10 books for 50% off at the Barnes & Noble Book Haul Sale

It’s that age-old book lover’s riddle – do I finish reading a book from my big pile, or do I buy a new one? I usually fall for the latter (so many books, so little time), but it can be difficult to choose. Barnes & Noble’s annual Book Haul Sale makes that choice a little easier by giving you even more to take home. From now through September 5, dozens of our best-selling hardcover books are 50% off in stores and online.

To help you narrow down your choices, here are 10 books that we think are worth putting on your shelf or in that giant reading pile. Why live vicariously through TikTokers and YouTubers sharing their book hauls when you can join them?

The cover art for Moon Witch, Spider King, weaving an illustrated face together with creatures and foliage. It's against a hot pink background.

Marlon James’ acclaimed successor to Black leopard, red wolf (the first in the Dark Star trilogy) focuses on Sogolon the moon witch. The first book focused on the Tracker, along with Sogolon, his opponent as they attempt to locate a missing boy in a mythical landscape. But this sequel focuses on her version of the story, highlighting the power of this 177-year-old witch as she uncovers her life story – from childhood as an orphan to her rise to become a moon witch. We can’t wait for the third part of James’ impressive, sprawling trilogy.

The cover art for Fevered Star, centering a face around which an illustrated golden light permeates.

This recently released sequel to the critically acclaimed Roanhorse black sun (the first in the Between Earth and Sky series) picks up where the previous book left off. The eclipse of the crow god ruined the city of Tova, and Serapio somehow survived – a fate he could never have imagined. Favorite Characters Return: Captain Xiala is navigating rough waters and Naranpa, now powerless, must find a way forward. Fevered Star deepens the world-building and geopolitical struggles of this epic fantasy series and sets the stage for what comes next.

The cover for Portrait of a Thief, which features a portrait of an Asian man, with a blue wash and bright orange reflective sunglasses.

In this contemporary heist, a group of friends attempt the impossible: bring priceless paintings back to Beijing, their place of origin. The group includes Daniel Liang, the medical student (who is also a lockpicking ace); Lily Wu, the Fast and Furious-style driver; Alex Huang, the ex-MIT hacker from Silicon Valley; and Irene Chen, the imposter. Portrait of a thief marries the fun of one ocean 8-style heist with an examination of the Chinese-American diaspora and a serious, justified critique of the way museums are inextricably intertwined with colonialism. This crew is doing it for a price of $50 million — but also because they see fit. Will they make it?

The cover art for A Marvelous Light showing the background/shadow of two men facing each other in orange. This is against a background that looks like old British wallpaper.

A wonderful light is a perfectly cozy, fantastic (and rather horny) read that mixes gay Edwardian romance with a large dose of magic. Robin, an ordinary man living in London, is caught in a bureaucratic loop when he is chosen to mediate between the magical and non-magical worlds. He and Edwin, his grumpy, only slightly magical counterpart, are drawn into a conspiracy of action and adventure. Marske’s own website has a list of “AO3 style tags‘ to give you a better and better picture. My favorites include: “wicked librarian/brilliant jock”, “murderous hedge maze” and “bound by sexy magical bonds”.

The cover art for Light from Uncommon Stars, showing a koi fish swimming towards a starry sky.

If you love Becky Chambers (who doesn’t adore a queer found family?) and are a fan of Neil Gaimans Good omens

then Light from Unusual Stars is for you. Katrina Nguyen, a transgender violinist, runs away from home. She meets Shizuka Satomi, a violinist who has made a deal with the devil and must recruit seven more child prodigies in order to sell their souls. Shizuka just needs to recruit one more – and Katrina fits the bill. The book also follows the story of Lan Tran, a retired spaceship captain who runs a donut shop in California’s San Gabriel Valley. unforgettable and heartbreaking, Light from Unusual Stars is a must.

Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi

One of our favorite SFF books of 2022, Goliath is set in the 2050s, at a time when white flight in space colonies has deserted the BIPOC people to survive on a fractured Earth ravaged by the climate crisis. But some of those colonists are coming back – and starting to gentrify the same planet they fled from. Sadie Gennis, who recommended the book, wrote:

A non-linear series of vignettes, Goliath switches between several characters’ perspectives, but the main focus is on a group of stackers, a black and tan group of workers who scrape bricks from ruined buildings to send to the colonies. With no hope of improvement, they have long accepted that grief will be the most important constant in their inevitably short lives – if the cancerous air doesn’t kill them, the automated drone police will. But while so much of their lives are ruled by pain, the forklifts move on, searching for meaning and fleeting moments of joy in a world destined to destroy them.

The cover for The Memory Librarian features Janelle Monáe in front of a futuristic-looking building in the background

If you’ve kept up with Janelle Monáe’s discography or seen Dirty Computer’s “Emotional Movie” – starring Jane 57821, the android determined to break free – then you know they have the future on their minds. This series of short stories is a celebration of queer Afrofuturism that grew out of Monáe’s own explorations of totalitarianism and survival. The collection includes famous black women and black non-binary authors such as Eve L. Ewing, Alaya Dawn Johnson and Sheree Renée Thomas.

The cover art for the All of Us Villains show has an illustrated lower half of a face and two hands forming a triangle pose, all in blood red colour.

We all villains by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman

This young adult dark fantasy has drawn many comparisons – fans have dubbed them as fantasy hunger games or Battle Royale. This action thriller also reminded me of the bloody-magical tournaments at VE Schwab A summoning of the light. On the Blood Moon, seven families must each choose a champion to fight to the death. The winner will benefit their family with high magic – they are exclusively allowed to use it. We all villains follows the story of four competitors. The Lowe family has emerged victorious countless times in the past – who will win now?

The cover of Dune: House of Atreides Vol. 3, which features a large illustration of a young white man's face, with half the face filled with illustrations of ships flying through a dark sky.

This is the third and final volume of the graphic novel adaptation of Dune: House Atreides, the prequel to Frank Herbert’s science fiction classic. This story traces Leto’s journey to becoming Duke of House Atreides, along with the backstory of Duncan Idaho, the fighter with the iconic name. Beautiful artwork brings this story to life on the page.

The cover for Manga Storyboard Sketchbook, which has a manga-style face as the background, along with examples of what the illustrative inner cells look like.

Not just a book to read, but one to fill out! This is a great choice for manga artists or aspiring manga artists. It includes instructions and advice, as well as 112 pages of storyboard grids that simply fill in cells and space for ideas and notes, and 60 single-page pages of drawing frames. Laying flat, this sketchbook is made from acid-free, medium-weight paper with a smooth parchment finish – so sketches last – with perforated edges so you can take the finished pieces anywhere.