She left all she knew to find who she could be . . .She grows up in the wild wood, in a cave with her mother, but when she hears a traveler speak of Artos, king of Caer Leon, she decides her future lies at his court. Brimming with magic and eager to test her strength, she sets out for Caer Leon.With a stolen hunting spear and mended armour, she begins a journey of magic, mystery, love, lust and fights to the death....
We’ve got long-time crushes, second chance romance, fake dating, friends-to-lovers, and rivals falling in love. A lot of last month’s themes are back in July: the one-of-us-is-famous love affairs, the family-pleasing antics, the foodies, the trying-to-make-your-dream-happen-and-finding-love-along-the-way plot line. Note that there aren’t as many noteworthy LGBTQ+ romances as we usually like to include. This is likely because many of them are published during or just before Pride Month. But plenty more will be on the shelves in August — watch this space!...
These nine funny mystery books are all as hilarious as they are twisty and puzzling. Feel free to pick your poison: whether you’re in the mood for a quirky cozy or something with a more grim sense of humor, you’ll be laughing out loud in no time. If you’re looking for more funny mystery books, you can’t go wrong with cozies. Check out 25 of the Best Cozy Mystery Series to find the next addition to your TBR pile....
Don’t get me wrong, I feel the same about aliens and gods, too. It feels like making characters straight as a default does them a disservice. It’s also one of the reasons I am reading more manga these days. Manga doesn’t feel as limited as most American comics. With manga, I can find almost anything I am in the mood for. But with American comics, it often feels that some publishers are reluctant to push mainstream queer characters who are in queer relationships on-page and not as a plot device....
While we can’t instantly transfer ourselves to our destination of choice, we can always opt for the closest thing to teleportation during our tedious plane rides, i.e. pick up a book! Your “uniquely portable magic”, as Stephen King describes books, will not only transport you to the lands unknown but also will provide an easy escape route from having to chitchat with a nosy co-passenger! So in case you need a pleasant distraction from bland flight breakfasts, the cranky toddler in the other row, uncomfortable seats, and a never-ending layover, this list is for you!...
The same can’t be said of the works I’ve collected below. I tried to select books which caused real and widespread outrage at the time they were published, often becoming embroiled in obscenity trials or posing serious risk to the publisher and author. This list is for English titles. However, I couldn’t write an article on “most controversial books” and not include one absolute standout: the Marquis de Sade’s horrifyingly gory 120 Days of Sodom....
There are more queer superheroes to find these days (and there were queer superheroes and queer comics in the past; you just had to look for them), if you want superhero adventures specifically. However, comics continue getting bigger than just superheroes, so you can find a ton of queer adventures outside of that world as well. Visual storytelling in comics runs the gamut of realism. There are plenty of hyper-realistic examples, but comics also allow you to push the boundaries of what is authentic to the world around us....
An unreliable narrator is a narrator who cannot be trusted, or who is simply not credible for one reason or another. Sometimes they can help it, and sometimes they can’t. The evidence will probably be in the way other characters are written, or the way certain events in the story pan out. It can be in the reaction or dialogue of other characters and the disparity between it and the inner monologue of the narrator....
I forgot about all this until I read Dear Mrs. Bird by A.J. Pierce recently. The main character, Emmy Lake, is an aspiring war correspondent who accidentally takes a job as Junior Typist at Woman’s Friend, a woman’s magazine. There are many things that Emmy doesn’t like about this job, but the main one is her boss, advice columnist Mrs. Bird’s, refusal to deal with unpleasantness of any kind – that is, pretty much anything and everything that real people deal with....
MCU Loki has been charming us since Thor, but comic book Loki has been causing mischief for a while. Loki made his Marvel debut as Thor’s brother and rival the god of mischief back in 1962 in Journey into Mystery #85. When we last saw Loki in the Marvel movies in Avengers: End Game, Loki took the Tesseract and disappeared. While the Marvel movies thus far have started to show Loki’s complexity, the television show really slams it home, giving viewers more information on the lore of Loki and all his moral ambiguity....
