Books and literature

Staffers at Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama, San Francisco’s City Lights Books and The Nook in Cedar Falls, Iowa, are among 600 booksellers receiving $500 holiday bonuses from James Patterson.

New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy has signed a law to prohibit book bans in the state and enshrine protections against civil and criminal charges for librarians who comply with the law.

Kamala Harris and breakout star Chappell Roan were among the year’s most talked-about people. Their names were also among the most mispronounced.

Chicago Today’s Banned Book Club pick for December is “‘Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro This haunting novel explores themes of societal control and humanity through the eyes of a woman reflecting on her childhood at a mysterious boarding school.

Oxford University Press has named “brain rot” its word of the year.

Award-winning author TJ Klune (“The House in the Cerulean Sea”) on when he felt able to quit his day job and when he first felt like he’d made it as a writer.

BBQ pitmaster Dominique Leach and “The Chi” star Cortez Smith team up on ‘Chicago Today’ to talk about their new cookbook, “Chicago Smoke,” sharing how their love for food brought them together.

PR powerhouse Maha Abouelenein joins “Chicago Today” to discuss her new book, Seven Rules of Self-Reliance, which aims to boost your confidence and independence.

Darryl Postelnick, America’s beloved TikTok dad, is back with his new cookbook, “R. U. Kidding Me? Cooking with Darryl.”

The Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to the South Korean author Han Kang for what the Nobel committee called her “intense poetic prose.”

Get ready to cozy up this October with Beloved by Toni Morrison, the newest pick for the Chicago Today’s Banned Book Club.

Journalist Josh Noel dives deep into the infamous spirit Malört, revealing its unique history in his new book “Malört: The Redemption of a Revered and Reviled Spirit.”

“The book uses the same techniques as the show to encourage speech and 20 milestones, all through a playful story!”

Banned Books Week started in 1982 and draws attention to censorship.

Two new reports provide a mixed but compelling outlook on the wave of book removals and challenges as the annual Banned Books Week begins for schools, stores and libraries nationwide.

The Banned Book Club is back, and this month’s pick is none other than The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

Verlean Singletary and Courtney Woods, the dynamic mother-daughter team behind Da Book Joint in Bronzeville, share their top picks for summer reading from fantasy rooted in African mythology to a murder mystery set in 1970s LA.

Mickey Bergman, the mastermind behind Brittney Griner’s release from Russia, is pulling back the curtain on the perilous world of international negotiations in his new book, In the Shadows.

Ahead of Ella Jenkins’ 100th birthday, NBC Chicago’s LeeAnn Trotter takes a look inside a children’s book chronicling the life of the “First Lady of children’s music.”

Edna O’Brien has died at age 93. She was one of the world’s most admired and controversial writers who scandalized her native Ireland with her debut novel, “The Country Girls,” which was censored and even burned.