Books

Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until

The inimitable Nikki DeMarco is as well-traveled as she is well-read. Being an enneagram 3, Aries, high school librarian, makes her love for efficiency is unmatched. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, and is passionate about helping teens connect to books. Nikki has an MFA in creative writing, is a TBR bibliologist, and writes for Harlequin,

Erica Ezeifedi, Associate Editor, is a transplant from Nashville, TN that has settled in the North East. In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a victim advocate and in public libraries, where she has focused on creating safe spaces for queer teens, mentorship, and providing test prep instruction free to students. Outside

Poet and young adult author Raquel Vasquez Gilliland’s adult debut, Witch of Wild Things, is a story of family legacies and complicated sisterhood, told with romantic and lush magical realism.  For the entirety of Sage Flores’ life, she’s known three things. First, the old gods have no love for Flores women and have thus cursed

What would Hansel and Gretel be like as adults? Kell Woods’ inventive retelling explores the answer to this question, following Hans and Margareta “Greta” Rosenthal as down-on-their-luck German peasants struggling to make a living in a world still recovering from the Thirty Years’ War. Greta has never felt like she fit into Lindenfeld, a little

Patricia Thang is an educator located in Los Angeles. Though a native Angeleno through and through, her heart also belongs to Tokyo, where much of her family is from. Besides books, she is an enthusiastic devourer of many things, including podcasts, television, and J-pop. She realizes there’s not enough time in the world to consume

Gia R. is from Phoenix, Arizona. She graduated with two business degrees. While studying, her short nonfiction story was published in 2018 in Write On, Downtown, an ASU journal. Since then, she taught preschool students abroad. Now back in AZ, you’ll find her writing, reading, and adoring digital art. View All posts by Gia R.

R. Nassor may spend more time with books, tea, and ceramic mugs than recommended by professionals but it hasn’t failed her so far. Nassor has a MA in English Literature from Georgetown University, where she looked at the way medieval and early modern literature reappear in fantasy books today. She’s been writing about romance, fantasy,

Most of Tirzah Price’s life decisions have been motivated by a desire to read as many books as humanly possible. Tirzah holds an MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and has worked as an independent bookseller and librarian. She’s also the author of the Jane Austen Murder

Kelly Jensen is out this week, so Erica Ezeifedi and I are filling in on censorship news. Unfortunately, none of us can be Kelly, even with our forces combined, so we’re trying something a little different in the censorship news round-up. Instead of one big story and dozens of bullet points, we have each picked

Alison Doherty is a writing teacher and part time assistant professor living in Brooklyn, New York. She has an MFA from The New School in writing for children and teenagers. She loves writing about books on the Internet, listening to audiobooks on the subway, and reading anything with a twisty plot or a happily ever

Today, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Norwegian novelist and playwright Jon Fosse. Fosse’s work has been highly acclaimed across Europe, and is gaining more and more of an audience in English-speaking portions of the world. The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded for entire bodies of work, and Fosse’s win comes as

Agatha Christie is the bestselling novelist of all time, and today, many of her ebooks are on sale for $1.99 and $2.99, including some of her most popular titles. There’s no date given for how long this sale will last, so snap up these up while you can! Here are six of the most popular,

Children’s author and illustrator Ed Young passed away at the age of 91 on September 29th in his home in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. He leaves behind a vast legacy — the multiple Caldecott Medal-winning author wrote 17 children’s books and illustrated over 80. His books often contained the fantastical — fairy tales, folktales, and poetry, rounded

After graduating from Dartmouth in 2006 with a bachelor’s in political science, Brown began a position investigating misconduct committed by New York City Police Department members. This led to her studying investigative journalism at Columbia University and then moving to California to work for a nonprofit. As a facilitator for this nonprofit, Brown performed stories

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr was published in 2014 and quickly became a bestseller, staying on the New York Times Bestseller list for 200 weeks. It also won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the National Book Award. The book has been adapted into a limited Netflix

Veteran narrators Michael Kramer and Kate Reading return to this fantastical world, along with a new POV portrayed by Marisa Calin.V. E. Schwab, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, opens another door to a new fantasy series set in the dazzling world of Shades of Magic. Prepare for tangled schemes and perilous

The first official teaser trailer for Leave the World Behind, based on the book Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam, has just dropped. The movie stars Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, and Myha’la; is written by Rumaan Alam and Sam Esmail; and is directed by Sam Esmail. The official synopsis is “A family’s

Just in time for Banned Books Week (October 1-7), two California library systems — San Diego Public Library and LA County Library — have joined the Books Unbanned initiative. In 2021, the Brooklyn Public Library started the initiative as a way to counteract the deluge in book banning in schools across the country. Though this year

Born into a family of readers, P.N. gained a love reading as a sort of herd mentality. This love of reading has remained a life long passion, resulting in an English Degree from The University of Houston in Houston, Texas. She normally reads three to four books at any given time, in the futile Sisyphean

Grace Lapointe’s fiction has been published in Kaleidoscope, Deaf Poets Society, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, and is forthcoming in Corporeal Lit Mag. Her essays and poetry have been published in Wordgathering. Her stories and essays—including ones that she wrote as a college student—have been taught in college courses and cited in books and

Kristian Wilson Colyard grew up weird in a one-caution-light town in the Appalachian foothills. She now lives in an old textile city with her husband and their clowder of cats. She’s on Twitter @kristianwriting, and you can find more of her work online at kristianwriting.com. View All posts by K.W. Colyard Kristian Wilson Colyard grew

Jaime Herndon finished her MFA in nonfiction writing at Columbia, after leaving a life of psychosocial oncology and maternal-child health work. She is a writer, editor, and book reviewer who drinks way too much coffee. She is a new-ish mom, so the coffee comes in extra handy. Twitter: @IvyTarHeelJaime View All posts by Jaime Herndon Jaime

On September 27th, we shared the results of EveryLibrary and Book Riot’s survey on parent perceptions of public libraries. This has been such a valuable partnership, and the results are fascinating — in both promising and concerning ways. This is the first of three planned surveys, so expect to see more of our results very

California’s Senator Dianne Feinstein passed away Thursday night after a long struggle with health that started with a case of shingles months ago. At 90, she had served as a senator for 30 years, making her the longest-serving woman senator ever. Feinstein details some of her career as a trailblazing democrat in Nine and Counting:

In 1773, 12 years after she had arrived in Boston as an enslaved child, Phillis Wheatley set sail to London to promote her book of poems. This collection of poetry was the first ever published by a Black American. During the trip back home to Boston from London, Wheatley wrote a poem titled “Ocean” —

Laura Sackton is a queer book nerd and freelance writer, known on the internet for loving winter, despising summer, and going overboard with extravagant baking projects. In addition to her work at Book Riot, she reviews for BookPage and AudioFile, and writes a weekly newsletter, Books & Bakes, celebrating queer lit and tasty treats. You

Gia R. is from Phoenix, Arizona. She graduated with two business degrees. While studying, her short nonfiction story was published in 2018 in Write On, Downtown, an ASU journal. Since then, she taught preschool students abroad. Now back in AZ, you’ll find her writing, reading, and adoring digital art. View All posts by Gia R.

Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her more creative work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, under the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and other publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, “The Fear That Lives Next to

Ann-Marie Cahill will read anything and everything. From novels to trading cards to the inside of CD covers (they’re still a thing, right?). A good day is when her kids bring notes home from school. A bad day is when she has to pry a book from her kids’ hands. And then realizes where they