Booklist's Famous Read N Rave and Bonus Graphic Novels for Libraries Content

One final day of Booklist content before we move to my July 2025 Horror Genre preview in LJ.

First, during the ALA conference, Susan Maguire moderated one of the best annual events at ALA Annual, the timed book buzz known as Read N Rave sponsored by Booklist and LibraryReads. I have done it a few times. It is a a fun and educational experience for all who attend.

While you had to be there to see the madness in person,  Booklist has made the names of the "ravers" and the upcoming titles they crammed into their 10 mins. The result: a list of awesome upcoming titles, compiled by RA experts for your library to pre-order, a list that is diverse in every way.

The full list is here on the Booklist blog. I have reposted the titles so that they are searchable here on the blog as well.

Booklist and LibraryReads Read ‘n’ Rave 2025.

By Susan Maguire.
BLOG. First published June 30, 2025 (Booklist Online).

At this year’s ALA Annual Conference, Booklist and LibraryReads teamed up for the popular Read ‘n’ Rave, where superstar librarians scour the Exhibit Hall floor to find the books you’ll want to know about for late summer and fall. 

If you missed the event, or if you had trouble keeping up with the rapid-fire raving (can’t blame you!), here’s a list of the books everyone talked about:

Lila Denning:

Acquired Taste, by Clay McLeod Chapman

Bear Hunter’s Daughter: A Tale of Seven Sisters, by Anneli Jordahl

Breathe In, Bleed Out, by Brian McAuley

Crafting for Sinners, by Jenny Kiefer

Cursed Daughters, by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Fiend, by Alma Katsu

Play Nice, by Rachel Harrison

Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave: My Cemetery Journeys, by Mariana Enriquez

Teenage Girls Can Be Demons, by Hailey Piper

The Unveiling, by Quan Barry

Veil, by Jonathan Janz

The Whistler, by Nick Medina

Why I Love Horror, edited by Becky Siegel Spratford

Migdalia Jimenez:

And Then There Was The One, by Martha Waters

F*cked Up Fairy Tales: Sinful Cinderellas, Prince Alarmings, and Other Timeless Classics, by Liz Gotauco

Gabriela and His Grace, by Liana de la Rosa

Growing Papaya Trees: Nurturing Indigenous Solutions for Climate Displacement, by Jessica Hernandez

How to Be a Saint: An Extremely Weird and Mildly Sacrilegious History of the Catholic Church’s Biggest Names, by Kate Sidley

Humanish: What Talking to Your Cat or Naming Your Car Reveals about the Uniquely Human Need to Humanize, by Justin Gregg

I Know How This Ends, by Holly Smale

Ladies in Hating, by Alexandra Vasti

A Little Holiday Fling, by Farah Heron 

Alene Moroni:

6:40 to Montreal, by Eva Jurczyk

Bog Queen, by Anna North

Boudicca’s Daughter, by Elodie Harper

Burnt Sparrow: We Are Always Tender with Our Dead, by Eric LaRocca

Deeper than the Ocean, by Mirta Ojito

Every Step She Takes, by Alison Cochrun

Happy People Don’t Live Here, by Amber Sparks

The Mean Ones, by Tatiana Scholote-Bonne

The Missing Pages, by Alyson Richman

No Rest for the Wicked, by Rachel Louise Adams

The October Film Haunt, by Michael Wehunt

A Particularly Nasty Case, by Adam Kay

The Scald-Crow, by Grace Daly

Spread Me, by Sarah Gailey

The Villa, Once Beloved, by Victor Manibo

You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom, by Vincent Tirado

You Watched Me in Silence, by H. Lee Justine

Jessica Trotter

Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore, by Char Adams

The Ferryman and His Wife, by Frode Grytten

The Glowing Hours, by Leila Siddiqui

Heartland Masala: An Indian Cookbook from an American Kitchen, by Jyoti Mukharji and Auyon Mukharji

Her Wicked Roots, by Tanya Pell

Higher Magic, by Courtney Floyd

Hole in the Sky, by Daniel H. Wilson

House of Smoke: A Southerner Goes Searching for Home, by John T. Edge

It’s Me They Follow, by Jeannine A. Cook

The People’s Project: Poems, Essays, and Art for Looking Forward, by Saeed Jones and Maggie Smith

Psychopomp & Circumstance, by Eden Royce

Queer Enlightenments: A Hidden History of Lovers, Lawbreakers, and Homemakers, by Anthony Delaney

Slayers of Old, by Jim C. Hines

Wolf Bells, by Leni Zumas

Rebecca Vnuk:

The Board, by Katy Farber

Good Daughtering: Reclaiming Your Role, Setting Boundaries, and Finding Balance, by Allison M. Alford

Her One Regret, by Donna Frietas

In Deadly Company, by L. S. Stratton

The Irish Goodbye, by Heather Aimee O’Neill

Lauryn Harper Falls Apart, by Shauna Robinson

Lucky Seed, by Justinian Huang

Overdue, by Stephanie Perkins

Some Bright Nowhere, by Ann Packer

Undead and Unwed, by Sam Tschida

Second, the July issue of Booklist is the annual Spotlight on Graphic Novels. This means two things. First there are these special articles:

Top 10 Manga for Adults and Older Teens
Essentials: Head over Heels for Heartstopper
Top 10 Manga for Children & Teens
Graphic Novels as Audio Adaptation

And second,  the issue includes Booklist's annual 2025 Guide to Graphic Novels in Libraries as a pull out in the print, and it is also free online here.

So much great FREE content for you to help a wide range of your readers. Take advantage of all of it today.