Then November 1st hits. The Halloween displays are being taken down and, yeah, holiday music is playing in all of the stores. You’re starting to feel that yearly existential dread all of us horror fans start to feel in the final months of the year. Do you really have to wait a full 364 days to feel joy again? Will horror hit the same in November and December? Does anyone even care about scary stuff anymore?...
These ten LGBTQ mystery novels all feature queer main characters in a genre where queer people are often relegated to token side characters. I have placed an emphasis on books that are written by queer authors for this list as well. Most are series starters, though I’ve also included a few standalones for those that aren’t in the reading mood to commit to a full series right now. Once you’ve checked out these queer mystery reads, be sure to visit this list of the best diverse cozy mysteries for more book recs....
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald Following her father’s death, Macdonald spent a year training a goshawk named Mabel. She devoted herself to the task with obsessive dedication, mostly in isolation, as she wrestled with the overwhelming grief of losing her father. Part nature writing, part memoir, the book is loosely structured as Macdonald alternates between the fascinating process of hawk training and her journey through bereavement. The writing is sublime, and Macdonald’s hypnotic narration is exquisite....
Awards: What They Are and Aren’t How dare some random person decide whose book is The Best? Isn’t that subjective? Is anybody truly qualified to make the choice? How many people are on the committee? What does winning a book award really mean in the grand scheme of things? Is there money involved? Who cares what other people think? What is the difference between an award, a medal, a prize, or a list?...
When Karina Ahmed’s parents go abroad to Bangladesh for four weeks, she expects some peace and quiet. Instead, she gets roped into a fake-dating scheme with her school’s resident bad boy, Ace Clyde. Tutoring him was already crossing a line, but pretending to date him? Out of the question. But Ace does everything right—he brings her coffee in the mornings, impresses her friends without trying, and even promises to buy her a dozen books a week....
Full disclaimer: There is microscopic diversity when it comes to video game creators and the authors who influence them. This is not new in the literary industry and it is definitely not new in the gaming industry. If you have any suggestions for the best video games based on books by women or authors of color, please shout them out on our social media! The Wanderer: Frankenstein’s Creature This fairly new game is available on Switch/Steam/iOS/Google Play from indie developers La Belle Games and Arte France....
I just love a YA epistolary novel, don’t you? Epistolary novels are stories that are told in letters, journal or diary entries, emails, texts, or other means of (usually) written communication. My love for the form began years ago when I discovered The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot, and then the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series by Louise Rennison. Although those are older YA titles, they are still fun—but there are so many more options now!...
But when you’re a disabled book lover, you often have to get…creative. Sometimes you can’t read print, so you switch to ebooks. Then your Kindle or iPad becomes too heavy to hold. Then you switch to screen readers, but then you need software with more features. Living in an ableist society as a book lover can quickly become a spiral of constant reminders that your reading life doesn’t look like non-disabled people’s....
Technically, the Edwardian era only lasted from 1901 to 1910, but for the purposes of this list, I’ll be flexible and extend it a few years. The definition of this era has always been a little fuzzy anyway, and we wouldn’t want to miss out on any prime Edwardian true crime stories on a technicality, would we? (Writer’s Note: Most if not all of the authors featured on this list are white, as authors of color are still woefully underrepresented when it comes to Edwardian true crime....
We Are Everywhere: Protest, Power, and Pride in the History of Queer Liberation by Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown The Los Angeles Review of Books called this “probably the best coffee-table book ever created.” The curators of the Instagram account @lgbt_history created this photo book in 2019. It is a collection of images spanning thousands of years, and creates a powerful argument for learning about the queer past so that we can appropriately honor the future....
Everyone will have their ‘go-to’ comic for chilling out and relaxing. For some of my friends, they love horror. Others will crawl into volumes of manga. My goal is to always have something to lift me up rather than kick me while I’m down. Each of these suggestions fit the bill. This is truly a world of superheroes and all it entails. With each short story, we glimpse into alternate lives of superheroes and the lives of those around them....
