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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.

PEN America Has Announced Its 2026 Emerging Voices and Mentors

Looking at the fellows and mentors chosen for this year’s Emerging Voices Fellowship feels like looking into the future. I say that because I’m sure the 11 poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction fellows chosen—as well as their mentors—will be making appearances in book list after book list, award ceremony after award ceremony in the coming years.

I met a few of the fellows and mentors last year during the 2025 summer Tin House workshop. Nikesha Elise Williams performed a short skit alongside one of my fellow workshop attendees and Deesha Philyaw (it was hilarious), and Diana Khoi Nguyen signed a book of poetry that I later gave my friend as a thank-you for hosting me in Portland. Then there was Chisaraokwu Asomugha, who performed a piece that was so ancestral, it felt like a summoning. I am so looking forward to what all of the fellows and mentors produce in the next few years.

How a Self-Published Book Became a Mega Bestseller

Theo of Golden is one of the bestselling books currently making all the lists right now, but its beginnings are a little unorthodox . It was written by a 70-year-old former judge who first went the self-publishing route before having his book distributed by a top-five publisher. It’s one of the few books to find success through this path that isn’t a romantasy. It seems it was able to do this mostly through word-of-mouth—it was published through Amazon’s self-publishing service in October 2023, then sent out to book clubs, libraries, and other bookish organizations. And…it actually worked. I can’t tell you how many publicity emails I get every day promoting a new book, and I’m sure the emails promoting this book were similar, but this one eventually got picked up by Simon & Schuster, and Katie Couric chose it for her book club.

To me, Allen Levi’s debut is another example of the Uplifting Fiction trend. What Katie Couric said about it kind of makes my point (she said she “ended up loving it and really appreciating its purity”). Though, to be fair, I’m not sure if calling uplifting fiction a trend is exactly accurate, since I think that people have always looked for an escape from the doom and gloom, and were doing so even before I started paying attention to literary trends.

These 5 Books Spill the Tea on America

I’ve been approaching all of these “Great American Lit” lists I’ve been coming across with automatic caution. There are so many of them coming out because America is hitting its 250th anniversary, as I had mentioned in a previous Today in Books posting, and people are looking to commemorate the event. Since anniversaries are celebratory by nature, I understand the urge to feature books in these lists that reflect that positivity. But there needs to be a balance between the real and the celebratory. That’s why I really appreciate Vox’s list of the five books that define America. While I would swap out a couple here and there, I think it does a pretty good job of highlighting books that explored major American ideologies and periods. The Scarlet Letter , Beloved , and The Great Gatsby all make an appearance in the main list, while There There , Invisible Man , and The Great Believers made another list compiled by non- Vox book experts.

Personally, I think the main list should replace Moby-Dick with historical fiction by and about First Nations characters, such as Gardens in the Dunes by Leslie Marmon Silko. There needs to be more women, Black, queer, and Indigenous writers on the list in general. We have been reading books written from the white cis-hetero male perspective on America since we started reading about America. And what we do know is that these narratives left things out. A list of books that define America should represent how America truly is and has been, not just what a certain demographic hoped it would be. That’s partially why Stephen Graham Jones’s The Buffalo Hunter Hunter was one of the best books of 2025 for me—it gave me a peek into the lives and beliefs of a First Nations community (and taught me about an oft-forgotten, real massacre) from the perspective of a First Nations person.

July’s Best Historical Fiction

Speaking of historical fiction that’ll learn you something, I always look forward to Rachel Brittain’s historical fiction round-ups each month. Growing up, sometimes I felt the historical fiction I read taught me more about history than my classes, and this month’s best releases will show you everything from 1989 Romania to an enslaved midwife’s journey to 1940s Mexico.

What are you reading? Let us know in the comments !

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The gaming world is getting philosophical ahead of the end of PlayStation game discs , and you can count Hideo Kojima among those concerned about the world's move to ephemeral digital data. At least, he was quite concerned about it back in 2021, and given today's news his five-year-old comments have taken on a new life.

