtulici, and Valentine Napolitano:* When your legacy has survived war and betrayal, what happens when new threats start to arise? This story expands the story of House of Slaughter, which is itself a spin-off of Tynion and Dell’Edera’s beloved Something Is Killing the Children. Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall and illustrated by Lisa Sterle: When Becca moves to a new town, she’s immediately taken in by the popular crowd. Soon, Becca learns this elite girl gang has a secret: under the full moon, they transform into werewolves who set out to destroy boys who are too eager to take advantage of girls. It’s Mean Girls meets Heathers meets Teen Wolf, and there’s a sequel coming next June called Final Girls. Boys Weekend by Mattie Lubchansky: Sammie is newly out as trans, and they join their old crew of buddies for a bachelor party weekend on a floating city that’s reminiscent of Las Vegas. While Sammie’s dodging uncomfortable comments and questions from the groom-to-be’s other friends—even if they’re trying to understand Sammie’s identity, they’re still being hurtful—Sammie also seems to be the only person noticing the cult staying at their hotel and dismembering other guests. Sci-fi, humor, and horror collide in this look at toxic masculinity and capitalism.

Looking for more bite-size scares? Don’t miss out on these great YA horror short story collections, either! – KJ

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LISTEN UP

The best of Libro.fm’s fall BOGO sale

collage of cover of audiobooks on sale during libro.fm's fall bogo sale

It’s a bumper crop of bangers in Libro.fm’s fall BOGO sale. Among the highlights:

Learn about the intersection of botany and Indigenous wisdom with Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Enjoy scandalicious short stories in The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw.

Get gothic with the lesbian necromancers of Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.

Celebrate a literary legend through Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia Butler by Susanna M. Morris.

Spice up your reading life with A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas.

Shop the Libro.fm BOGO through tomorrow, October 29.

LITERARY VISUAL TREATS

The best book covers of October 2026

collage of best book covers for october 2026

We all judge a book by its cover. There’s no shame in that–covers are the biggest marketing tool a book has.

But not all book covers are created equal. Some are better than others for reasons that range from being unique to giving a fresh twist to a design trend, or just because. Everyone’s taste differs, and what makes a book cover “the best” is a little science and a lot of subjective preferences.

So what October book covers deserve a little shoutout for their designs? Here are six of the best from the month. Design teams are credited where that information is available.

Carrying by Samantha Josephs, cover design by Tyriq Moore: That turkey is stuffed, and it sure looks like it’s ready to put up a heck of a fight. This one pops with its neon color choices, as well as the way that meat looks like it’s ready to jump right off the page. For a book that’s both funny and horrifying, this is a perfect visual representation of what’s to come. Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford by Nafissa Thompson-Spires: For a cover that doesn’t have a whole lot going on, it has a whole lot going on. This one stands out for the energy it evokes with its cat, paired with the black comic-like bubbles. The red behind the dead mouse? Perfection. The Aussie cover for this one isn’t bad, either! The Jellyfish King by Brecht Evens, translated by François Vigneault: If you weren’t paying close attention, it’d be easy to miss this is a book cover because the title is not super obvious. The art on this is by Evens, a Belgian visual artist, and it’s hard not to pore over how much is going on. It’s reminiscent of the end of a game of solitaire on a 90s desktop computer. Minor Bodies by Jonathan Bazzi, translated by Alice Whitmore: The muted colors here, alongside a cat with a look that’s both inviting and haunting, make it pop. The fonts for the title and author name have a real movement to them, too, inviting the reader in. Night of a Thousand Hells by Intan Paramaditha, translated by Stephen Epstein and Tiffany Tsao: In a sea of text-driven covers over the last several years, covers that go extra hard on design are eye-catching. The cover for this feminist gothic read plays with shape, movement, and the unexpected. Is that cat meant to be scary or inviting–or both? The Water House by Nneoma Ike-Njoku: Everything about this cover is slight askew. The title and author are a tiny bit right-of-center. Our cover model is on the far right, face and eyes looking to their side. The blue is not-quite blue and not-quite purple, either. The clever drippy font mirrors the lines in the background, too, giving this tons of shape and sway. It also leans into the neon-green title font trend happening in a very big way right now.

There were many good covers this month, and it’s always great when some of the best covers are for books that may otherwise go under the radar. Also, MEOW–cats continue to be hot for 2026 book covers. – KJ

HORROR

Libby’s most popular horror books

Since we are at the tail end of spooky season, we thought it was a great time to share the 31 most popular horror books on Libby.

There’s a mix of classic horror—like Frankenstein by Mary Shelley—and more recent titles that feel like new classics, such as The Reformatory by Tananarive Due and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones.

Here are some of Libby’s most popular horror books:

#31. Molka by Monika Kim: In South Korea, Dahye contends with one of the horrors of the modern age: illegal spy cameras, ill-begotten voyeuristic videos, and the long-lasting resulting trauma of the two.

#18. The Reformatory by Tananarive Due: In 1950s Jim Crow Florida, Robbie is a 12-year-old Black kid who is sentenced to a reformatory for boys for defending his sister. What he finds is a haunted facility with abuses committed by real-life people that are far worse than anything he could have imagined.

This was based on Due’s uncle’s experience with a similar facility, which he went to and never returned from. Colson Whitehead references it in The Nickel Boys.

#16. Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker: With a mix of Japanese mythology, this travels between October 2026 and October 1877, and centers around a house in Japan that may house a murderer—both in the past and the present.

#2. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones: This has moments in the present day, but the meat of the story happens in 1912, when a Lutheran pastor gains a new congregation member: a Blackfeet man named Good Stab who has an odd appetite and a taste for revenge.

#1. The Unknown by Riley Sager: One hundred years ago, five women disappeared from a Vermont island that was a commune for spiritual mediums. Now there’s a movie being made about the disappearances…and they’ve started happening again.

I skipped around to give a range of authors—click through for the other 26. —EE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Ayad Akhtar, born October 28, 1970

Did you know? Aktar was trained as an actor and says the writer he spends the most time reading is Shakespeare.

CRITICAL LINKING

You are now free to roam about the internet

a laptop computer with scattered headlines on its screen against a red background

An imitation of imperfection: a history of deckled edges.

Stephen Graham Jones knows what makes a good spine-tingler.

The original exposé of Elizabeth Holmes is back on bestseller lists.

In New York? Take yourself on a literary tour of Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and the East Village.

Are we in a book monoculture?

END NOTES

Written by Rebecca Schinsky, Jeff O’Neal, S. Zainab Williams, Kelly Jensen, Erica Ezeifedi, and Danika Ellis. Thanks to Vanessa Diaz for copy editing.

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