Tom Beer
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Editor in chief @kirkusreviews, @bookcritics member, former books & travel editor @newsday. Ask me what I’m reading.
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Articles by Tom Beer
Books That Explore the Legacy of 9/11
Could Sept. 11, 2001, really be a quarter of a century in the past? Although the world has changed dramatically in the years since, the events of that day retain a kind of shocking immediacy. If we’re old enough, we remember where we were when we learned of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, an inflection point in U.S. history—and in our personal lives.
Meet the Memorable Detectives of New Crime Fiction
What makes for a good mystery? A murder, of course—the trickier to solve, the better. A colorful setting—an express train making its way through Eastern Europe or the bustling capital city of Botswana. A MacGuffin and some red herrings never hurt. But pose this question to Richard Osman, bestselling English author of The Thursday Murder Club mysteries, and you’ll get one simple answer: good characters. “My view is the same as it’s always been, which is a mystery has to have characters.
A Filmmaker Finds Creative Control in Fiction
If you love horror, the films of Jane Schoenbrun are probably on your radar: We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021), I Saw the TV Glow (2024) and this summer’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma offer brainy, off-kilter spins on genre tropes for a knowing indie film audience. In their first novel, Public Access Afterworld (Hogarth, Oct.
The Waiting Game: When Authors Keep Us on Hold
It’s been nearly a decade since the novel Pachinko mesmerized readers with its sweeping yet intimate portrayal of several generations of a Korean family beset by troubles both personal and political. The epic became a bestseller and a book club favorite, was named a finalist for the National Book Award in 2017, and was adapted into a well-reviewed series on Apple TV+.
Fall Preview 2026: Julie Orringer
Novelist Julie Orringer and her husband were looking for a dog several years ago, when they came across a listing for a forlorn-looking, injured pit bull mix at a local shelter. “I felt terrible for her and couldn’t understand why someone had posted that tortured photo instead of waiting until the dog had been cleaned up and treated by a vet,” Orringer explains.
Finalists for the 2026 Zora Awards Revealed
The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation has announced the finalists for its Zora Awards, which honor “Black writers in the United States and around the globe for literary achievement.” Shortlisted in the fiction category are National Book Award winner Jason Mott for People Like Us, Harmonia Rosales for Chronicles of Ori, and Lauren Francis Sharma for Casualties of Truth.
Fall Preview 2026: Grace Lin
Small, intentional gestures can have a big impact. That’s one lesson that young readers will draw from Grace Lin’s forthcoming picture book, The Little Stone Buddha (Alvina Ling Books/Little, Brown, Oct. 6). Lin says she was partly inspired by the true story of a Buddha statue placed in a trash-strewn median in Oakland, California; after its appearance people stopped dumping garbage there, then locals cleaned up the area and even created a small shrine.
Fall Preview 2026: Patton Oswalt
For a hardcore Stephen King fan, could there be any more thrilling—or intimidating—assignment than to record the audiobook edition of the Master’s latest novel? That job has now fallen to actor and comedian Patton Oswalt, a longtime King devotee who recently emerged from the studio where he recorded Other Worlds Than These (Simon & Schuster Audio, Oct. 6), the third and final book in the Talisman series that King wrote with novelist Peter Straub.
Fall Preview 2026: Ready, Set, Read!
Clear your calendars, readers, because we have a lot of books to keep up with this fall. Start with the 150 titles that our editors have chosen to feature for our special Fall Preview—the unmissable new releases in adult fiction and nonfiction, children’s books, and young adult literature. And those are just the ones that we’ve been able to review.
Fall Preview 2026: Ready, Set, Read!
Clear your calendars, readers, because we have a lot of books to keep up with this fall. Start with the 150 titles that our editors have chosen to feature in the special Fall Preview pages of this issue—the unmissable new releases in fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, and young adult literature. And those are just the ones that we’ve been able to review.
Love Wins: LGBTQ+ Romance Is Hotter Than Ever
If you’d told me last year that my obsession this year would be a gay hockey romance, I’d have thought you were crazy. Yet, like the rest of the planet, I went a bit gaga for the streaming series Heated Rivalry—binge-watching the show on HBO Max, obsessively texting friends about it, following the ubiquitous social media posts of its stars, Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams.
Celebrating the Power of Visual Storytelling
As we were closing our fourth annual Graphic Lit Issue, news came that Marjane Satrapi had died in Paris at age 56. Satrapi was a giant of graphic literature whose memoir Persepolis, published first in France, then in two volumes in the United States in 2003 and 2004, was stunning proof of what the genre could do—telling a very personal story (restricted childhood, teen rebellion) framed by a larger social history (Iran during the revolution).
