Books

The category of young adult literature is 55 years old, and since its “official” beginning with The Outsiders in 1967, it has not only grown in popularity, its reputation as a body of thought-provoking literature has, too. This is due to too many factors to name, but it is a welcome shift in perspective both

From the Horrible Harry series , Vol. 37 by Suzy Kline ; illustrated by Amy Wummer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 27, 2018 A long-running series reaches its closing chapters. Having, as Kline notes in her warm valedictory acknowledgements, taken 30 years to get through second and third grade, Harry Spooger is overdue to move on—but

One book. Nine readers. Ten changed lives. New York Times bestselling author Erica Bauermeister’s No Two Persons is “a gloriously original celebration of fiction, and the ways it deepens our lives.” That was the beauty of books, wasn’t it? They took you places you didn’t know you needed to go… This program includes a bonus

A group of University of California at Berkeley (UCB) students are entering the second full week of occupying the school’s Anthropology Library, slated for closure. The silent protest organized by students has had them setting up makeshift beds among the library collections, and they plan to remain inside until the school agrees to keep the

In her engaging Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, memoirist and critic Claire Dederer wrestles with a complicated, sometimes slippery subject: What do we do with art—movies, novels, songs, paintings—we once loved, and sometimes still love, from men we now consider monsters? “I started keeping a list,” she writes. “Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, William Burroughs,

Summer is right around the corner and what does that mean? It means that you (hopefully) have more time to read! If you don’t, at least the children in your life do. Enter the best summer reading programs 2023 has to offer. Kids are on summer break, and they have a lot more time on

by Dalai Lama & Desmond Tutu ; illustrated by Rafael López ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 2022 From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us. Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young

Back in the 1980s, it was all “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades.” These days, not so much, with dystopian stories like The Hunger Games doing a much better job to capture the zeitgeist. Speaking of capturing, that’s one enterprise in which the United States still excels; about one out of every five

Following his death in 2014, rumors swirled among readers and scholars that several never-before-seen works by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez existed. Some speculated they were held by family and others thought maybe they existed somewhere in the author’s vast archives at the University of Texas’s Harry Ransom Center. Fans no longer need to speculate:

People often ask, “When did you know you were going to be a writer? When did you decide?” I have many answers to this question, because being a writer is a way of moving through the world, a way of seeing, of hearing and, I’ve learned, believing. When I was last asked this question, in

A beach read is more than strictly a book you read by the ocean. You don’t even have to be near the shore to read one. It’s less about the setting, strictly speaking, and more about the feeling. Beach reads are books that deeply engross you, leaving you hanging on to every word. They’re the

by Judy Blume ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 8, 1998 The years pass by at a fast and steamy clip in Blume’s latest adult novel (Wifey, not reviewed; Smart Women, 1984) as two friends find loyalties and affections tested as they grow into young women. In sixth grade, when Victoria Weaver is asked by new girl

Keyword stuffing in product names is a handy Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tool to get an item to sneak up to the top of search results — the more keywords, the better! You’ve probably seen it for a variety of products, from books to sustainable bamboo reusable makeup removing pads. See what I did there?

Five teenagers, spread across two rival countries, each have a story to tell in The Isles of the Gods, the first book in a fantasy duology from Australian author Amie Kaufman.  Selly is an Alinorish sailor whose magician’s marks never matured, leaving her without the ability to communicate with elemental spirits. Alinor’s Prince Leander knows

Back in 2017, The Guardian ran a piece calling up lit “the new book trend with kindness at its core.” As they noted, one of the earliest iterations of this was Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, a story whose protagonist is a misfit and a bit of a loner, but gradually learns

by Ben Philippe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 8, 2019 A teenage, not-so-lonely loner endures the wilds of high school in Austin, Texas. Norris Kaplan, the protagonist of Philippe’s debut novel, is a hypersweaty, uber-snarky black, Haitian, French-Canadian pushing to survive life in his new school. His professor mom’s new tenure-track job transplants Norris mid–school year,

Flirty and modern, Just as You Are by Camille Kellogg is a sapphic retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Liz Baker is an occasionally impulsive yet organized Leo who loves her friends, enjoys her job and sees the bright side of almost any situation. She’s even got a positive outlook on the news that

I grew up on Star Wars, so you can imagine that science fiction, space fantasy, and science fiction romance have a special place in my heart. After all, what is Star Wars if not an epic science fiction love story? (Don’t try to fight me on this.) There’s just something about the combination of science

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do,” Eleanor Roosevelt once wrote. In journalist Shannon McKenna Schmidt’s detail-rich and revealing account, The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt’s Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back, it is abundantly clear that the four-term first lady lived her words. Beginning as a Red

by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by John Joseph ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 8, 2020 Little Blue Truck feels, well, blue when he delivers valentine after valentine but receives nary a one. His bed overflowing with cards, Blue sets out to deliver a yellow card with purple polka dots and a shiny purple heart to Hen,