Posts

Looking back on it, I think part of the reason I fell so hard for his work was that I didn’t have many Jewish authors to read — well, whose works weren’t immediately connected to the Holocaust. (I did go through a phase of reading all the Holocaust books I could get my hands on). Later on I’d find my way to Sholem Aleichem’s short stories whose name may be vaguely familiar because his short stories were the foundation for the hit musical and film, Fiddler on the Roof....

From international bestselling author Catriona Ward comes The Last House on Needless Street, a shocking and immersive read perfect for fans of Gone Girl and The Haunting of Hill House. In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street lives a family of three. An unspeakable secret binds them together, but what is buried among the birches may just come back and haunt them all… Perhaps it was my mom raising me on Hardy Boys novels and horror films like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween when I was arguably too young to watch them, but my life-long love of horror had me watching films from The Hills Have Eyes (do not recommend) to The Ring and Audition....

The consequences of this underrepresentation go beyond the hurt of not seeing your experiences reflected back in the media you consume. According to the American Psychiatric Association, minority youth with behavioral health issues are more likely to be referred to the juvenile justice system over specialty primary care when compared to white youth. Lack of cultural understanding due to language barriers, cultural presentation of symptoms, or stigma within minority groups may contribute to under- or misdiagnoses....

We’ve got a little more than six months left of 2021 (is it zooming? it feels a bit like it’s zooming) and that means so many BOOKS left to come out. I keep a spreadsheet of new releases as I hear about them, and there are some truly A+ nonfiction reads coming atcha for the second half of the year. We’ve got the rest of summer, the giant releases of fall, and then the holiday/winter rush....

With a real-life Biff Tannen in the White House and an all-too-real St. Mary’s Virus infecting the globe, this is a good time to pay more attention to writers working in the genre today. While sci-fi is a historically white genre, that’s been changing in awesome ways. A growing cadre of BIPOC writers are exploding the sci-fi scene. Not only that, they’re doing it in a way that sheds some light on real-life social justice issues....

Gretchen Harper has always been practical. Dependable, solid, predictable. She’s never taken risks, and she’s especially never bought coffee for gorgeous professional athletes in airports. That is, until she meets her favorite baseball player on the worst day of his career. And what starts as a one night stand ends up holding the promise for so much more. For a chance at true love Gretchen will have to decide whether she’ll swing for the fences, even if it means striking out....

Seeing a relationship bloom from friendship to new love is so sweet. In The Summer I Turned Pretty, Belly has spent years worth of summers growing closer with Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher. I still need to read the next two books in the series, so shhhh no spoilers on who she ends up with. Thinking back on other fictional couples I’ve shipped in the past, I noticed my natural inclination towards friends to lovers....

Unless you’re putting actual cash into a mattress (please don’t do this), your savings are likely invested to some degree. A good savings account in the U.S. has an interest rate of around 0.5-1.0% annual percentage yield (APY), and as such, you are getting a very small return on your money for letting the bank hold it and use it to make more money. In a nutshell, that’s investing. You give the bank your money and they give you back a little bit more....

Kiss Number 8 by Colleen AF Venable and Ellen T. Crenshaw Mads loves church and baseball and definitely NOT kissing. And can you blame her? Her seven kisses so far have left a lot to be desired. Well, that’s mainly because of exactly who she’d like to make kiss number 8: her best friend Cat. Mooncakes by Wendy Xu and Susanne Walker Nova Huang is a teen witch who works at her grandmothers’ bookshop....

I work in a small indie bookstore in Rotterdam, called Bosch&deJong boekverkopers. The bookstore is situated inside a food market – the Fenix Food Factory – on the southern part of town, by the river Nieuwe Maas. I currently work four days a week, on two different schedules: the morning shift (from 9:45 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and the afternoon shift (from 2 p.m. to 7:15 p.m.). This is an account of what a morning shift looks like....

— Madeleine L’Engle (@MadeleineLEngle) August 23, 2018 AWIT was one of my favorite books as a tween, and it actually wasn’t until my 30s, when I was in graduate school and working in a children’s bookstore, that I found out it was part of a quintet – and upon learning that, I quickly read the rest of the books. Childhood favorites are much different when you read them as an adult: you notice new themes, new nuances, and simply come at the story from a completely new vantage point....

In honor of her birthday, here are some of my favorite quotes of hers. “You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it.” —What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics “The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet.” —On Lies, Secrets, and Silence “She died a famous woman denying / her wounds / denying her wounds came from the same source as her power....

Reading The Black Hood #1 (“The Bullet Kiss (1 of 5)” for those keeping score) was like running through a checklist of things I’ve wanted to see in a superhero comic for a while now. Let’s start with the plot stuff. Greg Hettinger is a cop in Philadelphia. The story starts with him answering an emergency call; four men with guns are causing trouble outside a school. Well, actually, the call says four guys with guns are causing trouble on Bridge and Mulberry, it’s Hettinger who tells us there’s a school there....

But if you’re like me and you want to get excited for Earth Day too, I’ve put together my quintessential Earth Day reading list for grown-ups. Fiction If you’re not quite ready to dive into some hard-hitting nonfiction about climate change, there are some Earth Day novels that may be more up your alley. Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile I devoured this book in one hot, summer day, and I could not get enough of this Southern story (that I’m sure you’ve at least heard of, because Oprah)....

ASMR is something that can look completely bizarre from the outside. YouTube videos of people doing seemingly boring, repetitive activities–like crinkling bags or scratching different surfaces–can gets tens of thousands or even millions of views. I’d heard of ASMR before, mostly as a method of falling asleep easier, but it was through Booktube that I started seeing bookish ASMR videos in the recommended videos sidebar. Intrigued, I started clicking through, and though I’m not a total ASMR convert, I find myself drawn to these videos....

It’s a particularly momentous occasion as Jokha Alharthi is the first female Omani novelist to be translated into English and the first author from the Arabian Gulf to win the prize. The shortlist as a whole was also remarkable, as five of the six finalists were women and all of the books were from independent publishers. Celestial Bodies is set in the Omani village of al-Awafi and follows the stories of three sisters....

Meet your new reading buddy: an all-in-one spot to record everything and anything book related. Inspired by bullet journaling, Book Marks offers ideas for setting up a multitude of book tracking pages with a mix of fill-in prompts, charts, lists, and plenty of dot-grid pages to customize. To help expand your literary horizons, the journal also includes a section of recommended reading lists compiled by Book Riot. Use Book Marks to jot down what you’re currently reading, what’s on your nightstand, your favorite quotes, new vocabulary words, memorable characters, your reviews of recent reads, and more....

The proposed library closures caused a widespread outcry. In some counties, such as Oxfordshire, nearly half the libraries were slated for closure. One of these was my local library, a beautiful building on the edge of the park, which looked like something out of Jane Austen – until you got inside and saw the books, computers, play area for the kids, and the bustle of people who used the place as a community hub....

For me, it all started with a geranium. When I saw one at a nursery years ago, I was drawn to it because it was familiar. Back then, geraniums were one of the few plants I could recognize by name and by the shape of their leaves. It also reminded me of home, which made it the perfect plant. I thought of my mom stopping by her flowers in the middle of a conversation to pull and crumble the dry leaves, the smell of the geranium taking over for an instant....

Think about it. Comics and graphic novels have their own language and it can take a while to learn. Therefore the best recommendations are graphic novels that work hard to make the layout understandable, especially to new readers. Below are some great comics and graphic novels for beginners separated into three genres. This list is small but has a range that’s wide enough to attract even the most skeptical of the genre....