In need of a lil escape? Travel back to the 1970s with these graphic novels. Here are some more of the day’s highlights.
Now that we are in August, there are many new releases to consider. So many that I really had to exercise restraint with this list. There’s the translated mystery Time of the Flies by Claudia Piñeiro, trans. by Frances Riddle; and the historical fiction/mystery combo that is the whimsical After Oz by Gordon McAlpine.
T. Kingfisher serves up “a dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm’s Goose Girl” with A Sorceress Comes to Call, while Hayley Dennings’ This Ravenous Fate is a decadent, Jazz Age YA vampire tale set in Harlem. But if you’d like some artwork to go with your fantastical YA, there’s Geneva Bowers’ magical girl graphic novel Hovergirls.
Finally, the new releases below have assassins in ancient cities, vengeance and evil spirits, eclectic Central American stories, and more.
Books with true-crime-obsessed characters, especially true crime podcasters, are popping up more and more now in the mystery and thriller genre. Within this are many books coming out that critique our obsession with true crime, using the narrative to point out the genre’s flaws. Here are eight mysteries and thrillers about our obsession with true crime and serial killers. Some are good old-fashioned serial killer mysteries, while others portray a different perspective on the serial killer narrative by focusing on true-crime-obsessed characters or using their narrative to critique the genre.
You know who does think of romance and teachers in the same sentence? A lot of romance writers. And so today, I come to you with eight swoon-worthy romance novels starring educators. They may be elementary school teachers, high school teachers, or college professors. They may be sports coaches. What they all have in common is that they feature teachers who find love and, it goes without saying, their hard-earned happily ever after.
Not so much on “hot for teacher?” Try this decadent queer romance that’s perfect for summer.
Sci-fi fans’ staunch devotion to some things can make it hard to break away from books considered “classics.” In some ways, this makes sense: sci-fi as a genre has had to struggle against a lot of snobbery. Ursula Le Guin (among others) have openly rallied against this snobbery, but even in the contemporary heyday sci-fi seems to be enjoying, it’s there. So I get that saying some of the books widely considered to be sci-fi classics are overrated might cause some heat.
Regardless, sci-fi isn’t immune to certain issues — like racism and sexism, to name just two — that plague other facets of older literature. As sci-fi writer Carla Ra points out, this is simply part of how cultural production evolves. Importantly, she also notes that it’s possible to still enjoy older works even as we “notice the troublesome parts as something that we should, as a society, reject and get over.” In that spirit, read the sci-fi “classics” if you want. But I’ll offer you some contemporary works which I believe resonate more meaningfully with our current moment.