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  • Will Trent’s Ramon Rodriguez Reveals If the Show Plans to Cast Sara Linton

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    Ramón Rodríguez revealed if ABC’s Will Trent plans to introduce Sara Linton from Karin Slaughter’s book series.

    “I know how popular she is in Karin Slaughter’s books and those theories,” Rodríguez exclusively told Us Weekly. “It’s something we talk about often with our show.”

    Rodríguez didn’t rule out Will Trent finding a way to bring the fictional character to life, adding, “If and when do we bring such a big character into our world? Our world is pretty full already — we’ve got a lot of characters already and there’s a lot going on.”

    He continued: “But we also know this is something that fans love and want — especially the ones that really were obsessed with the books. … Rachel McAdams would be really fun [in the role].”

    Based on Slaughter’s book franchise, Will Trent follows a special agent at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation who was abandoned at birth and grew up in Atlanta’s overwhelmed foster care system. Will now relies on his unique perspective while pursuing justice, which leads to the highest clearance rate in the GBI.

    Disney/Nino Muñoz

    Will has been in an on and off relationship with Angie (Erika Christensen) since season 1 but they have since called it quits for good. He briefly explored a romance with Marion (Gina Rodriguez) but it was too soon for Will.

    In the book version, Will ends up with Sara, who is a pediatrician and medical examiner. She became his main love interest after his split from Angie. The fictional couple got married in Slaughter’s This Is Why We Lied.

    Season 4, which premiered earlier this month, offered Us a new glimpse at Will who is exploring his rage.

    TV Ships


    Related: TV Couples We Need Together in 2026: From ‘The Pitt’ to ‘Tracker’

    Fan-favorite TV couples like 9-1-1’s Buck and Eddie, The Bear’s Sydney and Carmy and Tracker’s Colter and Reenie — or Billie — deserve to finally get together on screen in 2026. Based on Jeffery Deaver‘s novel The Never Game, Tracker has viewers tuning in each week to see their favorite fictional survivalist — a.k.a Colter […]

    “It’s something we really haven’t seen too much of from him. For someone who has such a loaded past in history, for the first time he is really getting into therapy. Then a lot of stuff starts coming up for him. So we were really interested and intrigued by the idea of someone unraveling and peeling back the hood on themselves to see what’s in there,” he told Us. “The process of therapy, I’ve gone through it and it is interesting what comes up. It can be good or it can be complicated. It can trigger things.”

    Rodríguez promised viewers would see a new side of Will, adding, “For someone like Will who hasn’t really taken much time to do that — considering how much he’s been through — he just always moves forward and focuses on his job. He keeps himself busy that those have been some of his coping mechanisms and now to finally meet a therapist who is a bit unconventional where her tactics might be a little strange. But I think that’s what someone like Will needs.”

    He concluded: “I love that we took what we’ve seen a million times before in movies and shows — which is therapy — and we said, ‘How can we make this really different and give it the Will Trent spin that we try to do?’ I loved it.”

    Will Trent airs on ABC Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET before streaming the next day on Hulu.

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    Yana Grebenyuk

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  • Belle Burden Wrote a Viral “Modern Love” About Her Husband’s Betrayal. Now You Can Read the Book.

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    In 2023, her New York Times column devastated readers. In her new memoir, Strangers, the granddaughter of Babe Paley offers a deeper personal history.

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    Belle Burden

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  • On the Frantic Front Lines of the Los Angeles Fires With Governor Gavin Newsom

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    At the intersection of Midwick Drive and Sinaloa Avenue in Altadena, neighbors had mobilized to stop a situation almost exactly the same as I had seen playing out across the street from my brother’s home in the Palisades. Flames from a house, fully engulfed, were pouring up and over the fence toward the home of Eric Fiedler and his son Christopher, which had survived the fire that night. With two garden hoses and a ladder, they climbed to the roof to attempt to beat back the flames by wetting the roof and the hedges. It was 9:25 a.m.

    One resident who was wearing a cutoff black T-shirt and sunglasses used the shirt to cover his mouth to prevent smoke from asphyxiating him. A fire truck from Riverside County Cal Fire pulled up, resulting in the exalted screams of even the KNBC reporter on the scene, Michelle Valles.

    “Thank you so much! Oh, my goodness. Praise the Lord.”

    Around the same time the Riverside County firefighters battled the flames on Sinaloa, Ashley, the daughter of Herb and Loyda Wilson, was heading back toward their house two miles away after evacuating for the night to see if McNally Avenue had survived. By the time she and her boyfriend got close, she knew it wasn’t good. She called her parents, in Hawaii, inconsolable.

    “It’s gone, Dad! Everything is gone!”

    “Relax,” Herb told his daughter in the Hawaiian darkness. “It’s going to be OK.”

    Cate Heneghan had been receiving reports from her neighbors, too. One of them, who grew up in the home she still lived in on McNally Avenue, had tried to get close around six in the morning. But she told Cate that when she drove past Fairoaks Burger, less than a tenth of a mile away and just around the corner, all she saw was flames.

    Cate attempted to get back to the block as well, but when she was within a half mile, she thought better of it.

    I don’t want to be part of the problem. I know it’s gone. It’s gone, Cate. Just let it go.

    Even though she saw homes just a few blocks away that were still standing, her gut told her to turn around, so she did.

    Nick Schuler of Cal Fire, the state fire agency, had a thought run through his head he had never experienced in all of his years of fighting fires.

    God, I hope I don’t die of cancer. This is not a good place to be. Thousands of homes have burned.

    He was in the smoldering heart of the Palisades. He and Governor Newsom were driving through the area after a morning fire briefing, trying to find a cell signal for Newsom to reach President Biden. My damn cell phone, the governor thought. He had initiated the call because he was going to elevate the asks about resources, personnel, equipment, and federal reimbursements for what people were already saying could potentially be the costliest natural disaster in American history.

    ‘Firestorm’ by Jacob Soboroff

    As the fire continued to rage both in the neighborhoods and on the ridges of the Santa Monica Mountains, the governor directed his security detail to pull over.

    “Guys, turn left. Just stop. Stop.”

    He checked the bars on his cell phone.

    “No. Jesus Christ.”

    He couldn’t get a signal.

    “You know, get near the gas station—it worked there last night.”

    At 9:41 a.m. we came across Governor Newsom and Schuler outside that gas station. Newsom had declared a state of emergency on Tuesday after the Palisades Fire broke out, and with it deployed hundreds of members of the California National Guard to Los Angeles. Once the Eaton Fire ignited, he knew that a major disaster declaration was needed—and had to be requested of President Biden, who was still in town—in order to mobilize federal resources for the Palisades, Eaton, Hurst, and Woodley Fires, now burning. The Hurst Fire had broken out Tuesday night and was growing in size in the north San Fernando Valley, surpassing five hundred acres Wednesday morning. Smoke plumes were rising from all corners of Los Angeles County. The Woodley fire started early Wednesday, a few dozen acre blaze in the Sepulveda Basin.

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    Jacob Soboroff

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  • Book excerpt:

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    W.W. Norton


    We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article.

    In his new book, “Eat Your Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules For a Long and Healthy Life” (to be published Tuesday by W.W. Norton & Co.), Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and health policy expert, discusses longevity, and how to best differentiate valid and effective health and wellness advice from “the speculative, deceptive, and just plain stupid.”

    Read an excerpt below, and don’t miss Norah O’Donnell’s interview with Emanuel on “CBS Sunday Morning” January 4!

    “Eat Your Ice Cream” by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D.

    Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now.

    Anyone looking for advice on wellness and longevity confronts a tsunami of books, newspaper articles, podcasts, newsletters, and videos from an enormous range of sources: scientific experts, medical practitioners, health systems, journalists, patients, influencers, gurus, quacks. Traditional media offer loads of good advice, often in responsibly edited and well-sourced sections dedicated to “wellness.” But the sheer amount of it can be difficult to keep up with, and sometimes the guidance can be downright contradictory.

