The Winners of the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Awards

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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.

Winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards

The National Book Critics Circle announced the winners of its book awards for the 2025 publishing year in a ceremony held at New York’s New School last night. I’m delighted to see two of my favorite books of last year take home prizes: Han Kang won the award for fiction for We Do Not Part, and Arundhati Roy received the autobiography prize for Mother Mary Comes to Me. The rest of the winners:

• Nonfiction: Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI by Karen Hao
• Biography: A Perfect Turmoil: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America’s Disabled by Alex Green
• Poetry: Night Watch by Kevin Young
• Criticism: Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right by Quinn Slobodian
• The John Leonard Prize: Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs
• Greg Barrios Book in Translation: Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer

A Match Made in AO3 Heaven

Roxane Gay is a writer, editor, professor, and public intellectual, and now she’s adding romance writer to her resume. The celebrated author has made no secret of her crush on Channing Tatum. After years of tweeting about her desire to work with the actor, Gay is making her—and our—dream come true. During a recent appearance on Dua Lipa’s “Service 95” podcast, Gay confirmed that the pair have co-written a romance novel due out in 2027. Info about the plot is scarce, but rest assured, “It’s very sexy. Lots and lots of sex.”

“Book Look” T-Shirt Design Contest for National Library Week

Calling all artsy book nerds! The folks at Syndicate X Library, the brand behind popular YouTube series “Books That Changed My Life,” are hosting a t-shirt design contest in celebration of National Library Week coming up up April 19-25.

Entries in the Book Looks contest are open now through April 8. Finalists will be selected by a judging panel and announced April 15, and three winners will be chosen by fan voting. The first place winner will take home $5,000, while second place gets $1,500, and third place $1,000. All prizes are to be split 50-50 between the winner and their library of choice.

Winning t-shirt designs will also be sold as official merchandise at BooksThatChangedMyLife.org and promoted to the Syndicate X Library community. You can see contest details and find out how to enter here.

Manipulating the Law: Dismantling the Miller Test and Exploiting the “Government Speech” Doctrine

In 2026, some of the biggest trends in state-level legislation targeting books and libraries misuse two legal concepts to make it easier to ban books in public schools and public libraries. The first is the Miller Test. The second, the “government speech” doctrine. Book Riot Senior Editor Kelly Jensen and Sarah Lamdan, Executive Director at the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, break it down.

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