Books

Ah, young love. These Black YA romances will give you hope for the future or, at the very least, make you feel warm and fuzzy for a while. There’s something undeniably sweet about the possibilities of first love. I have a strange history with romance. As a child, I read so voraciously that even weekly

In a note included with advance copies of Gillian McDunn’s fifth novel, the middle grade author shares that When Sea Becomes Sky is her “once-in-a-lifetime-book.” It is an undeniably beautiful story made for pondering and revisiting, and a tale that readers will surely treasure. It’s been almost a year since rain fell on Pelican Island,

Recently when I went on a furious reading marathon of enemies to lovers, I found myself picking up on even more specific tropes that I love, namely friends to enemies to lovers books. Other themes also started emerging. Subtropes, as more niche tropes are called, can be combinations of the tried and true tropes. The

Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway call their deeply researched new book, The Big Myth, “the true history of a false idea.” The false idea in question is not really a single idea but rather many connected assertions, promoted throughout the 20th century, that have gelled into the “quasi-religious belief that the best way to

On April 19, 1993, dozens of people, including many children, died in an FBI and ATF siege in Waco, Texas. I was just about to turn 4 when the Waco siege ended, so it’s safe to say that I was not following the news. When I was growing up, “Waco” seemed to be used as

The femme fatale is beautiful, desirable and, above all, a survivor. While she was often villainized for that last trait in her film noir heyday, these modern takes on the figure celebrate the ferocious resilience at her core.  ★ Stone Cold Fox The wily narrator and antiheroine of Rachel Koller Croft’s Stone Cold Fox introduces

One very easy way to learn about and discover new books and authors is through the cover reveal. This was not a possible avenue of discovery before the age of book talk on the internet, and in an era where visuals are becoming more and more important — and indeed, book cover designers are taking

If you’d told me back in the early 1990s (my, um, experimental college days) that a few decades hence bookstores would be selling cannabis cookbooks, I wouldn’t have believed you. But here we are, and hallelujah. In Sugar High: 50 Recipes for Cannabis Desserts, Chris Sayegh first delivers a primer on cannabis—quite necessarily, as uniformed

Something that needs to be understood about the reality of book bans right now is this: teaching other people about what is truly going on — beyond the singular headlines — is crucial, and it’s going to mean you need to get uncomfortable. Whether you’re a book lover or parent who is sharing stories or

Is the book always better than the movie or TV show? Better read these soon-to-be adaptations ASAP so you can decide. Dear Edward By Ann Napolitano Streaming now Led by acclaimed actors Connie Britton (“Nashville”) and Taylor Schilling (“Orange Is the New Black”), plus newcomer Colin O’Brien, this Apple TV+ adaptation of Napolitano’s searing 2020

The highly successful Netflix show Bridgerton is based off theromance novel series of the same name, but now the show is inspiring a new novel in the series! Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story is a spin-off series that will air on Netflix May 4, 2023. To coincide with the new show, Shonda Rhimes — the

In what ways is writing like drumming? Like a drummer, the writer lays down a pattern of rhythm that keeps the plot of a story moving, propelling it with a steady beat through various twists and turns. Novelist Nic Brown’s peripatetic memoir, Bang Bang Crash, examines his past life as a drummer and the ways

The HarperCollins Union, which represents 250 employees, just announced that they’ve voted to ratify the contract negotiated with publishing giant HarperCollins and will return to work on February 21. This comes about a week after a tentative agreement was announced, and a strike that has lasted since November 10, 2022. The agreement includes an increase

Seventeen-year-old Jade Nguyen has never forgiven her father for leaving his family in the U.S. and returning to Vietnam. Until this summer, Jade had never visited her parents’ home country, and she isn’t looking forward to the trip. But Ba has made her a deal: If she’ll spend the summer with him in the French

“Deeper meaning resides in the fairytales told to me in my childhood than in any truth that is taught in life,” reads a quote by Friedrich Schiller that I have pinned to a bulletin board in my office. It puts into words a sentiment and a feeling that I started to feel more and more