    For anyone wading through the torrent of health and longevity advice online, it can be difficult to know who to trust. The so-called “must dos” online range from the medically unproven to the wildly impractical to suggestions so absurd they leave doctors like me baffled—testicle tanning, teen blood transfusions, vaginal steaming, “rucking” hikes with a backpack full of weights. Information is coming at us from a firehose, increasingly spewed by hucksters and self-proclaimed sages who have amassed millions of social media followers (and dollars) by promising supposed miracle treatments using medical-sounding language. It’s no wonder so many people are confused and frustrated.

    Shouting to be heard over it all are real physicians and health experts offering sound but sometimes conflicting advice. All of it together can swamp even those who are most assiduous about their health. Dozens of books on health and longevity have appeared in just the last few years, filled with well-intentioned and scientifically accurate information. But too often they fall into the trap of chasing novelty instead of efficacy and end up touting treatments and regimens that are unproven or with marginal returns at best.

    Then there is the steady stream of profiles on tech billionaires joylessly devoting themselves to maximizing their lifespan. One of my business school students told me how her “wellness coach” recommended all sorts of questionable prescriptions, like eating 200 grams of meat a day. (Don’t ask me why a perfectly healthy twentysomething student who isn’t training for a marathon or Ironman needs a wellness coach.) And then there is the entrepreneur attempting to defy death with his daily regimen of 100 pills, cold plunges, infrared lights, and a daily serving of “nutty pudding”—a mix of chia seeds, macadamia nuts, and berries. Nutty is right.

    With so much health and wellness advice out there, it can be nearly impossible to differentiate the valid, reliable, and effective from the speculative, deceptive, and just plain stupid. Even when the advice is scientifically sound, it’s often extraneous, misrepresented, or misused. For example, one wellness book ventures into the basic biology of molecular pathways, like the mTOR pathway for cell survival, to explain why you should take rapamycin to improve longevity. Indeed, studies have shown rapamycin extends the lifespan of mice, worms, flies, and yeast. But you are not a mouse, worm, fly, or yeast. While some studies have suggested that rapamycin for humans may mitigate the impact of aging-related immune and cardiovascular diseases, there is no evidence that it impacts human lifespans.

    This extrapolation of laboratory findings parallels the story of resveratrol, the “magic” compound in grapes and red wine that was supposed to explain the French paradox. Yes, resveratrol improved longevity in mice. But, do you have a tail and whiskers? Scientists have been experimenting on mice since the early 20th century, and while this work has led to many breakthroughs, findings in mice often fail to extend to humans. As an oncologist, I know that researchers have cured hundreds of thousands of mice with cancer using experimental chemotherapy agents, only to have the drugs fail when administered to people with cancer. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that resveratrol or rapamycin improves human lifespans. Ultimately, the biology lesson and the “health advice” is a waste of people’s time. 

    What so many of these talking heads have in common—legitimate experts, well-meaning journalists, and kooks alike—is how costly their recommendations are. Financially, for sure, but also costs in mental energy and time that steal from activities which give life meaning. With the mountain of advice out there, it is practically a full-time job to determine whether the information on rapamycin is accurate, not to mention if it is worth taking.

    Overall, the wellness industrial complex promises us more time to enjoy in the future—but sure is demanding a lot of time right now. It takes a ton of time and attention to pore through a 400-page book, much less a whole library of them. And what about the zillions of posts, videos, and articles about the latest new supplement, superfood, or exercise that supposedly can lengthen your life? Add that to the time spent trying to figure out what is real versus what is a fad. Or based on some microbes in a petri dish or a study of worms. Or worse yet, based on no evidence at all. Then budget more time to methodically organize your schedule to incorporate the latest exercise tweak or diet advice. . . . Congratulations: You have now lost that added time the gurus promised you. And you’ve lost it in the prime of your life.

    Of course, if your whole focus is on quantity of years rather than quality, this work could be worth it. Some “longevity experts” seem to see things that way. As one popular author says, “Our only goal is to live longer and live better—to outlive.” Our only goal? Life is not a competition where the gold medal goes to the oldest! Our goal should not be to “outlive” as many people as possible. Instead, the goal should be to live a healthy and fulfilling life. Wellness is just a means to that end, not the end in itself.

          
    From “Eat Your Ice Cream” by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D., published by W.W. Norton & Company. Copyright 2025 by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D. All rights reserved.

    Get the book here:

    “Eat Your Ice Cream” by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D.

    Buy locally from Bookshop.org

    For more info:

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  • 42 New Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Books Releasing in January

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    Resolve to read more books in 2026—and start right here with io9’s first list of the year rounding up all the new sci-fi, fantasy, and horror titles coming your way in January. Check out new books by Charles Stross, Jim Butcher, Seanan McGuire, Alastair Reynolds, and more.

    January 6

    © Gallery Books, Tordotcom

    The Bloody Brick Road: A Wizard of Oz Retelling by Maude Royer 

    “In this wildly creative, horror-soaked reimagining of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, nothing is as it seems in Dorothy’s dystopian nightmare.” (January 6)

    A God of Countless Guises by Bradley P. Beaulieu 

    “Long ago, the elder gods devised a brutal contest – a game of ascension, where contestants gained power by killing their own. The prize? Godhood. Now, that game is stirring once again.” Sequel to The Book of the Holt. (January 6)

    A Monsoon Rising by Thea Guanzon 

    “Two hearts circle each other in the eye of the storm in this highly anticipated follow-up to The Hurricane Wars—prepare for more enemies-to-lovers romance, magical adventures, and political schemes in this Southeast Asian-inspired world.” (January 6)

    The Shop on Hidden Lane by Jayne Ann Krentz 

    “An enthralling new romantic suspense novel filled with deeply entrenched grudges, psychic dangers, and a conspiracy that threatens not only two families but also the entire paranormal community.” (January 6)

    The Starseekers by Nicole Glover 

    “Indiana Jones meets Hidden Figures in this brand-new stand-alone historical fantasy set in the world of The Conductors, in which the space race of the mid-20th century will be determined by magic… if not murder.” (January 6)

    Through Gates of Garnet and Gold by Seanan McGuire 

    “A fan-favorite character returns in this action-packed installment of the Hugo Award-winning Wayward Children series. After Nancy was cast out of the Halls of the Dead and forced to enroll at Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children, she never believed she’d find her door again, and when she did, she didn’t look back.” (January 6)

    January 13

    Jan13
    © S&S/Saga Press, Dutton

    The Book of Blood and Roses by Annie Summerlee

    “A vampire hunter goes undercover at a mysterious university—and finds herself falling in love with her roommate, an alluring vampire, in book one of a seductive sapphic paranormal fantasy.” (January 13)

    Detour by Jeff Rake and Rob Hart

    “A space shuttle flight crew discovers that the Earth they’ve returned to is not the home they left behind in the first book of this emotional, mind-bending thriller series from the creator of the hit Netflix show Manifest and the bestselling author of The Warehouse.” (January 13)

    The East Wind by Alexandria Warwick

    “Rapunzel meets the myth of Psyche and Cupid in a standalone fantasy romance tale of love, survival and healing, as a mortal woman and a god unite to overcome deadly trials—and their own tortured pasts—in the climactic final installment of the Four Winds series.” (January 13)

    Fire Sword and Sea by Vanessa Riley

    “The real Pirates of the Caribbean were Black, and women! From Vanessa Riley, acclaimed author of Queen of Exiles, comes a sweeping, immersive saga based on the life of the legendary 17th-century pirate Jacquotte Delehaye.” (January 13)

