It's a new year, which means there are new books to read — hundreds of them. KUOW’s Katie Campbell and Spencer Ruchti from Third Place Books are here to make building your TBRs a little easier this year.

One of my fave local bookworms joined me for today's episode of Meet Me Here from @kuow.org! @spencerruchti.bsky.social talked about some of his top reads in 2025 and what he's looking forward to this year. Get your TBRs (or crazy Excel spreadsheets) ready and listen here 👇

🎉 Congratulations to Christina MacSweeney and Jazmina Barrera! THE QUEEN OF SWORDS is the winner of the 2025 Cercador Prize! ⚔️ www.cercadorprize.com

👉 This Thurs., 11/20, at Third Place Books 🔜 Natl. Book Award-winning translator Megan McDowell will sit down with @spencerruchti.bsky.social ( #ThirdPlaceBooks & the #CercadorPrize) to discuss her #translation of Mexican author Elena Garro. 💯 recommend‼️ www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/jazmin...

🎉 The committee for the Cercador Prize confers this year’s prize to Christina MacSweeney for her translation of ‘The Queen of Swords’ by Jazmina Barrera (Two Lines Press). Congratulations to Christina, Jazmina, and @twolinespress.com!

Breaking News: The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Laszlo Krasznahorkai, the Hungarian novelist, for his “visionary oeuvre.”

I love this prize! Congrats @ryanhasbadtaste.bsky.social & @spencerruchti.bsky.social! @usrofc.bsky.social

I ♥️ Third Place Books @spencerruchti.bsky.social @seattletimes-rss.bsky.social www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...

I’ve never met @davidnaimon.bsky.social, and yet his manner is such that I feel like we’re old friends. And I don’t listen to podcasts except for Between the Covers. This week’s is a doozy. Very highly recommended. tinhouse.com/podcast/omar...

Oof, buddy IS A RIVER ALIVE? coming this May

I know how the TikTok girlies feel now. @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social

Plot twist: after 15 minutes the AI author facsimile loses track of the conversation and starts ranting about how they think Nielsen BookScan works

I was just saying to myself this morning, I wonder if there’s anything more AI could do to suck all joy out of the private experience of reading.

“Walking thus, hour after hour, the senses keyed, one walks the flesh transparent.” - Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain

Yeah, try running author events for a living…

Not the point of CJ’s post, but I think it’s crazy there hasn’t been an update or rebuttal to Bowker’s 3% statistic about translation in 20 years. (!!!) In that time, the iPhone was invented, the Kindle came to market. Even the idea of what it means to “publish a book” has changed.

It has been 20 years since Bowker found only 3% of books were translations. Of the 100 “best books” by the ny times this year a whopping… 4 are translated. How far we’ve come.

Jeanine Cummins, it seems, has quietly moved to Henry Holt.

Oh fantastic news! This is a wild book… and I’m deeply appreciative it exists, and is receiving some honors. Congratulations Heather!

Over on Instagram, recommending a few of our favorite Percival Everett books with my friend Zac. @graywolfpress.bsky.social @nationalbook.bsky.social @doubledaybooks.bsky.social www.instagram.com/reel/DCp_VVy...

Congratulations to Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and Lin King, writer and translator of the National Book Award-winning "Taiwan Travelogue!" Check out Jenna Tang's list of Taiwanese lit, which mentions "Taiwan Travelogue" and offers suggestions for more reading from Taiwan!

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha began her National Book Award acceptance speech, "Good evening everyone and Good morning to beloved Gaza, where it is the 411th day of the genocide.. We are now living in the second November of the American-funded genocide in Palestine: t.ly/DV2K9

Congrats to Thomas Bunstead, a WWB contributor! wordswithoutborders.org/contributors...

For as long as I live, I’ll remember where I was when Percival Everett won the National Book Award… waiting in line for a burger, with friends, looking up briefly from the livestream on my phone to say: “Percy’s got it.”

Not Mac Barnett in a Cercador Prize hat (sorry Mac)

Another thing I’ll add. People who come into a bookstore and cover, hide, rearrange books—they suck, but mostly they’re just a nuisance. We put the books back. And then we display more on the subject. Literally the dumbest thing you can do in terms of “activism.” But Stephen says it best here.

