The Washington Post Book World offers lively opinions of fiction and nonfiction, maintaining a balance between literary and commercial works, scholarship and journalism, seriousness and fun. Known for its wide-ranging tastes, which appeal to a broad spectrum of readers, Book World is one of the few stand-alone book review sections in the country.

Edited by Marie Arana, a former director of the National Book Critics Circle, the section is renowned for the quality of its reviewers and boasts two regular Pulitzer Prize-winning critics, Jonathan Yardley and Michael Dirda. The list of distinguished writers who have appeared on its pages is long and diverse. Among past contributors: Margaret Atwood, David McCullough, A.S. Byatt, Michael Chabon, Umberto Eco, Edmund Morris, Alice McDermott, Joyce Carol Oates, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Marilynne Robinson, Jonathan Lethem, Chimamanda Adichie, Stephen King, Geraldine Brooks, and many, many others.

Each week The Washington Post Book World Service distributes about a dozen reviews from the Sunday sectionalong with a poetry column, Poet's Choice. The service also includes five additional Book World reviews that are published weekdays in the Post's Style section.

Children's books are covered on a biweekly basis, and Book World also boasts monthly roundups of mysteries, science fiction, science, politics, and numerous other themes, as well as The Writing Life, a popular series by famous authors, writing about how they work. The Book World service also delivers forecasts of the spring and fall seasons, and special sections on holiday books and the Best Books of the Year.