    Graceless Heart by Isabel Ibañez

    “A lush tale full of enemies-to-lovers tension, whimsical magic, villain romance, and slow-burn desire, set in an enchanted, perilous Florence where forbidden power could ignite a war.” (January 13)

    Ice by Jacek Dukaj, translated by Ursula Phillips

    “A Trans-Siberian odyssey through political, criminal, scientific, philosophical and amorous intrigues, and into an endless winter to confront something utterly alien.” (January 13)

    Into the Midnight Wood by Alexandra McCollum

    “A whimsical queer romance about two mismatched roommates whose fragile—and definitely not romantic at all—balance is upended by an impending family wedding and an otherworldly danger in the nearby enchanted wood.” (January 13)

    The Luminous Fairies and Mothra by Shin’ichiro Nakamura, Takehiko Fukunaga, and Yoshie Hotta, translated by Jeffrey Angles

    “The original story that hatched Mothra, one of the most beloved monsters in the ‘kaijuverse’—available in English for the first time.” (January 13)

    The Magic of Untamed Hearts by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

    “After several years stuck as a ghost, Sky Flores learns to reconnect with the living again with the help of her handsome neighbor in this lush romance.” (January 13)

    The Midnight Carousel by Fiza Saeed McLynn

    “The Night Circus meets Water for Elephants in this enchanting, darkly glittering story of grief, obsession, revenge, and enduring love.” (January 13)

    A Vow in Vengeance by Jaclyn Rodriguez

    “Sexy, action-packed, and brimming with magic, A Vow in Vengeance is an unputdownable romantasy debut.” (January 13)

    The Younger Gods by Katie Shepard

    “Danger looms when a former priestess sails to the realm of the dead to find her fallen lover, only to discover the gods she thought she defeated are preparing for war.” (January 13)

    January 20

    Jan20
    © William Morrow, Ace

    A Box Full of Darkness by Simone St. James

    A “pulse-pounding story about siblings who return to the house they fled 18 years before, called back by the ghost of their long-missing brother and his haunting request: Come home.” (January 20)

    The Elsewhere Express by Samantha Sotto Yambao

    “When you lose your way in life, the Elsewhere Express just might find you. Step on board the train that may take you to your life’s purpose in this wistful, Ghibli-esque fantasy from the bestselling author of Water Moon.” (January 20)

    The Friend of the Family by Dean Koontz

    “A girl liberated from a carnival sideshow discovers her mysterious purpose in a moving novel about family, sacrifice, and transcendent love.” (January 20)

    George Falls Through Time by Ryan Collett

    “Less meets the year 1300 in this exhilarating and thoughtfully genre-defying literary novel about a man transported through time in a moment of extreme stress, whose modern anxieties are replaced by medieval brutalities.” (January 20)

    The Poet Empress by Shen Tao

    “Wei Yin is desperate. After the fifth death of a sibling, with her family and village on the brink of starvation, she will do anything to save those she loves … To save herself and the nation, she must survive the dangers of court, learn to read in secret, and compose the most powerful spell of all. A ballad of love. . . and death.” (January 20)

    To Leave a Warrior Behind: The Life and Stories of Charles R. Saunders, the Man Who Rewrote Fantasy by Jon Tattrie

    “Discover the untold story of Charles R. Saunders, the little known figure who wrote groundbreaking fantasy worlds and redefined an entire genre. Blending biography with a tribute to Saunders’ forgotten literary legacy, To Leave a Warrior Behind uncovers the life of an enigmatic recluse, and the worlds he left behind.” (January 20)

    Twelve Months by Jim Butcher

    “Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard, has always managed to save the day—but, in this powerful entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling Dresden Files, can he save himself? … It’s been a tough year. More than ever, the city needs Harry Dresden the wizard—but after loss and grief, is there enough left of Harry Dresden the man to rise to the challenge?” (January 20)

    The Twice-Wanted Witch by Katie Hallahan

    “It’s been six months since McKenna Ellerbeck killed her second Archdemon, saved Arcadia Commons, and earned a spot on the Witches Council. Things should be good, right? Instead she’s overworked, underpaid, disrespected by her fellow Council members, all while fighting demons on a regular basis and suffering through having her mother as a roommate.” (January 20)

    Sauúti Terrors Short Stories edited by Eugen Bacon, Stephen Embleton, and Cheryl S. Ntumy

    “A powerful dark science fiction collection in a stunning edition, bringing back the revolutionary Afrocentric Sauútiverse.” (January 20)

    The Sea Child by Linda Wilgus

    “In this enchanting, adventurous debut novel, a band of seafaring smugglers lands on the Cornish coast, where a young widow with a mysterious past becomes entangled in their schemes—and with their charismatic captain.” (January 20)

    January 27

    Jan27
    © Orbit, Kensington

    Ballad of the Bone Road by A.C. Wise

    “In the glittering city of Port Astor, where fae roads criss-cross human highways and ghosts whisper to the living, nothing is ever as it seems.” (January 27)

    Enchanting the Fae Queen by Stephanie Burgis

    “Another irreverent, sparkling, and sexy installment in the Queens of Villainy series, where a seductive fae queen meets her unexpected match in the enemy empire’s valiant general.” (January 27)

    Halcyon Years by Alastair Reynolds

    “A private investigator is hired to look into a mysterious, high-profile death aboard the starship Halcyon in this fresh new science fiction masterpiece from the creator of the beloved Revelation Space universe. Strap in for a gripping murder mystery.” (January 27)

    Hearthspace by Stephen Baxter

    “Thousands of years ago, a massive colony ship arrived at the Hearth—the celestial birthplace of millions of planets, ranging from habitable earth-like worlds to unimaginable hellscapes of pressure and heat. Using lightsails to navigate, humanity has spread itself across dozens of these worlds. But they have also forgotten their beginnings, where they came from… and a terrible secret is about to be unveiled.” (January 27)

    Monster in the Moonlight by Annelise Ryan

    “Under the light of the full moon, a quiet rural lane becomes the scene of a shocking crime that may be the work of a mythical monster.” (January 27)

    On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah Yah Scholfield

    “In this sinister and surreal Southern Gothic debut, a woman escapes into the uncanny woods of southern Georgia and must contend with ghosts, haints, and most dangerous of all, the truth about herself.” (January 27)

    Passage to Tokyo by Poppy Kuroki

    “In the second book in the Ancestor Memories historical fantasy series, a young woman finds herself back in 1920s Tokyo as Japan enters a new and dangerous era—and a deadly tragedy awaits her city.” (January 27)

    The Regicide Report by Charles Stross

    “An occult assassin, a living god and an elderly queen face off in the thrilling conclusion to Charles Stross’ Hugo Award-winning Laundry Files series.” (January 27)

    Silver & Blood by Jessie Mihalik

    “On a deadly mission to kill the mythical beast that has been haunting her woods, a desperate mage finds her fate intertwined with the handsome, powerful man who saves her in this dark and sexy romantasy.” (January 27)

    Sister Svangerd and the Not Quite Dead by K.J. Parker

    “​Not even the Church of the Invincible Sun is invincible—and somebody has to do its dirty work. Enter Sister Svangerd and her accompanying priest, both first-rate practitioners. Their mission is simple: to make a meddlesome princess disappear (permanently). To get to her, they must attend the legendary Ecumenical Council, the once-in-a-century convening of the greatest spiritual minds the world has to offer. But when they arrive, they find instead a den of villainy that would make the most hardened criminal blush.” (January 27)

    This House Will Feed by Maria Tureaud

    “Amidst the devastation of Ireland’s Great Famine, a young woman is salvaged from certain death when offered a mysterious position at a remote manor house haunted by a strange power and the horror of her own memories in this chillingly evocative historical novel braided with gothic horror and supernatural suspense.” (January 27)

    To Ride a Rising Storm by Moniquill Blackgoose

    “A young indigenous woman and her dragon fight for the independence of their homeland in this epic sequel to the bestselling and multi-award-winning To Shape a Dragon’s Breath.” (January 27)

    We Who Have No Gods by Liza Anderson

    “In a world of witches, a human woman must hunt or be hunted in this explosive debut novel filled with dangerous rivals, guarded secrets, and simmering chemistry.” (January 27)

    The Wolf and the Crown of Blood by Elizabeth May

    “A princess and a war-weary god meet in the ashes of a broken city, forging a pact in blood and sacrifice.” (January 27)

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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    Cheryl Eddy

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  • These notable works are officially in the public domain as 2026 arrives

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    New Year’s Day commemorates the passing of time and the start of a new chapter, so it is fitting that the same day also presents an opportunity to breathe new life into thousands of creative works nearly a century old. As of Jan. 1, 2026, characters like early Betty Boop and Nancy Drew, and a variety of popular movies, books and songs, have entered the the public domain. 

