Fiction
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A Peek at Peak Picks – May 2026
We’re adding eleven new Peak Picks in May! In fiction, Laurie Frankel returns with an exuberant and timely new novel, Enormous Wings, about 77-year-old Pepper Mills, who moves into a retirement community, falls in love—and becomes pregnant; the latest from Walter Mosley, Ghalen, is a beautiful coming-of-age novel that explores love in all forms—romantic, familial,… Continue reading
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Fiction for Middle Eastern and North African Heritage Month
April is Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Heritage Month, often celebrated alongside Arab American Heritage Month, and we’re here to celebrate MENA authors in adult fiction. Check out these recent titles to delve deeper into the perspectives of MENA voices across multiple genres. Things Left Unsaid by Iranian British author Sara Jafari traces the… Continue reading
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A Journey Through Space – Books to Read While You Wait for Project Hail Mary and Watch Artemis II
If your feed is consumed by the Artemis II mission and the blockbuster movie Project Hail Mary, you might be looking for books to take you into space as well. Though Andy Weir’s novels have a long wait right now, we’re happy to suggest some titles with similar themes of exploration, survival, ingenuity, and friendship… Continue reading
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Poetic Fiction for Teens: Recent Novels in Verse
Novels in verse offer the best of both worlds: a solid plot with characters that pull you in and a lot of white space on the page, so the story is all meat and no filler. Here are some great new titles from the last year or so. (MS = middle school) In Nikita Gill’s book Hekate, young Hekate finds herself an orphan,… Continue reading
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New Fiction Roundup, April 2026
April showers us with reading options aplenty, from thrillers to examinations of interpersonal relationships, farm life, and beyond. 4/7: American Fantasy by Emma Straub Reluctantly, 50-year old newly divorced Annie is on a cruise with her sister, a cruise featuring the boy band of her youth. As a repressed part of herself is unlocked by alcohol, nostalgia, and a sense of possibility,… Continue reading
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April and May 2026 Author and Community Events at the Library
Author and community programs are blooming at the Library this spring, from an evening with famed audiobook narrator Julia Whelan to One Book, One Coast programs that reframe and retell the history of Japanese American incarceration. All Library events are free and open to the public. Many of these events are supported by The Seattle… Continue reading
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4 Poetry Collections that Celebrate the Black Diaspora
Black people throughout the diaspora have long preserved their dynamic cultures through African and African American oral traditions and poetry. Poets of the Black/African diaspora write passionately and often pull from many Black poetry forms and traditions to express collective and individual joy, survival, pain, and various facets of their lives. The collections suggested here explore, celebrate… Continue reading
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Spring 2026 Author and Community Events at the Library
Author and community programs are blooming at the Library this spring, from a KUOW Book Talk with Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe about “Thunder Song” on March 23, to an evening with famed audiobook narrator Julia Whelan on April 15, to two One Book, One Coast events with local authors that reframe and retell the history of… Continue reading
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New Fiction Roundup, March 2026
There’s plenty of new fiction to be excited about in March, from haunted houses to family sagas and a vengeful Anne Boleyn, from local authors (Kim Fu) to returning favorites (Louise Erdrich, Yann Martel), and much more! 3/3: Lake Effect by Cynthia D’Aprix SweeneyIn a sleepy 1977 Rochester neighborhood, a copy of The Joy of… Continue reading
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2025’s Best in Genre Fiction
This January, librarians from across the country met to debate the best books published in 2025 for adults. The Notable Books List highlights literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; the Listen List is all about outstanding audiobooks; and The Reading List, which I want to highlight, gathers outstanding genre fiction across eight genres: Adrenaline (aka thrillers, adventure stories), Fantasy, Historical Fiction,… Continue reading
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6 Books That Speak to Midwinter Moods
“The Pacific Northwest has a cold like no other place. It seeps through your clothes and keeps you cold like your own personal ghost had moved in.” — Neko Case, “The Harder I Fight the More I Love You.” For some Seattleites, February is a time for sojourns to sunnier locales. For those who stay… Continue reading
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Cozy Survival: Making a Home in the Wilds
Lately, I’ve been running across books that instruct by example how to eke out survival while making a comfortable home. Cozy survival, if you will. In January, my apartment had a gas leak that caused a lapse in hot water and heating. Winter suddenly became very wintry. Luckily, I felt more prepared to weather the… Continue reading
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New Teen Romance
Romance sells a lot of books, especially around Valentine’s Day. Here are some of the best new teen romance titles released in the past year. In Trung Le Nguyen’s latest graphic novel Angelica and the Bear Prince, Angelica is grieving and dealing with burnout. When she receives messages of support from a bear, or… Continue reading
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Local Authors Take the Stage for KUOW Book Talks
Want to be part of a book club that features selections by some of our region’s greatest talents, and offers you a chance to meet the author in person? Welcome to the KUOW Book Talks Live series at the Central Library. From February through May, KUOW Book Club host Katie Campbell will sit down with a… Continue reading
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New Fiction Roundup, February 2026
2/3: How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates by Shailee ThompsonRom-com meets slasher flick when a speed dating event turns into a bloodbath and friends Jamie and Laurie will have to use all their knowledge of genre tropes to get out alive … and maybe find love on the way. (romance thriller) 2/3: The… Continue reading
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February and March 2026 Events at the Library: Red Floor Poetry, Healing Fiction and More
If you could use a heart-centered program right about now, go to the Library. Make a zine for someone special on an upcoming Saturday; watch multidisciplinary artist Miz Floes perform a neighborhood narrative in a fusion of spoken word and theater on Feb. 19; or take your beloved to the Red Floor for love poetry… Continue reading
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Why We Read: 6 Books Explore the Pull of the Page
Many of us start the new year with a resolution to read more. We hear that it’s good for us, helps us unplug, opens our mind and gives us space to escape our daily stresses. But what else does reading provide, and what are its perils? These recent memoirs and books about reading explore this question… Continue reading
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Series Highlight: Black Dawn from AK Press
Science and Speculative Fiction has long been a way to explore other ways of existence, as well as a way to think about current moments through alternative lenses. In 2021 AK press, a worker-run, collectively managed anarchist small press that aims to “expand minds and change worlds,” launched Black Dawn, a series of speculative fiction… Continue reading