America at a Crossroads: Let History Be Our Guide
“History is a guide to navigation in perilous times,” said the late historian David McCullough in his commencement address to the Wesleyan University Class of 1984. “History is who we are and why we are the way we are.” As we prepare to observe the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4, we are living in “perilous times” indeed, and this call to study our history—not just for its own sake—feels highly pertinent.
America at 250: Rebecca Stefoff Reflects
“History is a continuous thread, not a series of events that stand alone,” says Rebecca Stefoff, whose sensitive adaptations have introduced young people to such landmark works of adult nonfiction as A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. In this semiquincentennial year, two of her adaptations will help teenagers take a broad view of American history.
Young Readers Need Good Nonfiction More Than Ever
As librarians gather in Chicago for the annual meeting of the American Library Association, alarm bells about book banning continue to sound. It isn’t news that books by and about LGBTQ+ people and people of color are special targets for censors, but the crusade continues with no signs of abating.
Keep Exploring: The Pleasures of SFF Series
I’m constantly amazed by the prodigious imagination required of a novelist. Coming up with the fully realized plot, characters, and world of even one novel feels beyond me. So how does a fantasy writer like our cover subject, Brandon Sanderson, dream up an entire literary cosmos, as he’s done in Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive, two separate series both set in his Cosmere universe?
Kick Off the Summer Reading Season
Ice cream. Sunblock. Flip-flops. Rosé. What says summer to you? I always think of a paperback book, probably with sand between the pages. Summer is the season of pleasure reading, after all, when so many of us tote a book to the beach (after listening to an audiobook on the car trip there). If you’re this kind of summer person, then our seventh annual Summer Reads Issue is for you.
Welcome to the Jenny Han Multiverse
Are you Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah? Even if you didn’t watch The Summer I Turned Pretty, the smash Prime Video series that ended its third season last September, you couldn’t escape the intense love triangle formed by the tousle-headed Fisher brothers, played by actors Christopher Briney and Gavin Casalegno, and impulsive protagonist Isabel “Belly” Conklin (Lola Tung).
We Need Indie Books More Than Ever
Was there ever a time when independently published books were more crucial than they are right now? What we in the industry call the Big 5—large conglomerates that dominate the publishing landscape—appear to be more and more corporatized, eliminating entire houses or imprints at whim (probably because the bottom line is deemed unsatisfactory).
The Art and Practice of Good Literary Citizenship
One of the few reliable pleasures left on social media these days is the Instagram account for Nashville’s Parnassus Books, where, every Friday, owner Ann Patchett posts her recommendations with the catchphrase “If you haven’t read this book, it’s new to you.” As a fiction writer, Patchett has been nominated for and won numerous prizes, including the PEN/Faulkner Award. But could someone please create an award for handselling? Because this woman belongs in the Hall of Fame.
Debut Memoirs: 4 First Books That Get Personal
There are certain stories a writer simply has to tell, and none more so than their own. Perhaps this accounts for the explosive debut memoirs—think of Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club, Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, or Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart—that announce the arrival of a major literary talent, fully formed.
Revisiting the Words and Wisdom of Toni Morrison
“Lord, in this time of national upheaval and historical erasure, I’m sorely missing Toni Morrison,” writes Honorée Fanonne Jeffers in her introduction to the new reissue of Morrison’s Beloved. “I have her words, but I’m missing her physical presence, the seemingly effortless wisdom she provided us.” Indeed. All you have to do is watch one of the many clips of the Nobel laureate on YouTube—take her 1998 conversation with Charlie Rose, for example—to see, to feel, what Jeffers is talking about.
Breaking News: International Literature is Hot
Despite the malignant chaos of international politics at present, international literature is having its moment. Gone is the insular complacency once ascribed (perhaps unfairly) to U.S. readers. We now seek out and celebrate work by writers from around the globe, much of it in translation.
Is Friendship the Great Subject of Modern Fiction?
Oprah was irked. She’d selected Ann Packer’s latest novel, Some Bright Nowhere (Harper/HarperCollins, 2025), for her book club last fall, but, as she explained on an episode of The Oprah Podcast, she was choosing the book “even though I’m very annoyed with Claire and was annoyed with Claire through half of the book.” Not one of Oprah’s more enthusiastic endorsements.
Finalists for the 2025 NBCC Awards Announced
The National Book Critics Circle has revealed the finalists for its annual literary awards, given to books published in 2025. We Do Not Part, written by South Korean Nobel laureate Han Kang and translated by e.
Spring 2026 Books: A Cure for the Winter Blues
January can be a bleak month. Holiday festivities are behind us, and already we may be finding those New Year’s resolutions a bit difficult to keep. Dry January really isn’t much fun. What can a weary soul look forward to during these dark, dull days? Spring books! That’s the cheering subject of our Jan. 15 issue, celebrating 100 highly anticipated titles coming in early 2026.