    They join a growing list of cultural icons that are no longer under copyright protection, including Popeye the Sailor Man and the “Steamboat Willie” version of Mickey Mouse.

    List of popular intellectual property entering the public domain in 2026

    The year 2026 marks the first time that copyrighted books, films, songs and art published in the ’30s enter the U.S. public domain. As of Jan. 1, protections have expired for published works from 1930 and sound recordings from 1925.

    Here are some of the most notable works that are now available for free use by anyone:

    • “The Murder at the Vicarage” by Agatha Christie, the first novel featuring elderly amateur detective Miss Marple.
    • “The Secret of the Old Clock” by Carolyn Keene, the first appearance of teen detective Nancy Drew, and three follow-ups.
    • “The Little Engine That Could” by Watty Piper.
    • Fleischer Studios’ “Dizzy Dishes,” the first cartoon in which Betty Boop appears.
    • Disney’s “The Chain Gang” and “The Picnic,” both depicting the earliest versions of Mickey’s dog Pluto.
    • The initial four months of “Blondie” comic strips by Chic Young, featuring the earliest iterations of the titular character and her then-boyfriend, Dagwood.
    • The film “All Quiet on the Western Front,” directed by Lewis Milestone, Best Picture winner at the 3rd Academy Awards.
    • “King of Jazz,” directed by John Murray Anderson, Bing Crosby’s first appearance in a feature film.
    • “Animal Crackers,” directed by Victor Heerman and starring the Marx Brothers.
    • “The Big Trail,” directed by Raoul Walsh, John Wayne’s first turn as leading man.
    • “But Not For Me,” music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin.
    • “Georgia on My Mind,” music by Hoagy Carmichael, lyrics by Stuart Gorrell.
    • “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” music by Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt, lyrics by Gus Kahn.
    • “Livin’ in the Sunlight, Lovin’ in the Moonlight,” music by Al Sherman, lyrics by Al Lewis.
    • Piet Mondrian’s painting, “Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow.”

    The original Betty Boop, early Nancy Drew mysteries, and Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto are among the creative works entering the public domain on Jan. 1, 2026.

    How the public domain works

    When a work’s copyright protections lapse, it lands in the public domain, allowing anyone to use and build upon it as they see fit for free and without needing permission.

    “Copyright gives rights to creators and their descendants that provide incentives to create,” Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, told CBS News’ Lee Cowan in 2024. “But the public domain really is the soil for future creativity.”

    The U.S. Constitution’s intellectual property clause establishes that works be protected for a limited amount of time, “to promote the progress of science and useful arts.” The Founding Fathers left it to Congress to sort out the specifics.

    Generally, in the U.S., works published or registered before 1978 retain copyright protections for 95 years. For later works, protection usually spans the creator’s lifetime and 70 years after.

    “If copyright lasted forever, it would be very difficult for a lot of creators to make the works they want to make without worrying about being in the crosshairs of a copyright lawsuit,” Jenkins said.

    Just because a work’s copyright has expired does not mean that members of the public cannot be held legally liable in some instances. For example, while the original Betty Boop from 1930 is in the public domain, the modern version is not. So to avoid infringement, any reuse would need to steer clear of her newer characteristics. Additionally, the character is subject to multiple trademarks, which further complicates its use.

    What’s entering the public domain in 2027?

    Copyrighted works from 1931 will see their protections expire in 2027. This includes Universal Pictures’ “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” films, Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights,” Fritz Lang’s “M,” Herman Hupfeld’s jazz standard “As Time Goes By” and more.

    Lee Cowan

    contributed to this report.

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  • The Tragic, Never-Told Love Story of A Gilded Age–Era Romance

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    After Teddy’s announcement, Flora spent several nights at Sagamore. That fall, she confided to Quentin’s sister Ethel that “Everything just hurts nearly all of the whole time. There is no one I can talk to who half understands. It is all so lonely.” Her parents knew that she suffered. Yet in the hundreds of condolence letters to Flora from friends and family and other correspondence from this time, there are none between Flora and her parents that mention Quentin or his family. Despite this, one of the more poignant bronzes her mother made at this time is of Flora, seated quietly in an armchair, the curve of her body and downcast expression manifesting her pensive mood.

    Flora and Teddy took solace in each other’s company. Teddy wrote to Flora that fall reminding her that “for as long as I live, I shall love you as if you were my own daughter.” During that time, Flora did some work for Teddy, who she called “the Colonel,” taking dictation and typing letters and other documents. In January 1919, Roosevelt died of an embolism. His death plunged Flora further into grief.

    After that, Flora lived for a time with Quentin’s half-sister, the fiercely independent Alice Roosevelt Longworth, in Washington, DC, volunteering at the Women’s Republican Committee in the office of former congressman Ruth McCormick. In the summer of 1919, Flora’s parents urged her to go to France with her aunt, Dorothy Whitney, who had lost her husband Willard Straight in the influenza pandemic.

    There the women visited Chaméry, where Quentin was buried. Flora’s grief came flooding back. Paris, though, lit up with post-war joie de vivre, was the perfect antidote. The women shopped on the rue de la Paix, heard Tosca at the Tuileries, and walked in the Bois. The days flew by until they sailed home from Southampton a month later. Flora felt a brimming lightness, her sprightly grin restored, a new swing in her step. Theodore Roosevelt was onto something when he wrote to his daughter-in-law Belle the summer before that “there is nothing to comfort Flora at the moment, but she is young. I most earnestly hope that time will be merciful to her and, in a few years, she will keep Quentin as only a memory of her golden youth…and that she will find happiness with another good and fine man.”

    Our American Cemetery guide escorts us along a sea of marble headstones to Quentin’s grave. He is buried next to his oldest brother, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who died of a heart attack in France at the end of World War II. Quentin is the only World War I pilot interred there, his remains moved in 1955 at the request of his family. Once we reach the grave, our guide attends to the noble task performed by volunteers for visiting family members and every year on the anniversary of D-Day. With a sponge, she rubs Omaha Beach sand over and into the incised letters on Quentin’s headstone. She carefully wipes off all but the sand impressed into the channels of his name, rank, unit, home state, and date of death, highlighting them. As a gentle fog rolls in from the Channel, bathing the cemetery in a soft haze, she plants two flags—one American, one French—on either side of the grave.

    The American Cemetery’s unsettling serenity reminds one that freedom comes with responsibility and at a tremendous cost. Appalled by the barbarity of battle evoked in the sites I visited around Normandy’s beaches, I left awed at the courage of Quentin and Flora, and all those caught up in the war’s unpredictable forces.

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    Fiona Donovan

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  • 46 best books of 2025: Our top fiction and nonfiction book recommendations

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    It was the best-of times (you know, that period in December when we do the best-of lists).

    But it could feel like the worst of times: There’s so much to read before the year finishes!

