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Lately, in book news, we are winding down the “Best Books of 2025 (So Far) lists, but I had to include one more. There’s also an author feature of one of my most anticipated releases for the second half of 2025. Plus, it’s time to celebrate Disability Pride with audiobooks, a literary format first created for disabled people. So let’s jump right in!
What can I say? I love NPR’s book lists, so as soon as I saw that their Best Books of the Year (So Far) list had come out, I couldn’t click fast enough. The list includes many well-known favorites, like Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams and Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People by Imani Perry. But it also includes lesser-known releases like No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce by Haley Mlotek and You Didn’t Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip by Kelsey McKinney.
I’m a sucker for an author feature, and Miriam Toews is one of my favorites. This novelist is probably most well-known for Women Talking, but now she’s back with nonfiction. A Truce that Is Not Peace is a memoir that delves into her relationship with her sister who died by suicide in 2010. While Toews visited these ideas and themes in her novel All My Puny Sorrows, this is the first time she tells the true version of events. Toews grew up as a Mennonite in Canada, and while it wasn’t a closed colony, it still made Toews feel disconnected from the world. Her father died by suicide when she was younger, and when her sister passed away, all of that history became fresh anew.
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In honor of the passing of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the summer of 1990, every July, we celebrate disabled writers and their stories. In honor of Disability Pride Month, Libro.fm, my favorite audiobook retailer, has rounded up a list of 11 audiobooks for Disability Pride Month! It features titles recommended by booksellers from around the country. The list includes some of my favorite disability lit titles, including Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice written and performed by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Disability Visibility edited by Alice Wong and performed by Alejandra Ospina, and Easy Beauty written and read by Chloé Cooper Jones.
Speaking of audiobooks, Publisher’s Weekly reported that, according to the Audio Publishers Association Sales Survey, audiobook sales grew 13% in 2024 over the previous year. The APA also noted that 51% of Americans reported having listened to an audiobook. As a huge audiobook girlie, I love seeing the U.S.’s growing love of this format.