"Eventually, even digital data will no longer be owned by individuals on their own initiative," Kojima said in a tweet on August 5, 2021. "Whenever there is a major change or accident in the world, in a country, in a government, in an idea, in a trend, access to it may suddenly be cut off. We will not be able to freely access the movies, books, and music that we have loved. I would be a have-not. That's what I'm afraid of. This is not greed."

There's a, uh, lot to chew on in there that goes well beyond your ability to get GTA 6 on a disc, but I'm not about to start philosophizing on the spread and decay of information in the modern era. Suffice to say, many players have found Kojima's words fairly prophetic in light of the PlayStation news, even if he didn't mention games specifically here. The tweet got some engagement back in 2021, but now you'll find thousands more quotes, replies, and retweets made just today.

Kojima already has a reputation for being a pop culture prophet. The world of Death Stranding, released in 2019, felt scarily close to the one we all began living as part of the COVID-19 pandemic, and way back in 2001 Metal Gear Solid 2 was predicting a future where AI feeds us half-truths by processing massive piles of junk data across the internet for easy consumption. The gaming world's cultlike admiration of Kojima might be a little extreme, but the man certainly knows how to build sci-fi that feels distressingly real as time goes on.

And, of course, Kojima himself is responsible for one of the most bitter reminders of what happens when a publisher fully cuts support for a digital game. PT was intended to be something of a demo for Silent Hills, but in the wake of that project's cancellation and Kojima's messy breakup with Konami, PT was delisted from the PlayStation Store. Not only that, Konami even prohibited users who'd played it from redownloading the game.

PT is perhaps the most extreme example we have of what happens when publishers do not care what happens to their digital games, and its reputation has only grown stronger given how high it stands among the best horror games of all time. Wanting to hang onto games like this? I don't think that's greedy, either.

Hideo Kojima says his pitch for OD sounded "crazy" to every publisher except Xbox.

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Nissan sales climbed 10.2% in the second quarter to hit 230,443 units.

Infiniti sales were essentially flat as the luxury brand declined 0.2%.

Kicks had best June ever, while Pathfinder had its best-ever quarter.

Nissan has introduced a slew of new and updated models over the past few years, and the effort is paying off as the brand has experienced 16 consecutive months of year-over -year retail sales increases. Furthermore, in the first half of the year, overall group sales were up 9.6% to 242,741 units.

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Starting with Nissan itself, sales climbed 10.2% in the second quarter to 230,443 vehicles. The best-selling vehicle in the second quarter was the Rogue, which found 65,796 takers. That was a 38.6% increase from a year ago and Nissan expects even greater success when the redesigned model arrives later this year with an all-new e-Power system .

More: Nissan’s 2027 Rogue Is Gunning For The RAV4, And Its Hybrid Works Nothing Like Toyota’s

The recently redesigned Sentra also provided a big boost as sales soared 28.5% to 39,817 units. Unfortunately, those gains were largely offset by a 26.5% drop in Altima sales.

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Sticking with cars, Z sales plummeted 50.7% to 806 units. There’s no word on why, but it could be related to the facelifted 2027 model that was announced in March. It arrives at dealerships this summer with revised styling, updated equipment, and a handful of performance tweaks. The Nismo variant also gains a new six-speed manual transmission.

Nissan doesn’t release monthly sales data, but confirmed the Kicks had its best-ever June. Q2 sales were up 4.9% to 26,251 units and the crossover is up 10.7% year-to-date.

High gas prices didn’t help the redesigned Leaf as sales dropped 36.6% to a disappointing 1,016 units in the second quarter. The model is also down 57.1% for the year, which is a shame because it’s a pretty decent vehicle .

On the truck and SUV side, a number of models posted huge gains including the Frontier (34.6%), Pathfinder (32.1%), and Armada (27%). Even the Murano was up 6.4% in Q2.

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Infiniti QX65 Is Off To A Good Start

Switching over to Infiniti, second quarter sales were essentially flat as the brand posted a slight decline of 0.2%. That equates to a drop of 29 sales over the course of three months.

This is actually pretty surprising as the QX50 and QX55 have been phased out, and dealers only sold a handful of them in Q2. Their departure was largely offset by the new QX65 , which seeks to recapture the magic of the legendary FX.

