But a fun fact about me? Does being flat footed count as a fun fact? Or is that just funny? Things wouldn’t be so terrible if recruiters hadn’t decided to hop on the fun fact bandwagon. But here we are. I eventually decided that telling recruiters that I’ve read over a 1,000 books would suffice. It comes off as erudite, if a little pedantic and nerdy, but it works. Eyes widen....
You may live in a place where librarians are watching children. During these strange times, some library workers are taking on this role, to everyone’s detriment. This may even seem logical to some parents: after all, there are already children’s librarians who run storytimes. Many public libraries stock toys and almost all consider children’s material an important part of their collection. Why wouldn’t librarians also watch the kids who take advantage of those programs?...
Then I started engaging in the book world online. I found that historical fiction is not as widely beloved as I expected. Many of the YouTube book channels I follow have plenty of content about contemporary books and fantasy books. But very few of them read any historical fiction, much less focus on it. When I started working at a library, I again found many readers of fantasy and literary fiction....
PEN America was founded in 1922, with the intent to “foster international literary fellowship” in the wake of World War I. Originally, PEN stood for Poets, Essayists, and Novelists, but now honors a range of expressions and artists who work with words. Before reading the winners, you can check out our previous posts about the long list and short list of finalists! PEN/Jean Stein Book Award ($75,000) To a book-length work of any genre for its originality, merit, and impact, which has broken new ground by reshaping the boundaries of its form and signaling strong potential for lasting influence....
The appeal is partly the acknowledgement of the weird landscape of social media, where you can be guilty by association by following someone without knowing everything they’ve ever done or said, but also — in this case — in the aha moment of understanding the allusion. As always, if you want the whole history of where this started, you can check out Know Your Meme, along with lots of non-bookish examples....
There’s also the “place a camera in a location and watch the drama unfold” with varying levels of setup on the production’s end. These include shows like Terrace House or Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Then, there’s dating reality TV. The Bachelor, Love Island, and other shows like that are great examples. Viewers watch people date (or not date) while participants are isolated to one location. Another prominent sub-genre is reality TV that shows viewers the reality of a profession....
Book interiors are something you probably don’t think much about. Covers are the attention-grabbers. They’re the trendsetters. The interiors, where you spend the most time, are meant to be smooth and seamless. The job of the typesetter is to be invisible and create an immersive reading experience—you don’t want the reader getting ripped out of the story because of an unreadable font. That’s why choosing the right font for the body of your book is so important....
I looked through 50 of the most-viewed queer BookToks and noted down which titles were mentioned. I did this by looking at the top 15 results in the following tags: #LGBTBooks, #QueerBooks, and #LGBTQBooks, which as far as I can tell are the most popular tags for this corner of BookTok (they each have over 10 million views). To round it out to an even 50, I also took the top 5 videos that use the “It’s gay and it slaps” sound....
Leila: For any readers out there who haven’t experienced the exquisite horror-joy experience that comes of reading a V.C. Andrews book, I feel that I need to start this off by quoting the first two paragraphs: I kind of can’t believe I’m going to say this, but compared to the Dollanganger books—Flowers in the Attic, etc.—My Sweet Audrina is almost RESTRAINED. I mean, there’s no doubt that V.C. Andrews should win a lifetime achievement award in OVERWROUGHT MELODRAMA, but I think her writing in this one was vastly better than in the others I’ve read....
Why, then, would we want to force this stuff on unsuspecting children?? But translated literature is, of course, just a book that’s traveled from one language to another. When my kids read Diary of a Wimpy Kid in Arabic or French, they probably don’t worry that it’s too serious. Why World Kid Lit? First launched in September 2016, World Kid Lit Month is a month to celebrate and promote world literature for children and teens....
Let’s jump in! Summary of City of Girls spoilers follow In Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2019 historical fiction novel, City of Girls, our narrator is 89-year-old Vivian Morris. In the opening pages, we learn that Vivian is writing to another woman named Angela. Vivian is attempting to answer Angela’s question about who Vivian was to her late father. Vivian begins her letter in response by immersing us in her youth, starting when she moves to New York City at the age of 19 in 1940....
Sometimes I’ll be reading and realize I don’t remember the name of a character and have to go searching. Every once in a while though I’ll realize that I don’t know the name because there isn’t one. At least not one the author chose to share. I’ve found that the lack of a name can be a very powerful tool. Often the lack of a name becomes a plot device or purposely gives the book an unsettled or mysterious tone....
Fiction and Nonfiction Books About Architecture From HGTV to Planning a Better World? Mindlessly gazing at houses turned into educating myself on architecture. That turned into a passion for urban planning guided by the question: How we can make better homes and societies to live within? Note: This list is by no means comprehensive. Additionally, it slants towards western architecture. Architecture (like nearly everything else) has a diversity problem. For more info, check out Curbed for stories about why race matters in architecture....
New York Times bestselling authors Barry Lyga and Morgan Baden have teamed up for the first time to create a novel that’s gripping, terrifying and more relevant every day. The Hive follows seventeen-year-old Cassie, who, after being “condemned” on social media, is on the run from a deadly state-sanctioned mob seeking to exact IRL punishment. Aided by a shadowy underground network, Cassie becomes an unlikely heroine, as her search for the truth makes her a threat to the entire unjust system....
A few years ago, when I discovered LINE WEBTOON, one of the most popular platforms for reading comics online, I was instantly hooked. The diverse content drew me in, and I was soon consuming dozens of webtoons at once. Here are ten of my favorites, organized by genre so you can be sure to find a comic that’s right for you! Action/Fantasy Unordinary by uru-chan John, an ordinary teenager, is a nobody at a high school where the social elite possess supernatural powers....
Like many others, I was treated to reading after reading of Brown’s beloved Goodnight Moon. It was a happy surprise when I discovered she and I attended the same college. The school has leaned into Brown’s success, focusing largely on Goodnight Moon with a theatrical adaptation of the picture book. But Margaret Wise Brown is far more than just Goodnight Moon. This was abundantly clear as I read Amy Gary’s In the Great Green Room: The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown....
Women’s heroes are everyone’s heroes! In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote, we read books that are by, for, and about powerful women of all ages. A pre-teen who helped discover the world’s first dinosaur bone, a young women in the early 20th century who braved the illness and death of the radium factories and fought a groundbreaking battle for workers’ rights, or teens—one black, one white—who rely on each other to survive a night of violent race riots in their city—these are the stories of remarkable women of history and resourceful everyday girls....
Korean Children’s Books About Culture + Folklore Korean Retellings Books With Korean Children Korean American Adoptees If you’re interested in children’s books originally published in Korean, there is a great list here, although obtaining these might be difficult. And here’s an amazing list of adult Korean fiction in translation, as well!
Catalan is a Romance language spoken in Catalonia, Andorra, and other parts of eastern Spain, as well as the Pyrénées-Orientales department of France. It has more than 4 million native speakers, most of whom also speak Spanish; more than double that number understand Catalan, or speak it as a second language. During Francisco Franco’s 40-year dictatorship, Catalan was prohibited: it was only when Spain transitioned to democracy in the late 1970s, and Catalonia regained control of its own education system, that Catalan was allowed to experience a rebirth....
Let’s face it. Long series are an investment on several levels. Thankfully, single-volume manga titles exist for those of us who are series-phobic and want a story that’s one and done. And while not every suggestion on this list began as standalone manga in Japan, they’ve been released as a single complete omnibus in North America. Perfect reading for a lazy weekend afternoon. If you’re looking for more single-volume manga, we have even more recs for you....
