Much of Highsmith’s earlier work that has now entered the mainstream contains queer subtext or queer-coded characters, and she wrote a novel in the early 1950s that was significant at the time for showing a romance between two women with a happy—if complicated—ending. This book, Carol, was initially published under a pseudonym, but in the later years of her career, Highsmith began to include more characters in the books she wrote under her own name who were openly and unambiguously queer....

The Mission: Read Kristy’s Great Idea I was tempted to give the graphic novels a shot first. Like any middle grade graphic novel reader, I’m a big fan of Raina Telgemeier’s work. But I knew to do this “right,” I had to start with the original. So I put a hold on the first book in the series at the library where I work and brought it home a few days later....

I propose replacing them with great American literary figures. My criteria are slim: must be American and must be no longer living. (This second criteria eliminated a lot of excellent candidates, alas!) Below I will list the existing Literary Walk figures and then discuss three suggestions for each replacement. I don’t have the power to change the statues in Central Park for real, but I see a very real need to pay tribute to more than just the old guard of literary white men....

Now that I’m a parent, and my son’s family is incredibly small, I find myself missing my grandparents every day, even more. I miss early Sunday Italian dinners that my Nana cooked, and I miss the smell of walking into my Lambee’s house while she made matzoh ball soup. Yes, one side of my family is Italian, and the other side is Jewish. It has made for some great food, a lot of guilt, and some, uh, interesting family dynamics....

As a child of the ’80s, my media consumption was dominated by the introduction of cable TV, Star Wars, MTV, and a VHS machine that could record movies off HBO. My parents quickly realized that cable was 1) very expensive and 2) did not allow for any oversight of what my brother and I might be watching — parental controls were yet to be invented, much less available — so our experience with cable television was short-lived....

Condom dresses and space helmets have debuted on fashion runways. A dead body becomes the trend when a coat made of human skin saunters down fashion’s biggest stage. The body is identified as Annabelle Leigh, the teenager who famously disappeared over a decade ago from her boyfriend’s New York City mansion. This new evidence casts suspicion back on the former boyfriend, Cecil LeClaire. Now a monk, he is forced to return to his dark and absurd childhood home to clear his name....

On October 13th, she tweeted about some “book drama” happening around this title: several customers who had pre-ordered the book through Bookshop.org received something different in the mail: books from Focus on the Family, a Christian anti-choice organization. Bookshop.org replied to the customers who received these books incorrectly that this had happened several times, and that the error traces back to the warehouse/distributor, Ingram. Ingram is one of the largest book distributors in the U....

How do you separate the art from the artist? A more practical question might be, where do you draw the line between an artist’s personal choices and their effect on your enjoyment of their work? After all, each of us is probably more likely to support an artist who supports causes we share. “Some of the proceeds from this book are going toward a charity I already support, I should buy extra copies as gifts,” one might say....

I’ve been on a comics reading roll lately. YA horror comics have been my biggie, but I’ve definitely also been stacking up a number of sports comics, too. My brain isn’t able to deeply invest in a novel or work of nonfiction right now, and comics have been the perfect way to read a great story and appreciate art. It’s a win-win. I played basketball in middle school, followed by badminton in high school....

Short story collections are an invaluable resource in learning about an author’s work. Think of these stories as a “sample” before exploring a full novel. Indeed, there are soo many stories to choose from! What Makes A Short Story Popular Of course, what draws us to short stories? What makes us devour them? Quick content. Let’s face it…we have busy, hectic lives! Not everyone has the time and energy to read a heavy tome....

The OverDrive Resource Center has the tools you need to promote your digital collection and make the most of your investment, such as marketing & social media assets, tips on getting started with Libby,and more! “Why can’t you just be a librarian, then?” I stopped crying immediately. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind at all, and I had no idea why. The next day (or whenever I finished my paper) I started looking into what I needed to become a librarian, and also looked to see if there were any jobs at the university library, because money was always good and I hadn’t gotten a new work study job just yet that year....

Kids (and teens, though they might be less than willing to admit it) (also adults. And by adults I mean me) are, naturally, big fans of the capes and tights crowd. They go all wide-eyed reading (or being read) Superman or Batman or Wonder Woman stories, demanding (if they’re anything like my kids) costume capes and tiaras and utility belts so they can kapow their way through the day. As they get a little older, though, they sometimes want a little more nuance, a little more plot, a story driven by characters their own ages; their reading becomes less aspirational and more, for lack of a better word, grounded....

I started off my horror reading with Goosebumps. At the time, I thought that that Fear Street and Christopher Pike books would be too scary. I also was a fan of the Sweet Valley Twins Super Horror specials and Bruce Coville’s The Ghost in Row 13. We are also huge horror fans over here at Book Riot. For the last three years, we have teamed up with Horror Writer’s Association, United for Libraries, and Booklist for Summer Scares....

The most recent example is the Healing Verse Philly Poetry Line. Interviewed by The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia poet laureate Trapeta B. Mayson said that “now, more than ever, we need spaces to process.” When you call the toll-free number (1-855-763-6792), Mayson’s voice greets you with a recorded message and introduces the project, which offers an affirming poem by a Philadelphia-connected poet as well as information about events and mental health resources....

Early in 2022, for example, there was Books at the Bar guy. If you’re on book Twitter person, you’ve probably seen it. People were enraged about this take, and to be fair, I was one of them. When I see someone reading anywhere in public, it makes me smile, and sometimes swoon. It also makes me immediately want to be friends with that person (and sometimes more than friends). At the time of my writing this, there have been almost 4,000 quote tweets....

Science Fiction The Broken Earth series by N.K. Jemisin On a planet with a single supercontinent called The Stillness, the inhabitants endure what is called a “Fifth Season” every few centuries. The Fifth Season brings on disastrous climate change, and the people on the planet must struggle to survive. The series centers around Essun and her daughter Nassun, two magically talented people (orogenes) who are separated before the start of the most recent Fifth Season....

It wasn’t until later that I realized that superstitions, like so many other beliefs, are actually a manifestation of another internalized fear. In this case, the fear of a powerful woman. Then you can say my first real introduction to witches beyond the realm of superstition was when I watched the first episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, in which Sabrina’s aunts drop in on her as she has her first levitation, indicating the beginning of her journey....

Other Book Riot New Releases Resources All the Books, our weekly new book releases podcast, where Liberty and a cast of co-hosts talk about eight books out that week that we’ve read and loved. The New Books Newsletter, where we send you an email of the books out this week that are getting buzz. Finally, if you want the real inside scoop on new releases, you have to check out Book Riot Insiders’ New Releases Index!...

The Brothers Sinister Series This romance series is set in the early–mid Victorian period in England and features a group of friends who are lefthanded. Southpaws. Sinister. Book 0.5: The Governess Affair (This prequel novella technically predates the Victorian era. By two years.) She’s a former governess trying to get money from the duke who fired her. He’s the duke’s righthand man (ironically) who is ordered to get rid of her....

If you’re wondering how the heck you define dark academia, this post is a really great explainer of this sub-genre. But the basic idea is this. Dark academia novels are set at a school of some kind and involve a plot that has dark themes. Sometimes dark academia crosses over with the thriller genre. Sometimes it’s fantasy, but it doesn’t have to be these things. If that sounds broad, it kind of is....