    Well, there’s good news. You can read these books whenever you want — this year, next year, Leap Day, anytime. This best-of thing isn’t really a competition — it’s a collaboration between writers, editors, designers, publicists, booksellers, journalists and readers like you.

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    Erik Pedersen

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  • Book excerpt:

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    Sourcebooks Landmark


    We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article.

    Susie Dent’s debut novel, “Guilty by Definition” (‎Sourcebooks Landmark), introduces a dictionary editor at Oxford who begins receiving strange messages tied to her sister’s long-ago disappearance.

    The lexicographer-turned-sleuth follows clues that draw her into literary puzzles – and unresolved parts of her past.

    Read an excerpt below. 

    “Guilty by Definition” by Susie Dent

    Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now.

    Chapter 3

    eidolon, noun (seventeenth century):
    a spirit, phantom, or apparition

    Martha turned and fled through the crowd, down the wide flight of stone steps, and out into Beaumont Street, looking at nothing but the ground. Three corners later, she found a side road and turned into it. She put her back against the wall and tried to breathe.

    She had known there would be ghosts in Oxford. She wasn’t afraid of any headless horsemen or nuns haunting the local ruins; it was Charlie, always Charlie she was afraid would find her. There had been times in the first year after her sister’s disappearance when Martha’s heart would stop as she spotted her through the crowd: the long blond hair, the shapeless cardigan draped over a thin cotton dress. She’d hear a laugh, throaty and sudden, or catch a movement, a walk, a twist in the shoulders, and she’d be certain. Just for a moment. Then the illusion would shatter, and the person she knew to be her sister would resolve into a stranger.

    As the years passed, so the ghost of Charlie aged. Now it was women in their midthirties who made Martha stop dead in the streets. In Berlin, once a month perhaps, she’d felt that same flickering certainty before realizing the woman with a child on her lap as she drank a coffee at a sidewalk café was not her sister, just an echo of Martha’s own image of who Charlie might be now, thirteen years after fleeing Oxford and her family.

    Martha pressed her palm against the wall behind her. She reminded herself of her therapist’s mantra for the moments when she was in danger of being overwhelmed. What can you see now? The shiny cobbles of the side street, the white brick of the wall opposite. What can you feel? The bricks under my fingers, a breeze ruffling my hair. What can you smell? Cooking oil, the Black Opium perfume I put on this morning.

    Her breathing slowed.

    She pulled the letter out of her bag again and stared at it. Could it be from Charlie? Impossible. What could this Chorus know? Should she burn it? Throw it in the river? Take it to the police?

    Ah, the police. She heard the scrape of her mother’s chair on the kitchen floor as she leaped up at the sound of the doorbell. They had found Charlie’s bike not far from the ring road. Did she hitchhike? How was her PhD going? Martha couldn’t remember their faces, just their hands around tea mugs as they sat at the table, the low rumble of their voices as they talked about stress and pressure. Most runaways come back in time, they’d said. They left literature, helpline numbers, and world-weary sympathy behind them.

    Martha realized she was at her own front door. Her body had picked her up and carried her here through the gathering dark. She looked up. All the lights were off; her father must be in bed.

    Charlie had been living here when she went missing, taking advantage of the space, their mum’s cooking, and the glow of parental approval while she slogged through her PhD. Martha had just left for university and was starting to experiment with life out of Charlie’s orbit.

    As she put her key in the lock, she remembered Alex’s shadow moving across the folded letter at the museum. Now it was Charlie’s. Always here: the shadows of the past thrown against the walls and floors. She pushed open the door….

    She took the letter out again and laid it on the kitchen counter while the kettle boiled.

    Truth will come to light. Murder cannot be hid long.

         
    Excerpted from “Guilty by Definition” by Susie Dent. Copyright © 2024, 2025 by Susie Dent. Reprinted by permission of Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks.

    Get the book here:

    “Guilty by Definition” by Susie Dent

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    Riverhead Books


    We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article.

    “Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State” (Riverhead Books) is the latest book by award-winning journalist Caleb Gayle, author of “We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power.”

    Gayle recounts the rise of Edward McCabe, an activist who, during Reconstruction, lobbied for a Black-governed state, fighting racism and greed as he sought to create a “promised land” for newly-freed Blacks in the Oklahoma Territory.

    Read an excerpt below. 

    “Black Moses” by Caleb Gayle

    Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now.

    “We will have a new party, that of negro supremacy in at least one State, with negro State and county officers, and negro Senators and Representatives in Congress,” said a young but seasoned Black politician, Edward Preston McCabe, in 1891. With the Pyrrhic advances of Reconstruction after the Civil War becoming a memory, and Black people attacked and disempowered across the United States—both South and North—McCabe was promising something that sounded impossible, but it wasn’t. Indeed, that’s why the reporter to whom McCabe was talking had come all the way from Minnesota to Oklahoma Territory in the first place. Even as America’s western frontier was on the precipice of being overrun, this reporter had come to witness a run on the land. Claiming that land was the first step toward a better life for thousands of Black people, the  forty‑year‑old McCabe was  known—sometimes  derisively—as “the One Who Would Be the Moses.”

    At noon on September 22, 1891, along the borders of the Indian Territory, rifles were fired, pistols went off, cannons blazed, all signaling the official start of the new opening of Oklahoma Territory to settlement. With that, lands that had previously been granted permanently by the U.S. government to several Indigenous nations including the Sac and Fox, the Iowa, the Shawnee, and the Potawatomi were now declared free to whoever could grab them and, crucially, to hold them against all others. The night before, some twenty‑five thousand people—Black, white, and Indigenous—huddled at the borders of Native lands. Poor whites from across the country hoped that Oklahoma would be another iteration of an America that would favor them. Black families left the harsh conditions of the Jim Crow South as well as the North and bordering states to grab at a hope that felt tactile. Citizens of Indigenous nations watched as newcomers made their lands sites of fulfilling dreams of building their personal fortunes.

    The tens of thousands at the border waited with anticipation and a sense of opportunity for a once‑in‑a‑lifetime chance articulated in simple, transactional terms: Whether rich or poor or something in between, all could run and ride to find land. Stake their ground. Develop their land and stay on it for five years. If they did, that land, 160 acres in total, would be theirs. That land would be their stake in tomorrow.

          
    Excerpted from “Black Moses” by Caleb Gayle.  Copyright © 2025. Excerpted by permission of Riverhead Books, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

    Get the book here:

    “Black Moses” by Caleb Gayle

    Buy locally from Bookshop.org

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  • How one photographer takes refuge in Paris

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    Peter Turnley, an American and French photographer known for documenting the human condition, finds comfort in Paris. His new book “PARIS Je t’aime” showcases 50 years of photographs from his favorite city.

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  • Fairfax County launches new way to recycle unwanted books – WTOP News

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    Fairfax County, Virginia, is launching a new program that aims to make it easier and more convenient for residents to recycle unwanted books.

    Fairfax County, Virginia, is launching a new program that aims to make it easier and more convenient for residents to recycle unwanted books.

    Through a partnership with New Legacy Books, the county has placed a green drop-off bin at the Interstate 66 Transfer Station in Fairfax. There are currently two donation bins in place, though the program could expand to other locations if there’s enough demand.

    Residents can donate unwanted paperback, hardcover or textbooks. Any books dropped off have to be clean, dry and have ISBN codes that can be scanned on the back, according to Catie Torgersen, who leads the sustainability branch of Fairfax County Solid Waste Management Program.

    “A lot of our libraries will accept donations, but sometimes they aren’t able to accept everything,” Torgersen said. “This is just another way for people to donate.”

    Most of the books will be resold, if possible, she said. The ones that can’t be sold are recycled through paper recyclers.

