Literature

Banned Books Week launches Monday, September 19, 2022, and the American Library Association (ALA) has released the latest numbers on book challenges in a new field report. Pulling from information reported directly to ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF), news coverage, and public records, the data show a marked increase in censorship and 2022 is
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Listening to music is a uniquely personal experience. It can evoke strong feelings and memories. It can unite us or be a source of debate. In This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You, Susan Rogers (cognitive neuroscientist and Berklee College of Music professor) and Ogi Ogas (mathematical neuroscientist
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Authors using pseudonyms is nothing new. In fact, there are still five that are unknown, with another mystery author story fresh from the headlines this week. They choose a pseudonym for many reasons: to avoid the limelight, to remain anonymous, to avoid criticism, or to protect their identity. Some authors write under a pen name
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Escape, by definition, is rarely easy, and in Uncultured, Daniella Mestyanek Young illustrates just how difficult it can be. Leaving the Children of God, the cult she was born into, and surviving the U.S. Army, a group she chose to enlist in as a young adult, have both left many scars. Lucky for readers, she
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The longlists for the 2022 National Book Awards (NBA) were announced on September 14–16. The awards are divided into five categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature. Among the judges for this year’s awards are Ben Fountain, Brandon Hobson, Pam Houston, Dana Johnson, and Michelle Malonzo for Fiction; Carol Anderson, Melissa Febos,
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The wellness industry offers a seductive promise: If you work hard, are dedicated and buy this shiny new thing, then you, too, can have the healthy, beautiful life you’ve always dreamed of. But for journalist Rina Raphael, that dream sounds too good to be true. In her new book, The Gospel of Wellness: Gyms, Gurus,
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Renowned filmmaker Werner Herzog has written more than a dozen books and screenplays, but The Twilight World (3.5 hours) is his first novel. Translated by Michael Hofmann and short enough to qualify as a novella, it’s the fictionalized story of Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, the real-life intelligence officer in the Imperial Japanese Army who defended Lubang
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The National Book Foundation has announced the Longlist for 2022’s National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. This year’s Longlist includes graphic novels, novels, and memoirs that explore things like racism, sexism, gender and sexuality, and self-esteem. They take place everywhere from fictional, alternate histories to the U.S. and Pakistan. The Longlist contenders were chosen
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Jordan Crane’s graphic novel Keeping Two, which took him 20 years to complete, pays very strict attention to form. Over the course of 300-plus pages, Crane rarely strays from a simple six-panel grid, arranging the action in neat squares that move down and across the page with an almost mesmeric energy and speed. With this
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Comics artist Kate Beaton, creator of the award-winning satirical webcomic “Hark! A Vagrant,” demonstrates her remarkable range and storytelling prowess with her debut graphic memoir, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands. With strong prose and striking art, she captures the complexities of a place often defined by stark binaries: the Alberta oil sands, one
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Kindle Unlimited is Amazon’s subscription service which gives readers access to over 2 million ebooks, alongside audiobooks, comics, short stories, and more, and this summer, Kindle Unlimited users were voracious readers. Amazon Prime users, who have access to about 3,000 books, short stories, audiobooks, and comics through their subscription to the service, were also busy
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Allison Saft’s second YA novel, A Far Wilder Magic, is an enchanting fantasy tale about two young people, Margaret and Wes, who are drawn together in pursuit of a mythical fox purported to hold alchemical power. Throughout the story, Saft creates magic that feels astonishingly real. Here, she offers a deeper look at A Far
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I’ve written about my book club for Book Riot before. It’s been one of my favorite things for almost ten years. How our book clubs works, generally, is that each member takes a turn choosing a book. Everyone reads it, and then we meet once a month to discuss that pick. When you choose the
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Fifteen-year-old Yehuda “Hoodie” Rosen and his Orthodox Jewish family, along with many members of their community, have recently moved to Tregaron, Pennsylvania, because the cost of living in their previous town became too expensive. When Hoodie meets Anna-Marie Diaz-O’Leary, the daughter of Tregaron’s mayor, he’s instantly smitten. Yet after he and Anna-Marie are spotted cleaning
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