Do you know what’s coming back? Randomness. As in, that’s so random. My recommendation? Start putting weird shit on your covers — I’m thinking chihuahua, rocket ship, ghost emoji. That’s so random and you know what? Maybe it will be a hit. It won’t work 99% of the time, but when it does? You will have an absolute smash hit on your hands. Influencer campaign? Nah. Social media wannabes will be begging you for a copy, but they’ll have to buy one at Barnes & Noble because you won’t have a single copy to spare....
Poetry Can Be Easy to Love If you feel estranged from the world of poetry, remember that you probably loved it at some point. Whether it was Sandra Boynton’s Barnyard Dance, Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon, or the nursery rhymes and folk tales loved ones told us from birth, it’s quite fair to say that all of us are raised in poetry in some way. You might rediscover their love for poetry by going back to basics....
The Most Helpful Parenting Book I’ve Read in Quite some Time After questioning all of these minor parenting woes, I picked up Act Natural by Jennifer Traig. In her book, Traig, a mother of two, researches the answers to many modern day parenting questions. She moves from Ancient Rome, where some parents exposed their children to the elements instead of raising them, to the 1500’s, where male obstetricians were not allowed to watch births before practicing medicine, all the way to the current day....
Not all translated works include translator’s notes, although the more of them I read, the more I miss them when they’re not there. I’ve come to see them not just as fascinating windows into the work of translation, but as crucial extensions of the actual work in question. Translator’s notes change the way I read translated fiction, to the extent that reading books without them, though I do it, feels incomplete....
Every year, Tumblr compiles their “Year in Review” where they list the trending topics on the platform from October to October. Data is compiled from recording original posts, likes, reblogs, and searches within the different tags. In case you missed the big reveal, here are the top 10 trending books and authors on Tumblr over the past year: Books Authors So let’s break this down a little, shall we?...
Within its two hundred pages, you are sure to find a story that you adore and a new thought to think. It contains some pretty big names from webcomics and print, such as: Adam Pruett, Agnes Czaja, Alex Dahm, Amy T. Falcone, Ashley Cook & Caroline Hobbs, Bill Roundy, Ellen Forney, Erika Moen, Jason A. Quest, Jason Thompson, John Lustig, Jon Macy, Josh Trujillo & Dave Valeza, Kate Leth, Kevin Boze, Leanne Franson, Leia Weathington, Lena H....
The other day, I was reading a thriller that had been in my digital TBR pile for a couple of years. I won’t give the title, because the book itself was pretty mediocre – I guessed the midpoint twist before it happened, and the ending not too long after that. (It also didn’t help that the characters were flat, and the conflict was so contrived that I was reading the story with an ever-escalating sense of “…okay, but why wouldn’t you just talk about this?...
A two-week period has seen the publication of Open Earth, Retrograde Orbit, and On a Sunbeam. All are by female cartoonists. And all center on young women and nonbinary folks off-Earth—whether they’re running a galaxy-wide construction crew, mining ore, or staffing a space station. Even beyond the visual possibilities of drawing space, the appeal is clear. Men have traditionally been the adventurers, sexual and scientific. In all three books, the frontier setting allows for the old rules to be dispensed with....
We’ve got you covered from all angles: the history of working for pay, the neuroscience behind creativity and productivity, the mindfulness around work, the importance of rest, and an antidote to the bullshit notion that we should be #blessed to be working at our ~dream job~ and accept the daily crying sessions as part of the grind. Ahem. Let’s get to the best work-life balance books to fuel your change....
“I am so impressed with the shortlist selection from our booksellers,” said Shannon DeVito, Director of Books, Barnes & Noble. “These eight titles are diverse and far-reaching, capturing a wonderful snapshot of the year highlighting books that have been in the public eye and books that flew under the radar. These books showcase all types of writers – beloved authors, musicians, journalists, international superstars and even a pizza consultant.” The “Book of the Year” designation launched in 2019, is a chance for those working with books and readers to highlight favorites of the year that may or may not be seeing the same honors elsewhere....