Oh hell yes.

New Elizabeth Kolbert on GLACIERS.

We are thrilled that THE BOOK OF ALL LOVES by Agustín Fernandez Mallo, translated by Thomas Bunstead, has won The Cercador Prize. The prize committee said, 'THE BOOK OF ALL LOVES is a sheer pleasure, a text that reminded our committee why we read...' Details can be found at www.cercadorprize.com.

The 2024 Cercador Prize goes to...

The Cercador logo under "honors" in Edelweiss is the greatest of acknowledgments... we're in the metadata.

Thanks @drewsof.bsky.social; in @literaryhub.bsky.social! "The Cercador Prize is an exciting entrant into the literary-prize sphere: recognizing works in translation published in the US, it is the only prize whose jury is made up entirely of independent booksellers." lithub.com/the-2024-cer...

Really excited about this announcement of the second Cercador Prize for translated literature awarded today. @spencerruchti.bsky.social — who’s my Seattle landsman — and his colleagues are visionaries as booksellers promoting literary translation.

The Cercador Prize is one of the great innovations in publishing the last few years. I'm so glad for it and the books it brings attention to. I can't wait to read another Agustín Fernández Mallo.

Since the Cercador Prize isn’t here yet, I’ll do the honors… The committee awards the 2024 prize to Thomas Bunstead for his translation of ‘The Book of All Loves’ by Agustín Fernández Mallo, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

Jon Fosse Catherine Lacey Enrique Vila-Matas Percival Everett Dubravka Ugrešić

Emily is a credit to Birmingham and an extraordinary reader and also had one of the cutest dogs on the planet (second to Nora—though she’s scared of children so she may never be a true bookstore dog) Cercador announcement tomorrow AM!

Tomorrow! The winner of the Cercador Prize will be announced! www.cercadorprize.com

In Jan 2020 I moved to Portland, and the next day went to Powell’s looking for a book by Carmen Boullosa. There I met a bookseller who told me he didn’t have the book, but after a beat asked if he knew me from somewhere? That bookseller was Justin Walls, and we’d interacted some on Twitter…

That’s it… I need a full exposé on how PRH turned the guy who wrote GLYPH and DR NO into this year’s Bonnie Garmus. If he wins the National Book Award on Wednesday then I don’t know what timeline I’m living in.

This kind of solidarity is so awesome. I think the distinction between “bookseller” and “indie bookseller” (on the individual, frontline level) is no longer useful, and maybe never has. Booksellers are booksellers are retail workers, whether you work for Barnes & Noble or City Lights.

Wielding this in my pocket in case of emergency

It’s in the hats. Wonderful time at the @aster1sm.bsky.social Books warehouse tonight. On a sidenote, the Cercador Prize winner is announced on Monday

This was a great event at Seattle’s Third Place Books with the Tajik-language writer Shahzada Samarqandi and translator Shelley Fairweather-Vega. I’m looking forward to reading my signed copy of “Mothersland.” slavica.indiana.edu/mothersland/

We have an author all the way from Uzbekistan in the store tonight—and every seat is full, plus some. Congratulations to Shahzoda Samarqandi and her Seattle translator and community leader, Shelley Fairwether-Vega. (Pictured here in the red sweater)

Happening soon.

Going to be here more often for a variety of reasons. As proof of existence here is me and fellow Blueskyer @jamescrossley.bsky.social that I swear is from this morning (nice to see you James!)

Reading widely & diversely & challenging your perspectives is NOT medicine. Learning about people who are different than you, seeing the works through other eyes, benefits you & should be “fun” & engaging, too. Starting to feel really different about centering comfort in reading if it means this.

On Tuesday afternoon I’m jumping on Zoom to talk to Damion Searls about his new book, The Philosophy of Translation. If you’ve ever read and loved one of Damion’s translations, then this book will illuminate and delight in more ways than I can accurately communicate us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

I wrote about the American bookstore. Its history. Reality vs. fantasy. (Yes, they’re dying?) The ideology of “indie.” It’s also a spicy review-essay of Evan Friss’s The Bookshop. For @thebaffler.com thebaffler.com/latest/books...