As a refresher, the five-seater is based on the larger QX60 and starts at $53,990 before a $1,545 destination fee. Power comes from a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder developing 268 hp (200 kW / 272 PS) and 286 lb-ft (387 Nm) of torque. It’s connected to a nine-speed automatic transmission and a standard all-wheel drive system.

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That combination won over 1,256 buyers, but the QX60 still reigns supreme with 7,581 sales in Q2. More notably, the range-topping QX80 had its best second-quarter ever as sales were up 18.5% to 3,402. However, year-to-date sales of the full-size SUV are down 9.4%.

Q2 Infiniti US Sales

Q2 26 Q2 25 % Chg YTD 26 YTD 25 % Chg

Total 12,298 12,327 -0.2 25,048 25,492 -1.7

Q50 0 94 -100.0 1 500 -99.8

QX50 39 1,503 -97.4 342 3,569 -90.4

QX55 20 531 -96.2 106 1,381 -92.3

QX60 7,581 7,327 3.5 17,056 13,106 30.1

QX65 1,256 0 N.A. 1,256 0 N.A.

QX80 3,402 2,872 18.5 6,287 6,936 -9.4

SWIPE

Q2 Nissan US Sales

Q2 26 Q2 25 % Chg YTD 26 YTD 25 % Chg

Total 230,443 209,114 10.2 464,761 463,034 0.4

Versa 4,649 11,489 -59.5 14,857 30,619 -51.5

Sentra 39,817 30,987 28.5 75,549 85,523 -11.7

Altima 19,317 26,298 -26.5 42,288 62,107 -31.9

Maxima 0 2 -100.0 0 13 -100.0

Z 806 1,635 -50.7 1,705 3,789 -55.0

GT-R 0 5 -100.0 2 37 -94.6

Kicks 26,251 25,029 4.9 55,768 50,394 10.7

Leaf 1,016 1,602 -36.6 1,684 3,925 -57.1

Frontier 21,690 16,117 34.6 43,101 30,598 40.9

Titan 0 350 -100.0 10 1,906 -99.5

Pathfinder 35,517 26,880 32.1 64,071 46,541 37.7

Armada 5,412 4,262 27.0 10,005 8,172 22.4

Rogue 65,796 47,461 38.6 135,970 109,563 24.1

Ariya 34 7,471 -99.5 90 11,619 -99.2

Murano 10,138 9,526 6.4 19,661 18,228 7.9

SWIPE

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Two brothers from the wealthy and powerful Medici family died of malaria and were not poisoned as a rumor had suggested, archaeologists have confirmed based on a DNA analysis of the brothers' skeletons. The analysis also revealed a unique, mutated strain of malaria that may hold the key to understanding the evolution of the disease in Europe.

The Medici family rose to power in the 15th century by creating the largest bank in Europe. The family used their extraordinary wealth to fund Renaissance artists and to start a political dynasty that eventually included numerous dukes, four popes and two queens of France.

In the 16th century, Cosimo I took over all of Tuscany as grand duke. But within a span of 25 years, at least five of his family members died from high fevers. This gave rise to a rumor that some of them had been poisoned with arsenic by another family member, although most people believed they died of malaria.

To get to the bottom of the 500-year-old Medici cold case, an international group of researchers tested the bones of two of Cosimo I's sons: Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici and Grand Duke Francesco I de' Medici, for the DNA of Plasmodium falciparum , the parasite that causes the deadliest form of malaria and that is transmitted by mosquitoes.

The researchers extracted ancient DNA from the bones of Cardinal Giovanni, who died in 1562 at age 19 in the same month as his mother and younger brother Garzia, and from Grand Duke Francesco I, who died at age 46 in 1587 along with his wife. The team's study was published online June 17 in the journal iScience .

Because of the almost simultaneous deaths of Grand Duke Francesco I and his wife, a rumor circulated that another brother had poisoned them over a long-standing feud. But the Medicis were known to have frequented their family villas in marshy and swampy areas of Tuscany, where malaria was prevalent well into the 20th century.

Researchers found evidence of P. falciparum in the bones of both Medici brothers, confirming reports from court physicians at the time that described the brothers as sick with "tertian fever," a type of high fever that returns every three days and is a hallmark of malaria. The medical reports also revealed the brothers were treated with bloodletting.