Listen Up: Kirkus Introduces Audiobook Reviews
We at Kirkus Reviews have a big New Year’s resolution for 2026: To expand our coverage by reviewing audiobooks alongside the approximately 10,000 print books that we review annually. In the Jan. 1 issue, readers will find our first-ever audiobook reviews section. Studies show that slightly more than half of all Americans have listened to an audiobook, so it only makes sense for us to review books in this popular format, too. We couldn’t do it without the foundation laid by AudioFile magazine.
NBCC Reveals Nonfiction and Poetry Longlists
The National Book Critics Circle revealed the longlists for its annual nonfiction and poetry awards.
NBCC Reveals Biography and Autobiography Longlists
The National Book Critics Circle has revealed the longlists for its 2025 autobiography and biography awards. Margaret Atwood was longlisted in the autobiography category for her long-awaited memoir Book of Lives, alongside Arundhati Roy for Mother Mary Comes to Me, which was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and Yiyun Li for Things in Nature Merely Grow, a National Book Award and Andrew Carnegie Medal finalist.
NBCC Reveals 2025 Fiction and Criticism Longlists
The National Book Critics Circle has revealed the longlists for its 2025 awards in fiction and criticism. Nobel laureate Han Kang made the fiction longlist for We Do Not Part, translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, which was also longlisted for the National Book Award. It is one of two books not originally written in English nominated for this year’s prize, alongside On the Calculation of Volume (Book III), written by Solvej Balle and translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell.
In Memoriam: Authors We Lost in 2025
Before we turn the page on 2025, let’s pause to remember the authors we lost this year; their books are sure to live on. Here are just a few of the most notable: Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, 90. Incarcerated as a child with her Japanese American family during World War II, she co-wrote an influential memoir, Farewell to Manzanar, that has been a staple of high school and college syllabi since 1973. Jules Feiffer, 95.
Winners of the 2025 National Book Awards Revealed
The winners of the 2025 National Book Awards were announced Wednesday evening at a ceremony in New York hosted by Emmy Award–winning actor and author Jeff Hiller with musical performances by special guest Corrine Bailey Rae. Rabih Alameddine won the fiction award for The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother), published by Grove.
Books That Deserved More Buzz in 2025
There is no guaranteed path for a book’s success, and the paths that do exist are often meandering. Take the case of Lucas Schaefer’s The Slip, which won the Kirkus Prize for Fiction this fall. As a debut literary novel, released as readers were turning their attention to summer fare, it faced steep odds, and it’s always difficult for an unknown author to break through in the crowded publishing marketplace.
Best YA Books of 2025: Ann Bausum
The battles over American history—and how it’s taught in our schools—are front-page news these days. Those currently in power want to impose a sanitized narrative that downplays the centrality of slavery, among other topics, to the story, while many scholars, teachers, and parents push back. Ann Bausum’s latest nonfiction book shows that the conflict is hardly a new one.
Best Fiction of 2025: Brandon Taylor
Art, sex, love, faith, identity—a lot is going on in Brandon Taylor’s latest novel, Minor Black Figures (Riverhead, October 14). But like the great painters he admires—see below—his work acquires its depth in the small, detailed brushstrokes. It’s the story of a young Black artist in New York who basks in a flash of social media attention but is mostly struggling when he encounters a young ex-priest.
Best Nonfiction of 2025: Stephen Greenblatt
In books such as Will in the World and The Swerve, Harvard professor Stephen Greenblatt is known for shining a bright light on dark corners of our cultural history. In his latest, Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival (Norton, September 9), a thrilling work of historical excavation, he brings to life the distant world of Elizabethan England—at once deeply strange and strangely familiar—and its most fascinating figure, Christopher Marlowe.
Best Books of 2025: The Literary Party of the Year
It seems like just yesterday we were unveiling our Spring 2025 Preview and compiling lists of all the books we were excited to crack open in the year to come. Now the year is drawing to a close, and it’s time to look in the rearview mirror at those titles that really lived up to the hype, along with some terrific reads we didn’t see coming. Yes, it’s time for our Best Books of 2025 coverage. Pull up a chair, because we have a lot of books to talk about: 600, to be exact.
Everybody Loves an Antihero
Who’s that on the cover of the November 1 issue of Kirkus Reviews? Yes, it’s Greg Heffley, the hapless tween protagonist of the long-running Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, drawn for us by his creator, Jeff Kinney—possibly the first time that a fictional character, rather than an author, has appeared on the cover of the magazine. The occasion for this departure from tradition is the publication of Partypooper (Amulet/Abrams, October 21), Book 20 in the series.