    “Then, the county receives a small portion of the sales that could go directly into their recycling services and help find more ways to help people,” Torgersen said.

    While paperback books can be tossed into a regular curbside recycling bin, Torgersen said hardbacks have mixed materials, which have to be separated.

    “The normal person in the normal recycling facility can’t do that, so that’s always been another hard-to-recycle item,” Torgersen said. “But because these people are collecting specifically books, they have the ability to separate the two materials and recycle them both.”

    The book program is similar to the recently-expanded partnership with Helpsy, which allows residents to drop off clothes, linens and towels.

    It’s likely the county will consider other locations to add book drop-off bins in the coming months, Torgersen said.

    “We didn’t want to inundate ourselves with books, but we’ve had a really great response from residents in other areas where we’ve done drop-off events for book recycling,” he said.

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Scott Gelman

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  • Best Books on Leadership of 2025

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    Inbox pinging. Deadlines stacking. Morale slipping. One choice could change everything. These 11 books unpack the decisions—and strategies—that distinguish great leaders.

    Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others

    By Adam Galinsky

    Every leader leaves their mark on the hearts and minds of a workforce. This can go one of two ways: leaders can leave behind a legacy of inspiration, or infuriation. Based on thousands of perspectives collected from around the globe, Adam created a systemic formula for choosing and earning the lasting impact you want to have on others. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Adam Galinsky, in the Next Big Idea app or view on Amazon.

    Why Are We Here?: Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants

    By Jennifer Moss

    Leaders don’t need to take a ton of time overhauling company culture to create workplaces where employees want to spend their time. Simple shifts and incremental changes can foster community, fuel purpose, boost productivity, and deliver meaning to every team member. Jobs that employees actually like are the ultimate capitalist business strategy. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Jennifer Moss, in the Next Big Idea app or view on Amazon.

    Lead Well: 5 Mindsets to Engage, Retain, and Inspire Your Team

    By Paula Davis

    To increase well-being, motivation, engagement, resilience, or the many words that describe thriving teams, we must understand that leadership behaviors drive employee experience. We need to advance the conversation beyond individual remedies for burnout and address root causes of stress and disengagement. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Paula Davis, in the Next Big Idea app or view on Amazon.

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    Fast Company

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  • ‘Heated Rivalry’ Superfans Recommend More Hockey Romance Books to Read While You Wait

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    If you or a loved one are experiencing withdrawal symptoms, whether while waiting for your chance to dogear pages of your very own, or for the next episode of the show to drop, VF asked hockey romance aficionados about their recommendations for books fans may want to reach for.

    Canadian Boyfriend, Jenny Holiday

    ‘Canadian Boyfriend’ by Jenny Holiday

    Elizabeth Held, co-founder of the Really Reading Romance Book Club, writer of the What to Read If newsletter, and author of the upcoming nonfiction book Romancelandia, highlighted Jenny Holiday’s Canadian Boyfriend, a straight romance that “doesn’t actually have that much hockey in it.” (“A surprising number of hockey romances do not actually feature a ton of hockey,” Held says.) She called it a book “about people in their late 30s figuring out their baggage, under the guise of a hockey romance.” Held especially loves the audiobook edition, narrated by actor Joshua Jackson. “I think it’s just totally fabulous and very fun that he went from playing a hockey player as a teenager in The Mighty Ducks, and then narrating this book as an adult hockey player. It’s just a nice easter egg.”

    Face Off (D.C. Stars Book #1), Chelsea Curto

    Image may contain: Book, Publication, Advertisement, Hockey, Ice Hockey, Ice Hockey Stick, Rink, Skating, Sport, and Clothing

    ‘Face Off’ by Chelsea Curto

    Held calls Chelsea Curto “an up-and-coming star in the romance world, particularly for hockey,” thanks to her D.C. Stars series. “If you are still mourning the cancellation of Pitch, this is your book, because it’s about the first female NHL player,” Held says of Face Off, the first book in the series. That trailblazing player finds chemistry (that she wasn’t looking for) with a male teammate, making for a spicy rivals-to-lovers plotline.

    Shoot Your Shot, Lexi LaFleur Brown

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    ‘Shoot Your Shot’ by Lexi LaFleur Brown

    Talk about an insider point of view: Who better to write a hockey romance than someone who has lived one? Lexi LaFleur Brown, whose books include Shoot Your Shot and the upcoming Evening the Score, is married to former NHL player JT Brown. Held hails Brown as “a new author who’s interesting, especially in this moment,” pointing out Brown’s deep roots not just in hockey, but in the hockey romance online community. “She rose to prominence on BookTok, specifically by dissecting hockey romances and what they got right or wrong.” Expert source? Check and check.

    Ice Knights series, Avery Flynn

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    ‘Parental Guidance’ by Avery Flynn

    Avery Flynn’s Ice Knights series, beginning with Parental Guidance, is “genuinely hilarious,” Held says. “Those books make me laugh out loud.”

    Check, Please! Ngozi Ukazu

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    ‘Check, Please!’ by Ngozi Ukazu

    Some hockey romances are graphic in the sexytimes sense. Others are graphic as in…illustrated. Such is the case with Check, Please!, a two-volume queer hockey rom-com in graphic novel form. “I feel like it’s a little bit of a cult favorite,” Held says. “The main character, Bitty, is a gay southern baker, and he’s in college on a hockey scholarship. He lives in kind of a frat house with his fellow hockey players, but they are all really supportive of him and his sexuality and his quest for love. Maybe there’s a little bit of a spark between him and the older team captain. It’s one of those ones that either you love it, or you haven’t heard of it.”

    Him, Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy

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    ‘Him’ by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy

    Laura McCormack, another avid romance reader, says she recommends “literally everything” by Sarina Bowen. Megan, who devours at least one hockey romance a week (and asked to be identified by only her first name), says that a series Bowen co-wrote with Elle Kennedy was her gateway into the genre. “Him and Us were maybe my first,” and then she was hooked.

    Rookie Move, Sarina Bowen

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    ‘Rookie Move’ by Sarina Bowen

    If you’re ready to settle into an entire extended universe of love and hockey, McCormack recommends Bowen’s Boston Bruisers series, beginning with Rookie Move. “That one is just delicious,” she says. “It’s straight and it’s got spice, but it’s got a lot of heart, and kick-ass heroines who are successful in their own right. It’s fun because it has tie-ins to other series. It’s the hockey player and his brother, and his brother works for the security team, and then you get to go and read the series for the security team. It’s great.”

    The Deal, Elle Kennedy

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    ‘The Deal’ by Elle Kennedy

    McCormack also loves Kennedy’s Off-Campus series, beginning with The Deal, which features college-aged characters and plenty of spin-offs. “Now they’re on the second generation [of characters],” she says. “ I was listening to one of the second-generation ones on a plane, and I gasped so loud at the reveal part that I scared the man next to me. It was a really good time.”

    The Shots You Take, Rachel Reid

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    ‘The Shots You Take’ by Rachel Reid

    Reid has more to offer than just Heated Rivalry and the Game Changers series. Reader Megan recommends Reid’s standalone book The Shots You Take, another queer hockey romance, this one set in a small town and featuring two ex-friends mapping out their shared future. “I love it,” she says. “It’s set over many, many years. It’s a second-chance romance, there’s some yearning, reconnecting, and finding their way back to each other.”

    Like Real People Do, E.L. Massey

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    ‘Like Real People Do’ by E.L. Massey

    Enemies to lovers, public image versus private life, young love, yearning, and ice rinks? Like Real People Do, the first installment in E.L. Massey’s Breakaway series, has all that and more. Capizola recommends this title especially to those who enjoyed the third episode of Heated Rivalry, which explores similar themes, “like how fame impacts the ability for you to be yourself.” This queer hockey romance follows a young pro player and an online hockey influencer as their relationship evolves. Plus, Massey has fun playing with the bad boy hockey player stereotype, with Capizola describing the main character as, “I’m not just a jock, I have feelings!”

