For our mid-month book news check in for October 2025, we're catching up on the Asian American publishing news for the past 2 months (since we didn't do a mid-month episode in September) as well as checking in on the news about the latest National Book Award nominations as well as some exciting new listings on the NYT bestsellers list!

Upcoming books mentioned in our publishing news:

• The Radiance by Ayad Akhtar
• The Museum of Modern Love by Mariko Turk
• Sir Silly by Gavin Aung Than
• Emily Min-ji Makes Kimchi by Meredith Seung Mee Buse; illust. Jenn Kocsmiersky
• The River of Caregiving by Jocelyn Chung; illust. Sarah Gonzales
• Of Wind and Dust by Shirin Yim Leos
• Project Juni by Kaitlyn San Miguel
• Medusa's Pet Rock by Steph Lau
•  Chrysanthemum's Glow written by Livia Blackburne; illust. Julia Kuo
•  Fishbone Cinderella by Elizabeth Lim
•  The Secret World of Briar Rose by Cindy Pham
•  Born by Sarah Ling
• The Fallen Sun by C.M. Basma
•  Swimming Lessons for a Mermaid by Yongchan
• Who the Flan Am I? by Kiera Wright-Ruiz and Claudia Lam
• The Missing Magic of Sparrow Xia by Leia Ham
• Bear Wakes Up by Lisa Chow
• Frankie Lu's Summer of No Regrets by Betty Chang
• I Shall Master This Family by Kim Roah, Mon, and ANTStudio

Book news mentioned on this episode:

• 2025 Finalists for the National Book Awards
• Alchemised by SenLinYu debuted at #1 on the New York Time’s Hardcover Fiction list on October 12th

Books & Boba is a podcast dedicated to reading and featuring books by Asian and Asian American authors

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The Books & Boba October 2025 pick is Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker

This podcast is part of Potluck: An Asian American Podcast Collective