Books

Jab. Duck-bap-bap. Jab. Duck-bap-bap. Duckbapbap. Duckbapbap. Find your rhythm. Feel your fists against the pads. Know where your next move is and who’s on your side. In Torrey Maldonado’s Hands, getting stronger, faster and tougher is all that 12-year-old Trevor cares about.  As the book opens, Trevor’s life has been turned upside down. His stepdad

Ken Follett’s next novel will be published on September 26, 2023. It will be titled “The Armor of Light“ and will conclude the eight-volume Kingsbridge series that follows 1,000 years of Western civilization, from “Ethelred the Unready to the election of President Obama.” Readers will follow a group of linked families, starting in the fictional

After writing two witty novels about gay life in Washington, D.C., Louis Bayard hit on a winning formula with his 2003 novel, Mr. Timothy, which starred Dickens’ Tiny Tim and gave the character a complexity that was sorely lacking in the original. He followed that up with The Pale Blue Eye, a story of Edgar Allen

During small talk not long after meeting someone new, inevitably the question “So what do you do?” comes up. When I tell them I’m a librarian, more questions follow. Usually the same ones over and over, such as, “Do people still use libraries?” or “Aren’t you worried about becoming irrelevant?” or “Are you worried about

When Sandro and Bash connect at a party before the beginning of their senior year of high school, they’re surprised by an honest, genuine friendship that grows into something deeper. The Long Run is a frank, funny and beautifully written story about two South Jersey boys finding happiness and hope in the unlikeliest of places:

The books community on Reddit has released their list of the best books of 2022. The books were chosen by individual threads made for each category: Best Debut, Best Literary Fiction, Best Mystery or Thriller, Best Short Story Collection/Graphic Novel/Poetry, Best Science Fiction, Best Fantasy, Best LitRPG, Best YA, Best Romance, Best Horror, and Best

Sixty-seven years after the savage murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi, his cousin still seeks some kind of justice. Haunted by the 1955 hate crime that ignited the civil rights movement, Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr. brings everything and everyone back to life in A Few Days Full of Trouble: Revelations on the Journey to Justice

Banning books has been around since approximately one minute after books themselves. Even if you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years — and let’s face it, who hasn’t in a lot of ways — you’ve probably heard something about the many brouhahas surrounding the availability of literature in local and school

We’re living in an age of reboots. Everywhere you turn, another classic show or movie is getting a fresh start or a cast reunion. So it feels very much of the moment to have a romance set during the production of a beloved TV series’ 20th anniversary special. The Reunion, Kayla Olson’s adult debut, opens

The Scrabble dictionary has been updated for the first time since 2018, and it includes 500 new words — though Scrabble won’t reveal what every one is, telling players to hunt through the new dictionary to find them all. They’ve also removed several hundred slurs and other offensive words, so that they can’t be played

Louise Joyner left home as soon as she could, fleeing the humidity of Charleston, South Carolina, for a career in industrial design in Silicon Valley. Her brother, Mark, stayed put, his meandering and dysfunctional lifestyle patronized to his face and savaged in his absence by his family, as is so often the case with mildly

by Jesse Q Sutanto Vera Wong Zhuzhu, age sixty, is a pig, but she really should have been born a rooster. We are, of course, referring to Chinese horoscopes. Vera Wong is a human woman, thank you very much, but roosters have nothing on her. Every morning, at exactly four thirty, Vera’s eyelids snap open like

Published 20 years ago, Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (3.5 hours) is a near-perfect horror story, pitting brave but misunderstood Coraline against a narcissistic monster in a battle for her soul. Sophisticated and profound, this treasure of a middle grade novel, beloved by readers of all ages, is now available in a new audiobook, performed by a

Writing Tips has compiled data from the most popular Google searches based in the USA beginning with “how to pronounce”. Here are the ten words words Americans found the most difficulty pronouncing in 2022. how to pronounce acai (18,000 searches) how to pronounce nguyen (15,000 searches) how to pronounce gyro (15,000 searches) how to pronounce