The name plate from the tomb of Grand Duke Francesco de' Medici, who died of malaria in 1587. (Image credit: Courtesy the University of Pisa) "Now we can say with scientific certainty that malaria, not poisoning, killed Grand Duke Francesco de Medici," study co-author Valentina Giuffra , a medical historian at the University of Pisa, said in a statement .

But the ancient-DNA study held two additional surprises.

The Grand Duke's bones were positive not only for P. falciparum but also for Plasmodium malariae , a different parasite species that also causes malaria in humans, suggesting that both species contributed to the severe illness that killed him and his wife.

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Cardinal Giovanni, on the other hand, had only P. falciparum , but the specific strain that infected him was previously unknown. The strain is similar to those found in ancient and early modern Europe, but with two mutations the researchers had never seen before, they wrote in the study.

"The study of ancient DNA offers us an opportunity not only to diagnose malaria in the remains of individuals from the past, but it also offers us a window for understanding the evolution of malaria species, Plasmodium falciparum in this case, which can help scientists better understand how the pathogen adapts over time," study first author Alexander Ochoa , an evolutionary biologist at Yale University, said in the statement.

Further analysis of the brothers' bones is needed to determine the evolutionary relationship between the strains of malaria they carried, the researchers wrote in the study.

What do you know about the bones in your body? Test your knowledge with our human skeleton quiz .

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Sony drove another nail into the coffin of physical videogames today, announcing that it'd cease production of PS5 discs in 2028 . The future of the leading videogame console is total digital licensing, and according to the director of the Video Game History Foundation , that means the future of preservation, for the moment, must be piracy.

Responding to a Bluesky post calling piracy the "only extant form of media preservation that exists in games right now", VGHF director Frank Cifaldi agreed.

"As the director of a historical video game preservation institution, and someone who has dedicated his entire adult life to this cause, this is accurate," Cifaldi wrote . "We have attempted to work with the industry's trade organization to find a legal path forward, but they refuse to offer a meaningful alternative."

In a later statement from the VGHF , Cifaldi expanded on his criticism of the industry working against legal means of preserving its own works, while also noting that today's development is hardly a surprise.

"Museums and archives have been preparing for this future for a while, with the expectation that putting discs on a shelf isn't going to be a long-term solution for preserving new games.

As the director of a historical video game preservation institution, and someone who has dedicated his entire adult life to this cause, this is accurate. We have attempted to work with the industry's trade organization to find a legal path forward, but they refuse to offer a meaningful alternative.

— @frankcifaldi.bsky.social ( @frankcifaldi.bsky.social.bsky.social ) 2026-07-01T22:40:26.096Z

"What continues to baffle us is what the industry expects institutions like ours to do about it. If platform owners are deciding to eliminate physical media and older digital storefronts, then we'd also like to see trade groups like the Entertainment Software Association offer meaningful solutions for archives and museums to legally preserve digital-only content and make it accessible for research. Everyone agrees this is a serious problem, but the ESA has repeatedly opposed the efforts of cultural heritage institutions to reform digital copy protection laws to make it easier to do this work."

Some hay has been made about the inevitability of Sony's decision, and how PC gamers readily adapted to the temporary, conditional ownership of digital libraries, but it's worth noting that the death of physical PC games was a painful transition blunted only by preservation efforts both official and grassroots.

Statement from VGHF director Frank Cifaldi on the discontinuation of physical PlayStation media, and the closure of the PS3 and PSP digital storefronts.

— @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social ( @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social.bsky.social ) 2026-07-01T22:40:26.113Z

The PC is a perennially backwards compatible platform—flexible and open enough that game preservation is a matter of will, not way. Classics persist both legally and dubiously, and function on the same machine you play new releases on. There is no PlayStation GOG, nor a formal plan from Sony to address its scheduled abandonware (the closure of the PS3 and PS Vita digital stores were part of today's unpopular announcements).

So the task will fall, as usual, to unofficial efforts.

2026 games : All the upcoming games

Best PC games : Our all-time favorites

Free PC games : Freebie fest

Best FPS games : Finest gunplay

Best RPGs : Grand adventures

Best co-op games : Better together