    Puckboys series, Eden Finley and Saxon James

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    ‘Egotistical Puckboy’ by Eden Finley and Saxon James

    You know what “puck” rhymes with? Yeah, expect a lot of that in the 10-book (so far) Puckboys series, co-written by Eden Finley and Saxon James. The first book is Egotistical Puckboy, and each installment follows a different queer hockey couple. McCormack loves this series when you’re in the mood for something that’s “silly and filthy and gentle on plot.” Once you burn through all 10, don’t worry: The two authors have multiple other hockey series to add to your TBR list.

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    Kase Wickman

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  • ‘Heated Rivalry’ and the Big Business of Hockey Romance Novels

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    And when hockey comes up in conversation, she doesn’t hesitate to mention the reading material that brought her to the sport: “If someone wants to talk to me about hockey, I will absolutely talk to them about hockey. If they ask, ‘Oh, why did you get into it?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, have you heard of hockey romance? It’s amazing.’”

    And if they yuck her yum, showing disdain for queer hockey smut, then she knows they’re not for her: “If I have to dim the things I’m excited about in order to be cool to someone, then I don’t want to be their friend,” she says.

    The cross-fandom pollination has gone in the opposite direction as well.

    “I’ve seen hockey reporters say, like, I’ve got a bunch of new followers, if you want to learn the game, like, what do you want to know?” Held says. Show creator Jacob Tierney has been a guest on the hockey podcast What Chaos, and the Empty Netters podcast now recaps each Heated Rivalry episode. “I love it when people find a new passion. So I hope this leads to romance readers becoming hockey fans and hockey fans becoming romance readers, right? And then ideally, we would get a romance novel in like a year or two about people, one person from each fandom and how they fell in love together.”

    The breakout success of the show has felt validating to readers, who hope to see more like it in the future, including plotlines of acceptance, diversity, and anti-homophobia that Reid explores in the series, which Held calls “very explicitly a critique of the NHL.”

    In the here and now, however, romance enthusiasts are thrilled with the show’s success, and ready to welcome new fans into the fold.

    “There’s a cool feeling of like, oh my God, we’ve known about this for so long,” Capizola says. “People are like, where did this come from? And we’re all like, it’s been here, welcome. There’s, like, seven more books [in the series].”

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    Kase Wickman

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  • New Book: Gravitational Habits for Financial Resilience

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    Today, my book “Gravitational Habits for Financial Resilience” goes live on Apple Books, Google Play and Amazon. It has been in pre-order for more than 2 weeks, so if you placed an order (thank you, you know who you are) you should get it delivered today. It packs a punch for an actionable guide, and it’s just $9.99. Ta-daa!

    The Book Story

    I didn’t have in plan yet another book this year, honestly. I already have a handful of titles published, and that felt like enough. Until a couple of months ago, that is. That’s when I realized I am working with displaced pieces of a puzzle, and maybe it’s time for the puzzle to finally be assembled.

    What do I mean by “working with displaced pieces” and what specifically is this “work” about? The first answer to this question would be “money, the work I’m talking about is money”. But actually the book isn’t about money. It’s about habits that control money.

    This matters. A lot. It matters to calibrate your expectations (sorry, no “get rich quick” thingie, no “making money online system”). And it matters, at a more profound level, as the basic understanding of how our lives are shaped not by motivation, not by sudden jolts or epiphanies, but by what we do each and every day, on autopilot.

    The Gravitational Nature of Habits

    A few years ago I discovered something very subtle, about the gravitational nature of habits. It works basically like this: every time you perform an action, you add some “mass” to it. Simple, right?

    Let’s say you start walking every day 2 km. You just added a little bit of subtle mental “mass” to the action of walking. Next day, you walk again. A little bit more of a “mass” is added again. Third day, you feel tired. Unmotivated. Lazy. But you walk again, regardless. The walk feels like dread and you’re not actually enjoying it, you’d rather stay on the couch today.

    But here’s the thing: the mass doesn’t care about how you feel. It’s still added. The tiny “boulder” about walking is getting bigger and bigger.

    So you grow this small “planet” with each and every tiny mass added to it, until, one day, it just pulls you towards it, effortless. That’s how gravitational habits work. And that’s what the book is about: creating and maintaining habits so powerful, you’d be pulled towards maintaining a stable financial line, without any effort.

    What This Book Is – And What Isn’t

    It’s an actionable guide. Loads of checkboxes, templates and routines. Very little philosophy. I kept the philosophy inside of the blog, if you really want to update your operating system with the most important principles, just browse the financial resilience articles. But the book, it’s something designed to help you immediately, to jumpstart your habit formation routine from the first page.

    This book is for you if you’re tired of living paycheck to paycheck, if you’ve tried budgeting apps that didn’t stick, or if you simply want to stop worrying about money. It’s for freelancers navigating irregular income, employees building a safety net, or anyone who wants their finances to run on autopilot instead of anxiety.

    Subsequently, this book is not about making money quickly. Also, not about making money slowly – or even about creating income. There are, of course, significant sections about how to approach income creation, but the core of the book is about how to survive (and even thrive) even when income is thin. How to maintain the mindset and the routines that keep you resilient regardless of the context.

    The Immediate Perks

    Enough talk, let’s move to the juicy parts. Here’s the table of contents:

    • Jumpstart: The Three Immediate Habits
    • Who This Book Is For
    • Introduction
    • The Assess-Decide-Do Framework
    • Chapter 1: The Pain Point — Why Financial Chaos Happens
    • Chapter 2: Habits vs. Motivation — Why Habits Win
    • Chapter 3: The Core Financial Habits
    • Chapter 4: The Other Side — Expanding Income
    • Chapter 5: Financial Adjustments — Protecting Your System
    • Chapter 6: Implementation — The Step-by-Step System
    • Chapter 7: Maintenance — Long-Term Sustainability
    • Conclusion: Gravity Does the Work
    • Appendix A: Complete Checklists and Templates
    • Appendix B: ADD Beyond Finances
    • Closing Thoughts
    • Further Reading

    And here are the immediate perks:

    • if you are a free subscriber to my newsletter, you will get 1 chapter included in the weekly send, which is, wait… yes, it’s today
    • if you are a paid newsletter subscriber (monthly, or yearly, doesn’t matter) you get the full book – period

    You can subscribe to my newsletter by filling the form below, it literally takes 5 seconds.

    And you can get the book on your favorite platform, for just $9.99, right now: Apple Books, Google Play or Amazon.

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    dragos@dragosroua.com (Dragos Roua)

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  • 11 Essential Books Overlooked by the Literary Canon

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    Over the past century, there have been countless attempts to assemble a definitive list of essential literature. In recent decades, however, the very idea of a literary canon has become a source of sustained debate, shaped by its historical tendency to be racist, sexist and otherwise exclusionary. A glance at many of these roundups still reveals a striking sameness: overwhelmingly white and male.

    That is not to suggest that Joyce, Homer and Dostoyevsky are not foundational reads for literary devotees. Rather, a truly committed reader would do well to recognize that many extraordinary books exist as overlooked peers to the greatest works humanity has produced. With that in mind, what follows is a selection of classics, old and new, that deserve a place in any honest literary canon.

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    Nick Hilden

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  • Artsy Reads Guaranteed to Jump-Start Your Creativity

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    ‘My Work’ by Olga Ravn

    Since reading it two years ago, there’s no book I recommend more frequently than Ravn’s deeply introspective “novel” My Work. I use the quotes because while it is partially fictional, it also careens between memoir, poetry, essay, correspondence, dialogue and newspaper headlines as it explores the struggles of giving birth, being a wife and creating art in a world that seems to be going crazy. It probes one of the great questions that plagues every artist: how can I balance my art with my responsibilities?