Whether you love haunted houses, scary short stories, chilling retellings, psychological horror, dark fantasy, or all of the above, there are a bunch of really great horror novels coming out this month. All of them would be a great way to kick off your fall horror reading. With so many good horror fiction coming out this month, where should you even begin? I’ll be honest with you. I meant to make this a list of the top 10 horror books coming out in September....
I don’t know if queer Bookstagram is an official thing. I do know that there are lots of queer (and some non-queer) Bookstagrammers out there who run fantastic accounts highlighting queer literature. I’ve discovered many fantastic queer books across all genres thanks to these fabulous people who read a lot and talk about it. If you’re new to queer Bookstagram, here are 12 of my favorite accounts to get you started....
“English cook Hannah Glass, for starters, penned The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, considered the most influential cookbook of the 1700s and printed in more than 20 editions. Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery was published across eight different New England towns between 1796 and 1822. Irma Rombauer’s Joy of Cooking, first published in 1931, circulated more than 18 million copies worldwide. Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which has sold 1....
Obsessive-compulsive disorder affects 2.2 million people in the United States, and about 25% receive a diagnosis by age 14—though one-third report experiencing symptoms in childhood. For that reason, it’s essential for YA books to portray characters with OCD and other mental health issues. Read on to discover 12 books featuring protagonists with obsessive-compulsive disorder. From 2019 debuts to well-loved classics, these books can help those with OCD feel less alone and those without it understand what it’s like to have this condition....
Being that it’s National Library Week—“a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation’s libraries and librarians and to promote library use and support. All types of libraries – school, public, academic and special – participate.”—I decided to round-up some awesome library displays. I already created a list of librarians to follow on Twitter (to once and for all dispel that silly stereotype of the old-lady-shushing librarian), and fictional characters driving bookmobiles (because bookmobiles!...
Please note: this list is admittedly heavy on the East Asian American childhood experience, mostly covering Chinese, Korean, and Japanese American life.* Chapter Books (Grades 1–3) Middle Grade Books (Grades 4–8) Editor’s Note: This post was originally titled “13 of the Best Children’s Books About Asian American Kids,” but was changed to better reflect the East Asian focus of this list.
There are so many kinds of animal bookends out there that no matter your favorite creature, you’ll find something. I’ve pulled together a wide range of animal bookends, both in terms of the animals and in terms of the kinds of bookends. There are acrylic and wooden bookends, alongside a number of other materials. A benefit of animal bookends? You don’t need to feed and if you choose something a little (or a lot) unique, you can tell everyone you have a pet (fill-in-the-blank here)....
Everyone in Fairview knows the story. Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town. But she can’t shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her....
A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick. FORECAST: Storm clouds are on the horizon in L.A. Weather, a fun, fast-paced novel of a Mexican-American family from Maria Amparo Escandon. at Buzzfeed: All The Books We Read And Loved Being Released This October at Epic Reads: 13 YA Books That Deal With Domestic Violence at POPSUGAR: 14 Novels Written by Mexican Authors to Add to Your Must-Read List at Riveted Lit: Books with Cameos of Your Favorite Characters at Mental Floss: 7 Hilarious Footnotes From Mary Roach’s New Book, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law at Goodreads: The Best-Loved Audiobooks Featuring Full Casts at Lit Hub: A Spooky, Witchy Reading List to Kick off Scary Season at Five Books: Five Indispensable Texts For Revolutionary Marxists at Crime Reads: 8 Books Base on Real Female Spies at Tor: Five Books With BIPOC Chosen Ones at CBR: 10 Fantasy TV Shows To Watch If You Love The Lord Of The Rings at Electric Lit: 7 Books That Belong on the Literary Stunt Index at Autostraddle: Things I Read That I Love #322: A Dystopian Victory for a Particularly Narrow Vision of Nuclear Family
