Books

The finalists for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced today. The 30 finalists are spread across six categories — which include autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, general nonfiction, and poetry — and were published in 2023. Also announced were two lifetime achievement awards, the NBCC Service Award, finalists for the John Leonard Prize
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Cyrus Shams is, in his own words, “another death-obsessed Iranian man,” fixated on death—but more than that, on martyrdom. He needs his death to matter, for the act of his dying to have a purpose. Cyrus’ family inheritance is one of pointless death. His mother died when her plane was shot down by American forces
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As a 19-year-old undergraduate, Antonia Hylton read an academic paper that mentioned Crownsville State Hospital, known at its founding as the Hospital for the Negro Insane. That reference triggered an obsession with the hospital’s bleak history that has carried her through the 10 years it took to produce Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim
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Jenn Northington has worked in the publishing industry wearing various hats since 2004, including bookseller and events director, and is currently Director of Editorial Operations at Riot New Media Group. You can hear her on the SFF Yeah! podcast nerding out about sci-fi and fantasy. When she’s not working, she’s most likely gardening, running, or
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A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles As the days become shorter, there’s nothing more comforting than immersing myself in a sweeping historical novel—the bigger, the better! When my book club recently voted to read Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow (Penguin, $18, 9780143110439), I welcomed the opportunity to escape nightly into the grand halls
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Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View
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Read Harder isn’t the only reading challenge happening in 2024, of course! That’s why I’m highlighting some of the other challenges you might want to add to your reading goals this year. Fellow Book Rioter Laura Sackton is hosting Queer Your Year 2024: a yearlong reading challenge that celebrates queer list. There are 48 challenges
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In her first picture book, You Broke It! (Rise x Penguin, $18.99, 9780593660409), New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck takes an irreverent look at the endless barrage of reprimands that parents routinely fling at their offspring—“Sit still!” or “Get the hair out of your eyes!”—and twists them in ways that will leave both parents and young
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Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View
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What happens to a family after a dangerous, life-changing and historic journey? That’s the focus of Veera Hiranandani’s wonderful Amil and the After, which follows 12-year-old Amil and his family, who, during the Partition of India in 1948, have just migrated to Bombay from what would become Pakistan. It’s a worthy companion novel to Hiranandani’s
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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
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