We’re thrilled to announce that Zero to Well-Read has won two Signal Awards! The podcast—part book club, part English class—took home silver for Best New Podcast and bronze for Arts & Culture. If you’ve listened, watched, or shared the show: thank you! If you’ve yet to try it out, we hope you’ll join us.

Spread the word. Share this email with friends.

Federal court rules that school board members can be removed for banning books

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed a lower court ruling that school board members could be removed for removing books from schools.

• The central question is whether board members are acting in administrative versus legislative roles.
• Legislative actions are generally protected from removal to shield legislators when engaging in the creation of law.

Administrative decisions, however, are subject to scrutiny, and possible renewal in cases where books are removed at the request of parents or school superintendents.

• If those removals are found to violate the First Amendment rights of involved parties (authors, publishers, etc), the court agreed that the school board members could be removed.

This ruling stems from the county policy (and enforcement of that policy) in Escambia County, Florida. Last year, a 7-year old was deposed to testify that his First Amendment rights had been violated by the county removing And Tango Makes Three.

Barnes & Noble’s CEO isn’t worried about the fate of books

Image Credit: Daunt Books by Alexander Starke; Barnes and Noble by Erictleung; Waterstones by A P Monblat

“The more bookshops there are, the more people will read,” James Daunt told The New Yorker in a meaty profile of the successful CEO of Barnes & Noble, owner of Waterstones, and founder of beloved bookstore Daunt Books. The profile challenged the assumption that interest in reading is declining.

The internet has been abuzz with literary death knells, including:

• Studies showing waning interest in reading for pleasure
• Declining literacy in high schools
• The death of “dad books”

“We just go through an arc of life. Every single year of my bookselling life, somebody has popped up and said, ‘Literary fiction is dead!’ Now it’s ‘Nobody is reading nonfiction!’” – James Daunt

Daunt talks about reviving both the UK’s Waterstones and the US’s Barnes & Noble chains when both were in hot water and shuttering stores left and right.

For the book trivia buffs, here are a couple of interesting facts about Daunt:

• He left a lucrative New York career in banking for his wife before opening Daunt Books in London
• Daunt Books engaged in the now ubiquitous bookstore trend of facing book covers out because they didn’t have enough books to fill the shelves

The profile is brimming with book industry expertise from numerous voices and is worth a full read. – SZW

Dark things can be funny

We know that supernatural creatures and entities can be terrifying–they are the stuff of Halloween and horror films. We also know that they can be kind of (or a lot) sexy. But often, it’s easy to forget that books with any array of paranormal favorites can also be quite funny. Whether that humor is straightforwardly laugh-out-loud or more of the dark variety, there are some great paranormal reads that bring with them plenty of levity.

→ Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris: The Sookie Stackhouse series is the perfect example of marrying the dreadful–vampires–with the humorous. Sookie is hard not to enjoy, with her deadpan humor soaked with southern charm.

→ Raised in Fire by K.F. Breene*: First read Born in Fire, then dive into book two of this 11 (!) book series. It follows a sarcastic and funny supernatural bounty hunter, whose work brings her in touch with all manner of demons, vampires, and more. (If you like a steamy scene or two, you’ll dig this.)*

→ That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Kimberly Lemming: Haven’t we all been there? Have a few too many cocktails, and you make decisions you may not otherwise under normal circumstances. This rom-com features a spice trader who accidentally saves a demon who then recruits her on his mission to take down an evil witch.

→ Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones: Feared by society, the unnamed teen boy at the center of this story regularly relocates across the south with his aunt and uncle. As he comes of age, his family worries he’ll inherit the traits that make them feared. Prepare for some funny werewolf lore.

→ Cackle by Rachel Harrison: Any of Harrison’s novels would fit the bill here. Cackle tells the story of a woman learning to break free from the rules she’s followed for her life, thanks to the help of a witch.

Horror and humor are moods, not genres, and they occupy opposite sides of the same coin. What one person finds scary, another might find hilarious, and vice versa. What is for sure is that the right funny book can take a story from being good to being great. — KJ

_{*A message from our sponsor.}

The latest page-to-screen news

Whole lot of adaptation news happened while you were trying to make sense of You Can See Everything. Here’s the latest:

• James Baldwin is getting a biopic, with Marlon James, whose partner Nicholas Boggs literally wrote the book on Baldwin, set to head the adaptation.
• Amazon’s Fourth Wing series has cast its main characters.
• Hatchet, the survival story every millennial had to read in school, is headed to Netflix for film adaptation.
• Red Rising is bound for the big screen in a film to be directed by Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence.
• A Baby-Sitters Club musical is opening in L.A. next spring.

The kids are all fright

Horror is having a moment, and YA horror is some of the best in the genre. Here are the new YA horror books out in fall that deserve a spot on your TBR.

So, you’ve accidentally summoned an eldritch sea god

A queer romantic horror thriller retelling of Frankenstein

In a co-ed boarding school in Scotland, one girl battles monstrous male classmates and the monster within

A final girl is targeted again a year later, but this time, she’s ready

Gothic mystery meets dark academia romance

A sporror story of claustrophobia and body horror

Read more about new YA horror on Book Riot.

Puzzle books for middle graders

Puzzle books are having a moment, and not just for adults. Book Riot writer and educator Ashlie Swicker has noticed how even the middle schoolers least interested in reading and school in general have a hard time resisting a good puzzle.

And kids’ puzzle books come in different flavors! The ones she recommends blend fiction with adventure, mathematical coding with mystery, and even social justice with amateur sleuthing.

• There’s lost family treasure, lessons on making friends, and great character development.
• There’s even a puzzle book by The New York Times that is not kid-specific, but can be enjoyed by kids and adults alike.

Here are the best puzzle books for middle graders:

• EXIT: The Book – The Mysterious Bank Robbery: A Puzzle Adventure by Anna Maybach, Inka Brand, Markus Brand, Burkhard Schulz, Beroy + San Julian: The puzzles here are something serious! They require cutting, folding, and great logic skills. The story follows a group of kids who try to recover a lost family treasure while outsmarting thieves.
• Murdle Jr.: Curious Crimes for Curious Minds: Solve Your Way Through 40 Puzzle Mysteries by G.T. Karber: This offshoot of the popular Murdle books, which are geared towards adults, centers Murdle Jr., has great character development, and requires logic and deductive reasoning to solve.
• The Codebreakers Club Solve the Mystery of the Missing Puzzle Professor: 150+ Logic Puzzles by Naoya Imanishi MEd: This one is written by a math teacher and is great for quicker bursts of puzzle solving, as its 150 puzzles are between short narratives that fit the overarching mystery.

More puzzles for the middle schoolers in your life. —EE

Ursula K. Le Guin, born October 21, 1929

Did you know? There is a crater on Mercury named after Le Guin.

You are now free to roam about the internet

Fall for these nerdy romance novels.

The book that exposed Elizabeth Holmes is back on bestseller lists.

Enter to win a $250 donation to the library of your choice.

Here are Australians’ 100 favorite books.

Horror + romance = true love.

Written by Rebecca Schinsky, Jeff O’Neal, S. Zainab Williams, Kelly Jensen, Danika Ellis, and Erica Ezeifedi. Thanks to Danika Ellis for copy editing.

Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here.

_{Got a tip, question, comment, or story idea? Drop us a line: thenewsletter@bookriot.com}