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    Nick Hilden

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  • 6 New Books You Should Read This December

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    Photo-Illustration: Vulture

    Every month, Emma Alpern and Jasmine Vojdani recommend new fiction and nonfiction books. You should read as many of them as possible. See their picks from last month here.

    The Award, by Matthew Pearl

    The Award, by Matthew Pearl

    An aspiring — you might say grasping — novelist named David Trent moves into an unheated attic apartment with his fiancée. They can’t really afford it, but one of David’s heroes lives below, an important writer in the John Cheever–Philip Roth mold. It turns out the author is hostile and cruel, as far from a mentor as you could imagine — until David’s modest first novel wins a prestigious literary prize. A publishing-industry satire in the vein of Andrew Lipstein’s Last Resort, The Award takes a dim view of its characters’ ambitions. Every bad and selfish choice made by the protagonist just adds to the pleasure of it. —Emma Alpern

    $30 at Amazon

    $28 at Bookshop

    The Lord, by Soraya Antonius

    The Lord, by Soraya Antonius

    A reporter-narrator in early-’80s Lebanon meets Miss Alice, an English woman who was stationed in Mandatory Palestine in a Jaffa mission school founded by her parents. Alice reminisces about her student Tareq, an exceptionally talented boy who went on to travel the region performing miracles — and eventually to risk his life by leading the Palestinian resistance against the British. Antonius’s first novel is a rare and rich work representing pre-Nakba Palestine. —Jasmine Vojdani

    $18 at Amazon

    $17 at Bookshop

    Television, by Lauren Rothery

    Television, by Lauren Rothery

    The skies are sunnier in Los Angeles, and the sentences shorter. Rothery’s debut is generous with its style — its clipped, cynical cadence is part Dashiell Hammett, part J.D. Salinger. That’s especially true for one of its two main narrators, Verity, an aging franchise movie star who acts, thinks, and pontificates like an adolescent. He trades chapters with his old writer friend Helen, who supported them in the years before his big commercial break. When Verity isn’t with someone too young for him, the two are also occasional lovers, each aware of how their attachment flickers in and out based on neediness, resentment, and actual affection. —E.A.

    $28 at Amazon

    $26 at Bookshop

    House of Day, House of Night, by Olga Tokarczuk; translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

    House of Day, House of Night, by Olga Tokarczuk; translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

    From the beloved Polish writer who won both the Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize in 2018 comes a translation of House of Day, House of Night, a “constellation novel” that preceded Flights by nearly ten years. House of Day proceeds as a suite of observations and anecdotes by a narrator who has moved to a small rural community in territory once occupied by Germany, where characters seem haunted or at least in contact with the dead. In a landscape of darkness, dreams, and drink, this novel is more than the sum of its eerie parts. —J.V.

    $28 at Amazon

    $26 at Bookshop

    Galápagos, by Fátima Vélez; translated by Hannah Kauders

    Galapagos, by Fátima Vélez; translated by Hannah Kauders

    It’s 1992, and a painter named Lorenzo notices his fingernails are falling off without explanation; similar things are happening to his friends. Unsettled, he travels from Colombia to Paris to see them, where all of their illnesses escalate. Vélez’s debut is surreal from the outset, with commas standing in for periods and unexplained phenomena all around, but it crescendos with a voyage to Galápagos that might also be a trip to the underworld. It’s an AIDS novel that’s both poetic and totally physical. —E.A.

    $22 at Amazon

    $21 at Bookshop

    The Rest of Our Lives, by Ben Markovits
    Photo: Vendor

    The Rest of Our Lives, by Ben Markovits

    Tom Layward has been waiting until his daughter goes off to college to make good on his promise to himself to leave his wife, Amy, who he reveals had an affair earlier in their marriage. Things in the law professor’s academic life aren’t going great, either; Tom unwittingly gave legal advice to an un-woke basketball-team owner and is convinced his university will find out. All of which is why, after dropping his daughter off at college, Tom embarks on a solo cross-country road trip. Markovits’s Booker-nominated novel marvelously inspects love that has been tested by infidelity, child-rearing, transgression, and — perhaps most injurious of all to the whole endeavor — time. —J.V.

    $25 at Amazon

    $26 at Bookshop

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    Emma Alpern,Jasmine Vojdani

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  • If You Quit Social Media, Will You Read More Books?

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    Nguyen is hardly alone in this experience. BookTok, the sprawling and informal literary community on TikTok, has pushed many people to read outside their usual interests. You don’t have to dig deep into X, Reddit, or Instagram to find reading suggestions that would never appear on the year-end lists in newspapers or magazines, or on the rolls of the major annual awards. Obscure literary titles are reaching people they might not have reached before.

    But, if we accept Nguyen’s proposition, and conclude that some of us are slogging through fewer bad books and getting more quickly to the stuff we like, does that actually constitute an improvement in reading culture?

    Let’s place our hypothetical friend Dave, the military-history buff, in a book club that requires him to read a whole bunch of books he might have never picked up—the majority of which he finds pointless and a waste of his time. The club also provides a community of in-person friends with whom he can debate and disagree and even argue about what book should be next on the queue. Dave might not read many more books than he would have without the club, and he may enjoy the ones he reads less; the quality of the information he’s receiving may even deteriorate. He might find himself back in the same Reddit threads, hunting down things that are tailored to his interests.

    But there are social benefits to reading something together. Someone might be able to jolt him out of his narrow tranche of interests. The experience of reading can benefit from the rockier mental terrain that books provide; the boredom and impatience that longer texts sometimes inspire can help push and prod one’s thinking more than things that are perfectly distilled.

    I asked Nguyen whether she felt that her vision of a more finely tuned and online reading public might obviate the need for the in-person book club or literary society or writing workshop. She said that although social media and learning about books through the internet likely accelerated exploration, it also could, in her experience, restrict people almost entirely to their own tastes. “You have the ability to create a filter bubble that’s more impermeable,” she said.

    Social media does create a powerful consensus—on the internet, everything tends to grow quickly toward one source of light— and an argument can be made that a slower, more fractured network of in-person, localized arguments might ultimately offer up more intellectual variety. When I asked Nguyen about this, she mentioned the Ninth Street Women, a group of Abstract Expressionist artists who worked in the postwar period, and her own displaced nostalgia for the idea of artists and writers meeting in physical spaces with similar goals in mind. “It just inherently feels more vibrant if it’s in a physical space than if you Substack notes at the same time that all your friends are posting on Substack notes,” she said. But she also pointed out that such movements tend to be quite insidery, and that a lot of the most successful writers on platforms like Substack are people who might not exactly fit into the New York City literati. This seems undeniably true to me. It might be nice to go to the same bars and contribute to the same small journals and stare very seriously at the same art work in the same galleries, but such a life feels both anachronistic and annoying today.

    In another of her notes for writers, Nguyen proclaims:

    I, controversially, am pro-social media. If you are writing about art, you just make all your social media about contemporary art and art critics and new art releases, and you create this funneled world that reinforces the thing you’re trying to do.

    I have tried similar tactics in the past, especially when I was writing about specific subjects, such as education policy or A.I. But what I found wasn’t really a sharpening of insight, but, rather, a tightened focus on the social-media consensus, which was largely dictated by the people who posted the most on any given topic. Even in moments when I wasn’t writing directly about some tweet I had seen, I was still gesturing toward it. Writing, in this form, felt more like sticking a comment bubble on an aggregated stream of news stories, social-media posts, and an assortment of video podcasts. Most pundits—at least those who comment on the world in columns, newsletters, or on podcasts—are doing some form of this. Taken together, such writing forms “the discourse.”

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    Jay Caspian Kang

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