Nalah leads the fiercest all-girl crew in Mega City. That role brings with it violent throw downs and access to the hottest boydega clubs, but the sixteen-year-old grows weary of the life. Her dream is to get off the streets and make a home in the exclusive Mega Towers, in which only a chosen few get to live. To make it to the Mega towers, Nalah must prove her loyalty to the city’s benevolent founder and cross the border in a search for a mysterious gang the Ashé Ryders....

Thirteen-year-old Abby lives in an unhappy home in the Sierra Nevada foothills. One day, Abby rescues a litter of seven puppies abandoned for dead and leaves them in an abandoned cabin, promising to return the next day. When grieving widower Elliot retreats to the hunting cabin he last visited years ago, he discovers seven puppies and one determined girl with an indomitable heart. As the two become friends, Abby imagines how much better life would be if her mother were married to Elliot instead of her father....

But, alas, it was not to be. The rising COVID numbers moved the classes online, but experiences like bookstore visits are a little harder to digitize. I can still shop, of course, but I do miss the feeling of being in a new bookstore. Since I couldn’t visit those two remarkable children’s bookshops, I decided instead to plan a fantasy trip around some of the best children’s bookstores in the American midwest....

Of course, books about books have always been popular, and that’s not surprising. In the same way that Hollywood loves a movie about Hollywood, authors love to write about their world and readers love to see their love of books represented. As avid readers, we’re also endlessly curious about the behind-the-scenes: how does an author conjure up characters and plots and settings? What’s it really like to work in a bookshop?...

via GIPHY Yes, like Reese Witherspoon’s Madeline Mackenzie, I wanted more! Specifically, more books like Big Little Lies to feed my fix of epic secrets, moral ambiguity, and twisty suspense…hence this list. In these 16 books for Big Little Lies fans, you’ll find a mix of thrillers, domestic drama, family sagas, and more. American Housewife by Helen Ellis Helen Ellis’s amusing short fiction collection American Housewife draws on the very American mythos of the Stepford Wife that the Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty also conjures....

It’s no wonder the workplace is such a wealth of horrors for authors to tap into. Creepy supervisors, ethical dilemmas, being forced to work like a machine, it all edges on the horrific with just one exaggeration or alteration. There is workplace horror in spades out there, as it is a great source of terror and catharsis to cope with where we spend one-third of our days. Maybe your seemingly-normal job is a front for discovering some secret power....

“As longtime devotees will know, for one day and one day only here at Book Marks—a wholesome and benevolent institution dedicated to helping readers find the books they’ll love by spotlighting the best in contemporary literary criticism—we your friendly neighborhood book review aggregators put on our black hats and seek out the most deliciously virulent literary take-downs of the past twelve months. It’s a ritual blood-letting exercise carried out in an effort appease the Literary Gods, thereby guaranteeing a good book review harvest in the year to come, and we take it very seriously....

When I was a kid, I devoured books. My tiny, tiny, sad school’s library was so paltry that I was allowed to check out “high school” books by third grade. The public library was no help at all after the librarian accused me of stealing a book I’d never checked out, which totally scared me away. (I swear I was reading the Baby-sitters Club books in order and was at least ten away from the one in question....

Of course, parents and teachers will want to pre-screen and discuss books with young readers before diving into the horror genre, but there are plenty of good, terrifying books written with middle graders in mind. Start out with some creepy stories, and then move on to tales of haunted houses and ghostly visions. Middle grade readers can select from realistic horror, horror with tones of fantasy, or even horrifying historical fiction to find the perfect book for the Halloween season....

James T. Kirk and Hal Jordan, swashbucklers and ladies’ men. They’ll be team-up gold, if their alpha male egos don’t get in the way. There’s no meeting this issue, with Green Lantern showing up very late in the day, but I don’t doubt it’s coming. Instead, this first of six from IDW and DC gives us a solid set-up centred on a mystery – who was after Ganthet’s rings and have they survived to the present day of the Federation?...

To my joy, she accepted. For two years, I taught creative writing classes for ages eight to seventeen. Sometimes a five- or seven-year-old would enroll with my ecstatic permission. It is difficult for me to say no to a child who loves words. I taught Wednesday nights, after my day job. When I quit in anticipation of our relocation, I taught a final class on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Reasonably priced with scholarships available, I designed the workshops, ranging from introductory classes, such as Fiction Fundamentals and Practicing Poetry, to classes based on shared obsessions, like Creating (Un)Believable(!...

We’ve had a fabulous time hanging out with all of you every quarter for this book club, and hope you’ll continue to follow our Instagram account for more bookish news, content, giveaways, and more. Happy reading!

You’ll find poets who write love poems and poets who write about history. These brilliant artists are formal and experimental, their collections full of sonnets and odes, erasure poems and prose poems and new poetic forms of their own invention. In different ways, their work speaks to and illuminates the present moment. It is personal and political, intimate and universal, deeply painful and full of joy. I’ve linked, in most cases, to each poet’s profile on poets....

“Vacations often offer a chance to catch up on our ever-growing stack of books and delve into some great reads. And many hotels are now catering to bibliophiles with cozy libraries, book lending programs and even book-focused designs themed around the literary. Here are some of the best hotels around the world for bookworms.” I’ve got to believe there’s a more bookish option in Scotland than the Sheraton, but what do I know?...

When a bookish friend has a birthday, I’m always wary of buying them a book. Unless I’ve double (or triple) checked their Goodreads, chances are they probably already have a copy of whatever I pick up. When a wine lover has a birthday, unless I know what their favorite varietals or vineyards are, I’m always afraid the bottle I choose won’t be to their tastes. These literary gifts for wine lovers are sure to delight their recipients without you having to know their every preference or scour their shelves....

Helena Rho was six years old when her family left Seoul for America. For decades, she fulfilled the expectations of others―marrying a doctor, raising children, and working as an assistant professor of pediatrics. All the while, she was keeping silent about the personal and professional traumas that left her determined to escape this life. Then, at 40, when a catastrophic event strikes, Helena decides to abandon her career, break away from the path that was laid out for her, and undertake a journey of self-discovery on her own terms....

This month I have for you a legal thriller (a real legal thriller that follows a full case from the point of view of the lawyers and jurors), a procedural with a little accidental time travel, a true crime memoir that takes a look at our National Parks, a cozy mystery with home renovation, a gothic mystery, historicals, and a thriller. Plus, for readers who wait until the paperback edition is out, I’ve got two excellent mysteries now out in paperback....

I had an unusual introduction to RPGs. Unlike many of my peers, I didn’t start with Dungeons & Dragons. I knew people who played, but I was not invited. Technically, I suppose my introduction to roleplaying in general was via the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), a group devoted to reenacting aspects of the middle ages while insisting they are not a LARP (live action role play), which they absolutely are....