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Since I started working as a bookseller in 2020, though, I do try to stay on top of new releases, even if the publishing world is so vast, and there are so many new books coming out each week, all of which makes it almost impossible to keep up. Like any other bookseller, I also get the occasional vague request for “a blue book about boats,” and although it is always tricky when the client doesn’t really know which book they’re looking for — and the info they have doesn’t seem to ring a bell — it is a joy to be able to actually find the book for them....

It’s disheartening to feel like we haven’t progressed at all, that we’re still having the same arguments from decades before about whether it’s age appropriate for a child going through puberty to read a book about puberty or whether white children are too delicate to learn about the existence of racism between active shooter drills. Because I kept getting déjà vu while reading about what book banners were saying in school board and library board meetings, I decided to make a quiz to see if you can tell the difference between the language used to ban books in decades past and in the present....

40 of the Best Summer Reads for 2022 22 More Great New Books to Read in 2022 15 Buzzy Books to Pack in Your Beach Bag

Reading through news posts and comments, you’d think censorship was any time someone declined to read or stock a book. The truth is, there are too many books out there for any bookstore, library, or classroom book collection to keep every title. There has to be some kind of curation. The same goes for deciding which books to teach or which manuscripts to publish. There are many ways to make those decisions, and considering the social impact of the book while deciding isn’t censorship....

Foodie Fiction Quiz Is your stomach growling, too? Check out all of the books featured in this quiz: With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy E. Reichert Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck and Fortune by Roselle Lim Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal Sourdough by Robin Sloane And if you’re looking for more books for foodies: 6 Foodie Books to Add to Your TBR in 2019 100 Must-Read Books: Food in Fiction QUIZ: Which Literary Chef Are You?...

That’s right. American Girl, as of 2022, is 36 years old. That means all of us old folks who grew up with American Girls are starting to get nostalgic about our favorite childhood characters. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve fallen for the American Girl nostalgia. Hard. When they released the 1980s Courtney doll in 2020, I had to have one, especially because you can get a little Molly doll and a Care Bears sleeping bag set as part of her accessories....

According to amended complaints, an antiquities dealer and a U.S. cuneiform expert shipped the tablet to the U.S. without declaring it and the antiquities dealer sold it with a false provenance letter. The tablet eventually ended up at an auction house where it was sold to Hobby Lobby. Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said the forfeiture “demonstrates the Department’s continued commitment to eliminating smuggled cultural property from the U....

Meet Libby. The one-tap reading app from OverDrive. By downloading Libby to your smartphone, you can access thousands of eBooks and audiobooks from your library for free anytime and anywhere. You’ll find titles in all genres, ranging from bestsellers, classics, nonfiction, comics and much more. Libby works on Apple and Android devices and is compatible with Kindle. All you need is a library card but you can sample any book in the library collection without one....

After more than 15 years off the air, the show will return to airwaves as Reading Rainbow Live, and it will feature a diverse and rotating range of comedic troupe performers as hosts. The return was prompted with the pandemic and how parents have struggled to both balance their needs and those of children they are responsible for helping at home schooling. Executive producer Steve Beer said Reading Rainbow Live was developed as a life-saver in response....

Music ultimately saved me from myself, and books gave me a place to go that wasn’t my own weird life. My favorite fictional place was Sweet Valley because everything always turned out great there. The rebellion was gentle, you could handle Lila Fowler’s bitchiness, and if you liked purple and unicorns, you felt like you had friends; even if they were kind of bitches, they were the kind of bitches you wanted to be....

I did notice, while researching this, that there isn’t that much out there in this sub-genre starring LGBTQ+ characters, and that is kind of disappointing. Though Frankissstein has a trans character, that novel is less of a romantic comedy and more of an absurdist satire of humanity. Like, can’t someone write a lesbian Great Gatsby-meets-screwball-romantic-comedy? Then again, I have a lot of free time right now so maybe I should just do that?...

When asked the question, “And you’re collaborating on turning The House on Mango Street into an opera, too?” Cisneros told American Libraries Magazine: “Yes, it will be an opera, and I’m so thrilled. My mother would love that. She was a big fan of opera, and she would borrow records from the library and sing along with them because she had a beautiful voice. She couldn’t understand what she was singing, but she followed the words....

You think that perhaps you should carry on with your errands — those flowers won’t arrange themselves, and you have nearly a dozen brown-paper parcels to pick up all around town — but the birds, who, just a moment ago were singing you on your way, have fallen silent. Maybe you should just stop in for a bracing cup of coffee. Besides, your local is the best place to hear any new gossip....

One place to not start your reading is with Pearl S. Buck. Famous for her 1931 novel The Good Earth, Buck was a white US American woman who was raised in China by her missionary parents. While her intentions were generally good, there is a long history of her works being taught by way of introduction to Chinese culture and Chinese American literature. This is, as you can imagine, really problematic....

Avengers This is the Avengers logo rendered in book pages! If you look at the artist’s promo photos, you can see that they’ve constructed Green Lantern and Deadpool folds too. Alas, these do not appear to be available on Etsy. https://www.instagram.com/p/BwzbTRThu7W/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet Batman Fold yourself a Batman logo and place it high in your room. Light it with a spotlight. Your home is Gotham now and Batman watches over your book crafts....

Gifted and cursed with the ability to see the future, Mildred Groves takes a position at the Hanford Research Center in the early 1940s. Hanford tests and manufactures a mysterious product to aid the war effort. Only the top officials know that this product is processed plutonium, to make the first atomic bombs. Inspired by the classic Greek myth, this 20th-century reimagining is based on a real WWII compound. A timely novel about patriarchy and militancy, The Cassandra uses both legend and history to examine man’s capacity for destruction, and the compassion it takes to challenge the powerful....

The Moth There’s perhaps no organization more synonymous with storytelling than The Moth. The nonprofit brought its live show format to a digital audience in 2008, and they’ve never looked back. The concept is simple: People share their stories, ranging from humorous to heart-wrenching, in five to 10-minute increments. Each episode covers different subjects, so you don’t have to listen to them in order or even in their entirety. Feel free to skip around until you find the story that’s most compelling to you—whether it’s the woman driving to learn more about her ancestors, the young man who learned to dance at high school prom, or the restauranteur who got a terrible review....

“Hine’s concept is about more than the simple desire for privacy. A ‘culture of dissemblance’ has developed because ‘the relationship between Black women and the larger society has always been, and continues to be, adversarial.’ That is, American culture maligns Black women in every possible way, arguably as a matter of course, beginning with the constant portrayal of them as natural whores who cannot be raped. Insisting that Black women so willingly gave themselves and indeed ensnared white men was the foundation on which the United States literally built its wealth in human property....

I know that a lot of people don’t like reading nonfiction, and I understand that preference; so many of us read for entertainment alone, to have a little time for ourselves, to forget the troubles of the world we live in, and I am certainly, first and foremost, a fiction aficionado. Fiction is what makes me love and engage with books so much, with their relatable fictional characters, and stories that grip us and touch us deeply....

Let’s get one thing out of the way before we begin: although I’m referring to the buyables below as Dungeons & Dragons maps, that doesn’t mean you can’t use them for other TTRPGs. Consider D&D to be just a generic shorthand here and go with it, even if it makes you cringe. Allow me to also say that you do not need maps in order to play a TTRPG. Yes, actual-play shows like Critical Role and Dimension 20 use amazing products to bring their games to life, but your game will be no less fun or magical without them....