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I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one adding weight to those bookshelves. Perhaps you’ve broadened your reading horizons to include some Light Novels. Or maybe your need for chill has added to the slice-of-life collection (check out fellow Book Rioter Patricia’s suggestions for more). The truth is, someone is buying more manga than ever before. And someone needs to tidy up their bookshelves. And if that particular someone needs some bookends to help with the situation, I suppose I have a job to do....

It’s 11 days or less until Christmas, which yes, is…soon. I can’t guarantee anything (please don’t get mad at me if they don’t arrive on time), but all of the items below should ship with time to delight your favorite book lover. And all 15 things listed below — tote bags, sweatshirts, candles — are awesome gifts that your favorite bookworm will enjoy. This is important: they never have to know how close it all came!...

She compares the process of bringing an infant into this world close to a “…self-erasure. In the face of it one’s fat ambitions fall into a dreamlike before that haunts and forces itself into the present with a tough persistence.” Louise made me feel less alone. I remember constantly trying to stay afloat with my personal aspirations as the daily monotony of caring for a baby takes over. I was so convinced that it was monotony....

In 2020, 6.7% of U.S. households used a food pantry, a significant increase from the 4.4% who reported doing so in the previous year. With more people needing food, and more people getting that food from food pantries, it might seem like the worst possible time to put additional duties onto already taxed food pantries. And I agree. If your local food pantry is struggling to serve the community as is, then this article is not for them....

My book habit, though, has been one of the hardest parts of my budget decisions. If you looked around my apartment, you’d question just how many more books I really need. I have piles of books everywhere. There’s the overflowing shelf of “to read” books in my living room. Piles of books fill and surround my nightstand. A pile of books hasn’t yet found a home because I recently purchased them....

The core of the issue is seemingly innocent enough — the Holograms are included in their record company’s secret santa gift exchange. What they don’t know is that their company rep specifically rigged the drawing so that one of the Holograms gets paired with one of the Misfits in the hope that both bands would get over their feud enough to have a smooth tour together after the holidays. Of course neither group like this turn of events at all, and they’re both just planning to give cheap gifts (or coal)....

According to Statista, 25% of this population live in two cities: New York and Los Angeles. The rest are scattered over 50 of the biggest cities, the third largest group in Seattle, with San Jose, Santa Clara, Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco coming next in line for cities with the largest number of people experiencing homelessness in 2020. It’s a sad look at how urban populations are struggling with poverty and housing insecurity....

Online Book Clubs Versus In Person Book Clubs Traditionally, book clubs have met in person. They usually meet once a month or a few times a year, although personally for IRL bookclubs I’m a big fan of the one-time book club approach. And they meet in bookstores, libraries, someone’s home, or coffee shops. Some are large with just a few people deciding the books and making up discussion questions. Others are smaller groups of friends who take turns choosing books and hosting or vote on book group decisions....

via GIPHY Just me? Fine. There’s more to this confession. As an introvert and book lover, I also won’t approach this friend to ask what they’re reading. Universe forbid I should interact! Instead, I do what any normal socially adjusted adult would do—I find covert ways to find out what book they’re reading. Want to join in the socially awkward making friends fun? Here’s how. Option 1: Get Low and Look Up Usually, I’m on the subway when I find new book friends....

I’ll cover the pros and cons of organizing: Alphabetically By genre By color Chronologically Autobiographically And loads more (including tips for extreme book hoarders) The pros and cons of alphabetizing Alphabetizing is one of the most obvious options, and is likely the best way if you want to quickly find a particular book. You can go the library-esque route and alphabetize the last name of the author, or you can be a rebel (bad boy/girl, you!...

Unless you’ve taken poetry classes, you likely wonder how, exactly, are you supposed to read a line break? Pause briefly? Take a breath? Keep reading like it was prose? The answers are as varied as poets and poems, but here’s a brief guide on how to read line breaks in poetry. Form The most obvious use of line breaks occurs in various forms. The Shakespearean sonnet, for example, uses an iambic pentameter meter....

GOOD MOTHERS…Never show their feelings.Never spill their secrets.Never admit to murder. I just received an email from a good friend about an organization that is not even from our area deploying a small group of parents to organize loud complaints about queer books in our county’s school libraries. This same organization had success in getting books banned a couple counties south of us and have expanded their efforts. This is happening all over the country and the assailants are only growing bolder and louder, despite their small numbers....

If you want to support the union’s strike, here is what they have asked to do in support. Find more news and stories of interest from the book world in Breaking in Books.

Want to do the same? Perhaps these steps will work for you. (If you want to weed all your shelves, check out fellow rioter Jess’s post.) Step 1. Reflect. Why do you want to cull your shelves? For me, it’s partly about space. I live in a one-bedroom condo, and my shelves are overflowing. My unread books won’t fit on a single bookcase, so I’d been keeping the books I plan to read this year on a windowsill....

A while ago, as I was trying to track down what David Rose was reading in a scene from Schitt’s Creek, I stumbled across a surprising answer to that question, which made me wonder how other shows use books as props. How do books make it into a TV show? Who decides on the titles? What do they add to the show? So, I dug into my memory, did a little more streaming and a lot of Googling, and here’s what I found:...

At the end of 2019, I hit a reading slump. Hard. Where I’d typically be reading four, five, six books a month, I was reading zero. Zip. Nada. I kept picking up books, getting 20 or so pages in, and setting them down to never pick them up again. I meant to, of course. But, I looked at them and didn’t feel that excitement I wanted, that itch to read and read now....

If I’ve just dated myself, know that this library was among the first to offer a receipt with all of the books borrowed by an account with their respective due dates. Despite not ever actually having used due date cards in a library, I did end up with a massive pile of old ones from one of my jobs as a professional librarian. A boss found a stash of previously used ones in a closet and asked if I’d like them for a craft project....

When it came to choosing books for my son’s future library, though—that’s where I felt at home. I didn’t scour reviews, hoping to glean insight from well-meaning internet strangers. I didn’t worry that my choices could be wrong or how that wrongness would affect my baby. I had worked with kids in a public library and read thousands of books to prepare for baby and toddler story times. So I was well-versed in classics and new publications, and above all, I genuinely loved reading....

My relationship with reading hasn’t always been a positive one, especially as a child with selective mutism. I would never read aloud in class, or to anyone for that matter, which meant that teachers couldn’t assess my reading ability and I was forced to read age-appropriate books despite being an advanced reader. When I finally discovered the joy in reading books, I started to ‘steal’ them simply because I couldn’t tell the librarian what my name was....

Women’s suffrage consisted of the fight for equality and women’s voting rights. You may have heard of the powerful slogan “Women, Their Rights, and Nothing Less.” Suffragists were literary activists as well as reformers, and Book Riot covered many notable writes from the movement in this fantastic list. The Library of Congress seeks to shed light on both recognizable and unknown individuals who took part in the movement by transcribing correspondence, diaries, and other documents to its website....