Don’t Be Scared: Try a New Genre
Sometimes you have to break out of your comfort zone. For novelist Laura Lippman, whose portrait is on the cover of the new Mystery, Thriller, and Horror Issue, that meant putting aside her penchant for dark suspense fiction—she’s best-known for her tough-minded Baltimore PI, Tess Monaghan—and trying something new: a cozy mystery.
4 Books To Help You Better Understand US History
“How do you decide what a very old legal document means?” That’s the question animating the latest book by Harvard professor and New Yorker contributor Jill Lepore, who appears on the cover of our September 15 issue. We The People: A History of the U.S. Constitution (Liveright/Norton, September 23) offers a chronicle of how the Constitution came to be and how it has been interpreted and amended.
Book Banning Has Always Been With Us
Book banning has become such an insidiously entrenched part of the contemporary political landscape that it’s easy to forget how long the problem has been with us. Reading about Banned Books Week—observed October 5-11 this year—I was surprised to learn that the American Library Association had launched this annual observance back in 1982, in response to a wave of attempted bans at the time. That year also saw a significant Supreme Court ruling, Island Trees School District v. Pico.
Books for Those Who Love To Cook, Eat, and Read
Food touches on every aspect of our lives as humans on this planet. Whether at family get-togethers, restaurants both exalted and humble, or just solo at the kitchen counter, we eat to live—and live to eat. At global policy summits, experts convene to solve the problems of world hunger and climate change, both affected by the food we grow or manufacture and by the ways we supply that food to people.
Fall Preview 2025: Julian Brave NoiseCat
It’s been a groundbreaking year for Julian Brave NoiseCat. Earlier in 2025, Sugarcane, the film he co-directed with Emily Kassie, was up for an Academy Award. The documentary feature didn’t end up winning an Oscar, but NoiseCat, a 32-year-old member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen, is the first Native filmmaker ever to be nominated.
Fall Preview 2025: Angeline Boulley
Angeline Boulley was 55 when she published her first novel, but she was just getting started. Firekeeper’s Daughter (2021) was a runaway bestseller that is being adapted for Netflix by the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions. The book introduced readers to a biracial Michigan teen, both an insider and an outsider to her father’s Ojibwe tribe, who is investigating drug overdoses in her community. Boulley, an enrolled member of the Sault Ste.
Fall Preview 2025: A Change of Seasons
As I write this, New York City is just emerging from a blazing summer heat wave, yet Kirkus’ Fall Preview serves to remind us that a change of season is just around the corner. Books got me through the long hot days (among them Angela Flournoy’s absolutely stunning second novel, The Wilderness, out from Mariner on September 16), and I’m already making lists of books to occupy me as the days grow shorter and chillier.
Let a Thousand Romances Bloom
If there’s one bright spot in the book world these days—despite the rise of AI, the proliferation of book bans, and the creeping decline in general readership—it’s the blooming of the romance genre. Once the butt of stupid jokes and snobbish literary condescension, romance today draws all kinds of readers with all kinds of tastes, and specialty bookstores like the Ripped Bodice (with branches in both Los Angeles and Brooklyn) cater to readers and forge community.
MASSACRE AT FLOUR CITY!
Violence Evolved from Employee Requests vs. Owner and Police Responses By TOM BEER “Massacre at Flour City: The Deadly Battle over Labor rights Summer 1935.” This exhibit tells the story of when “All Hell broke loose” in the south Minneapolis area nicknamed the Hub of Hell at 26th Av. & 26th St. 90 years ago, September 11, 1935. The graphic historical display uses photos, newspaper clippings, maps, and first-hand accounts to recount the local, violent labor struggle.
Laughing Matters: Give Comic Novels Their Due
Humor gets no respect. Funny novels aren’t easy to write—you try keeping the jokes coming for a few hundred pages—but when they succeed, they give readers unrivaled delight. Occasionally, awards juries surprise everybody and reward such books: Paul Beatty’s provocative satire about race in America, The Sellout, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction 2016, and in 2018, Andrew Sean Greer took home a Pulitzer Prize for Less, about a midlist gay novelist having a midlife crisis.
A Graphic Novelist Reenvisions a Fantasy Classic
When Fred Fordham was a child, an aunt gave him a copy of A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic fantasy novel from 1968. The book was a favorite that his aunt read to her own children. “I didn’t read it at the time,” Fordham says, “it got left on the shelf.
Picture This: The Art of the Graphic Adaptation
So complain the literary purists, according to novelist Ben H. Winters, when a cherished work of literature is adapted for a graphic novel (or TV series, Broadway musical, etc.). Here the offending remake is Raymond Chandler’s Trouble Is My Business (Pantheon, May 20), a pulpy comic book based on the classic detective story, adapted by Arvind Ethan David and illustrated by Ilias Kyriazis, with colors by Cris Peter.
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