Saint X tells the story of a teenage girl’s tragic death on her family’s vacation in the Caribbean, and the ways in which it reverberates through the lives of every character in the novel, across continents and over decades. Saint X is recommended by Entertainment Weekly, included in Good Morning America’s 20 Books We’re Excited for in 2020, and named as one of Vogue’s Best Books to Read This Winter!...
Comics artists who are tackling the theme of loneliness can use panels to demonstrate the various stages of being stuck inside your own head. Whether it’s moving through various states or living in your imagination, comics panels can communicate a lot of turmoil in both abstract and specific ways. Assigning words to emotions, especially the pain of loneliness, is difficult. That’s not to say that representing loneliness through art is any easier — it’s just a different method of communicating....
Silvia Moreno-Garcia is an author who has quickly made her name in the world of storytelling with her genre-bending works. There is no genre or sub-genre that evades her scope, and there are many she’s excelled at. If you are yet to discover any work by her, may I recommend Gods of Jade and Shadow, a book based in Aztec mythology and contemporary Mexico. Another great title to get a sense of her writing is Velvet was the Night, which is a work of noir set in 1970s Mexico that showcases her skill at bringing to life a setting....
Great fantasy stories don’t begin and end with western history, because you literally have the rest of the world for inspiration. Indian history in particular is both beautiful and complex. One myth can be told 100 different ways by 100 different people for 100 different reasons. There’s no shortage of stories and inspiration. The languages, histories, religions, and subcultures within India have developed, syncretized, merged, and/or evolved over hundreds of years....
As someone who works in philanthropy in my day job, I got really excited. I decided to look into what other authors have made bequests, whether cash or gifts in kind to their beloved libraries. Octavia Butler’s Papers Famed science fiction writer Octavia Butler left her papers to Huntington Library in her will. The collection included “more than 39 cartons of manuscripts, notebooks, correspondence, photographs and even school papers,” reported the Los Angeles Times....
My little guy is a fan of all things superhero, so I kicked off my search for toddler comic books with some superhero easy readers. Superhero children’s books with too many villain pictures, though, began to feel a little too scary for my 3-year-old. I wanted to find that perfect balance of an introduction to comic books for toddlers minus the super villain overload. I work in a library, and my library team came to the rescue with lots of great suggestions on toddler comic books....
YA Horror Novels by Latinx Authors The Hollow Girl by Hillary Monahan Bethan is the apprentice of her town’s powerful healer, Drina. Her life is quiet and happy until Silas and his friends brutally assault Bethan and her friend, Martyn. She asks Drina to help her bring Martyn back from death’s door, but she knows it will cost her. Magic always asks for something in return. An ear, some hair, an eye, fingers…And she knows perfectly where to get them....
So several months ago, naturally, I attended an online Smithsonian Virtual event “Agatha Christie: The Queen of Crime” with author Daniel Stashower. It was a marvelous evening with readings from actors who brought her books and her letters to life. It also helped fill the gaps of parts of her life that I didn’t know a lot about. While it was fun to learn all sorts of new information about her life, I was thrilled to learn that there are non-film and stage adaptations of her work, including an anime series!...
Joe Hill—the mastermind behind N0S4A2 and Locke & Key—has arrived at DC, curating his own cutting-edge horror comics pop-up! Hill House Comics will terrify readers with a smart, subversive and scary lineup of five original limited series. Hill House Comics debuted with Basketful of Heads, written by Hill and illustrated by Leomacs. The chills continued in the following months with The Low, Low Woods; The Dollhouse Family; Daphne Byrne and Plunge, from some of the biggest names in horror storytelling....
The Year of Hattie is off to a perfect start, until she discovers the most beautiful man she’s ever seen tied up in her carriage, threatening to ruin her plans before they’ve begun. Awakening at her feet, Whit is surprised the woman who frees him is headed for a night of pleasure…on his turf. He is more than happy to offer Hattie all she desires…for a price. Soon, Hattie and Whit find themselves rivals in business and pleasure....
If you’re someone who takes length into account when picking out your next audiobook, and you’re looking for a short(ish) listen, here are some of the best audiobooks under eight hours I’ve listened to recently. Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala, read by Prentice Onayemi and Julia Whelan (6 hours, 21 minutes) This is an incredibly grim book, so if that’s not your thing, it’s probably not for you. But if it is your thing, the audiobook is well worth the listen....
From award-winning author of Anger Is a Gift, Mark Oshiro, comes a Latinx coming-of-age fantasy novel about finding home and falling in love. Xochitl is destined to wander the desert alone, speaking her troubled village’s stories into its arid winds. Her one desire: to share her heart with a kindred spirit. One night, Xo’s wish is granted. When she and Emilia, the cold and beautiful daughter of the town’s murderous conqueror, set out on a magical journey across the desert, they find their hearts could be a match…if they can survive the terrors that arise when the sun goes down....
“I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.” —Maya Angelou “I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you…What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?...
Told from alternating perspectives, an evocative and riveting novel about the lifelong bond between two women, one Black and one white, whose friendship is indelibly altered by a tragic event—a powerful and poignant exploration of race in America today and its devastating impact on ordinary lives. So what goes into a good book club pick? A great plot, interesting characters, good writing, and thought-provoking ideas or topics. I’ve been in book clubs with both fiction and nonfiction reads, and I’ve had good and not-good book club meetings for both....
Book Riot is teaming up with Workman Publishing to give away a parenting book bundle!
ADHD isn’t just having a short attention span and having to constantly move some part of your body, it also comes with an inability to regulate your emotions, getting overstimulated easily, memory issues, executive dysfunction, hyperfixation, rejection sensitivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, the list goes on and on. I like to joke that I have an alphabet soup for a brain with all the comorbid disorders that stroll through the door that ADHD opens up....
One of the best things about D&D is how accessible it is online. There are a bunch of online resources, communities, and tools to help you out! Most of these dungeon master tools are cheap or free. All you have to know is what you need help with and the internet can take it from there. But with so much available, how do you know what’s actually the best? Well that’s what we are going to be taking a look at today....
It sounds like an exaggeration, but humans have been imagining fantastical and paranormal creatures for millennia, with no sign of slowing down. It means something deeply important. A good narrator is key to a successful audio book, and because the market for young adult books is so vast, there are a lot of excellent narrators in the space. Bringing a book and its characters to life is tricky; the narrator has to understand the nuances of the characters without giving anything away — it’s a challenging balance to maintain....
Now, with Disney’s live-action remake of Aladdin hitting theatres at the end of May, and the Netflix Original supernatural drama Jinn gracing our small screens in June, here are seven dazzling djinn books, both old and new, that are guaranteed to take you on a magic carpet ride. Fire Boy By Sami Shah The first book in Sami Shah’s Djinn-Son duology, Fire Boy is an urban fantasy novel set in modern-day Karachi where supernatural entities, including djinn, freely roam the streets....