When word of emancipation reached them, the last men and women kidnapped in West Africa and sold to American enslavers just wanted to go home. They’d only been in the Mobile, Alabama, area about five years; they belonged in Yorubaland. So they saved their tiny wages and offered $1,000 to the captain of the Clotilda,

Last week Haymarket Books made three ebooks on Black history available for free in a statement of support and solidarity with those in Florida and nationwide fighting book bans and education censorship. Now Libro.fm is working with Cantor Audio to offer the audiobook versions of those same titles available for free, also in solidarity with

As any visitor to my home may note, I’ve long been drawn to the simultaneously bold and delicate look of linocut art, a very hands-on type of relief printmaking wherein ink is transferred to paper via a carved linoleum block. Perhaps it’s time to make a few prints of my own. U.K.-based artist Sam Marshall’s

Bill Watterson, the creator of the iconic comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, will release a book titled The Mysteries, illustrated by John Kascht. This new book comes 28 years after Patterson retired from Calvin and Hobbes, a comic strip whose collected works have sold more than 30 million copies. But fans looking for another go

Journalists estimate that between 1 and 3 million Uyghur people are currently being held in detention camps by the Chinese government as an act of cultural genocide. That we in the U.S. know about this is largely due to the courageous reporting of Uyghur American journalists such as Gulchehra Hoja. In her stunning memoir, A

In celebration of National Library Lover’s Day, the Horror Writers Association (HWA), in partnership with United for Libraries, Book Riot, and Booklist, is delighted to announce the fifth annual Summer Scares reading list, which includes titles selected by a panel of authors and librarians and is designed to promote Horror as a great reading option

BookPage is excited to host a first look at the new print edition of Kennedy Ryan’s gorgeous and pulse-quickening romance The Kingmaker.  The first part of an addictive duology, The Kingmaker is a suspenseful, intrigue-filled ride that generated internet buzz before BookTok and Bookstagram ruled the bestseller lists. The beautiful new edition from Bloom will

In November, Penguin Random House’s acquisition of Simon & Schuster was blocked by a federal court ruling. PRH decided not to appeal the decision. Since then, the fate of the publisher has been up in the air, especially since Paramount Global, its parent company, has stated it “does not fit strategically within Paramount’s broader portfolio”

Somewhere beneath the surface of the world, an ancient evil sleeps. The Nameless One, a wyrm so powerful that it once threatened the very fabric of life, is bound beneath the Earth’s crust, in its molten interior. Some think that its defeat came at the hands of a knight named Galian. Those who follow Galian’s

Black History Month always draws me to my poetry shelf, to the brilliant collections of poems written by Black poets throughout history. From ancient African poems to the work songs of enslaved people to the flood of amazing poetry during the Harlem Renaissance to right now, there’s just so much to read and celebrate. Tyehimba

I read the entirety of award-winning poet and novelist Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ masterwork, all 816 pages of it, on the tiny screen of my phone during a trip throughout Washington. I can’t think of any other epic book that would be worth that kind of reading experience, but The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

Recently, we published a book trend forecast for 2023 from a BookToker* who told us what we should be anticipating and acting on in the publishing world in order to capture the fleeting attention of book consumers. But, are “trends” what the book world really needs? Do you remember the moment, probably sometime around your

It’s no accident that Mark Twain scholar Mark Dawidziak begins A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe with Poe’s mysterious death in 1849 at the age of 40. As Dawidziak reminds us throughout his ambitious, well-researched book, the circumstances of Poe’s death remain a topic of debate and conjecture, as

The romance genre, especially steamy enemies-to-lovers books, is a vast and steamy place, full of communication shenanigans, tissue-paper bodices, flowing locks of all colors that belong to all genders, and a disproportionate number of English dukes, people with piercing eyes and the ability to raise one sardonic eyebrow. One of the major reasons readers flock

As I write this, January is drawing to a close. I cannot believe that we are already one month into 2023. But whether I like it or not, time happens, and once again, the season of love is upon us. Though I never really celebrated Valentine’s Day in any significant way, irrespective of whether I