Maggie Molinaro survived a hardscrabble childhood in the downtrodden streets of Manhattan to become a successful businesswoman. After a decade of sacrifice, she now owns a celebrated ice cream company. But when she offends a corrupt banker, she unwittingly sets off a series of calamities that threaten to destroy her life’s work. Liam Blackstone is

One of the pretty consistent staples of a cozy mystery is that the amateur sleuth also has a day job. By that, I mean their detective work is pretty much a hobby. It’s not even a side hustle, since they don’t get paid after they solve the mysteries. Which is a bit disheartening if you

Lovers of Colm Tóibín’s novels (among them Brooklyn, The Master and The Magician) might not know that the Irish author is also a longtime essayist. A Guest at the Feast gathers recent essays that show his full range. A Guest at the Feast is divided into three sections: personal essays, essays examining the power of

Late last summer, the official email notifying me of my library’s temporary closure for renovations found me capital-D Devastated. Around this time last year, I sat in the breakfast nook pondering the magic of libraries and, more specifically, my deep appreciation for my local branch with the pink camellias outside. There, I browsed and borrowed

Stephen Ellcock has made a name for himself as a digital curator, or “image alchemist.” He ventures deep into visual art archives and surfaces with paintings, drawings, photographs and other images that inspire and intrigue. His fourth book, The Cosmic Dance, is “but a tiny sample of the fruits of ceaseless foraging,” and like his

Regardless of whether you read ten or 100 books a year, you probably try to keep a record of the books you’ve made your way through. Over the years, many of us have used digital apps for this (often Goodreads, but others like StoryGraph have been gaining more and more support), but have you considered

What if perfectionism isn’t a curse or a character flaw but rather a common state of being that can be harnessed for good? In her eye-opening book, The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power, psychotherapist and former on-site Google therapist Katherine Morgan Schafler posits that perfectionists can live a life

Who’s ready to take a Judy Blume character quiz? Judy Blume books have been there for me at every age of my life. In elementary school, I laughed as my mom read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing out loud to me and my sister. I related to Margaret’s quest to discover who she is

★ A Love by Design Elizabeth Everett’s praiseworthy Secret Scientists of London series returns with the third installment, A Love by Design. Engineer Margaret Gault has recently returned to London from Paris and is intent on opening her own firm, despite all the struggles that await a businesswoman in Victorian England. Maggie quickly finds a

It’s a new year, meaning that the groups and individuals creating hell for public educators will be developing their new plans for continued “work.” What began as an attack on “Critical Race Theory” in 2021 — spearheaded by the right-wing darling Christopher Rufo — has morphed into disdain for other categories of teaching and books,

Australia has perhaps the most unusual (and dangerous) wildlife of any continent, a product of its unique status as a vast island that broke off from other landmasses millions of years ago. Due to this isolation, plants and animals specifically adapted to its climate, independent of what was evolving in the rest of the world.

In a fantastic collaboration between two top-notch institutions working against censorship and book bans, high school students across the country are invited to apply to and take part in the Freedom to Read Advocacy Institute. Brooklyn Public Library–named Librarians of the Year from Library Journal for their Books Unbanned program–and PEN America–a leader in tracking

Throughout our lives, we encounter fraught decisions around love and money: whether to take a better job across the country when our partner wants to stay put; when and whether to marry, buy a house, have a child; if we should work full time with children in the picture. Money and love “are profoundly intertwined,

The official trailer for Lionsgate’s Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret adaptation has been released. The new movie is based on Judy Blume’s iconic coming-of-age novel with the same name that follows preteen Margaret Simon as she contends with a new school and longings to fit in. The trailer shows Margaret (played by Abby

When Theo’s promposal during the biggest house party of the year doesn’t go as planned, he escapes to an empty bedroom to regroup. Over the course of the evening, four more teens, each with their own troubles, join Theo in the mermaid-themed bedroom. What follows is a night of heartfelt conversation and more than one