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For some backstory, the current library building is not the original library building. The original burnt down in the early 1900s. The second sunk. No, it wasn’t some kind of floating library boat, although that sounds nice. Mississippi has very soft, clay-filled earth which makes construction somewhat difficult. The second library’s foundation sunk into the ground, making the floor slanted and unsafe, and the building was condemned. None of the books inside could be recused before the building was torn down....

A lifetime of secrets. A history untold. No. It is a simple word, uttered on a summer porch in 1936. And it will haunt Kitty Milton for the rest of her life and its consequences will ripple through the Milton family for generations. Moving through three generations and back and forth in time, The Guest Book asks how we remember and what we choose to forget, and tells the story of a family and a country that buries its past in quiet, until the present calls forth a reckoning....

An irresistible story about an ordinary Japanese-American girl who discovers that her father is the Crown Prince of Japan! Which means outspoken, irreverent Izumi Tanaka is literally a princess! In a whirlwind, Izzy travels to Japan and finds herself caught between worlds—back home, she was never “American” enough, and in Japan, she must prove she’s “Japanese” enough. Will she crumble under the weight of the crown, or will she live out her fairytale, happily ever after?...

When we discovered that the National Literacy Trust, an amazing literacy charity here in the UK, was running a live virtual book quiz that pit school against school, we had to take part. This is no ordinary book quiz, as the questions are often abstract and include picture rounds, audio clues, anagrams and much more. To help prepare the students, my colleague and I decided to make our own book quiz questions and to set up the book club as a kind of book quiz training ground for a few weeks....

Three Marches ago, my love and I arrived in Mississippi with a pickup truck full of necessities. Strides from the beach, we rented a tiny pastel cottage. Before we found our permanent-ish residence, I, with an ID card, mail delivered to my P.O. box, and a hopeful smile, opened a library account, anchoring me to this then unfamiliar southern place. Because I lugged a crate of books across the continental United States and temporarily slept within walking distance of my new branch, I borrowed one book, sometimes two, at a time....

To share the news, current cast members shared a lip-synced throwback to the original adaptation of the books. Rachel Shukert promises this season will see more of Jessi Ramsey, and in a recent interview with Variety, Shukert expressed excitement for how much potential existed in a second season of the show. — Netflix Family (@netflixfamily) October 28, 2020 “I love how Kristy evolves in her new family,” she said. “I always have really loved Mary Anne and Dawn—as their parents get closer, how that kind of changes their relationship....

“The purse is plenty pretty on the outside: emerald silk, embroidered with dainty yellow, purple, and peachy-pink blooms, arcing out of metallic vases. But things get more interesting when one pries the lustrous little parcel open. Between the seams and under the stitches, there’s something faded and faint, but unmistakable: a blue “Q” tucked between two stems, a stylized red “M” near one edge, rows and rows of tidy, brownish letters....

Book of the Month Club Book of the Month Club is a book subscription service offering cheap new books. Their service gives you five options each month and you can choose one and add another for an additional fee. It’s easy to skip a month if their book choices don’t interest you. Their five selections are often new releases by debut authors, so it’s a convenient service for those who want to stay up-to-date on the latest voices in literature....

What Is Soft Science Fiction Vs. Hard Sci-Fi? Sci-fi writers take current scientific knowledge and extrapolate forward, imagining what the future or an alternate world will look like. In general, hard sci-fi is closer to current science, whereas science fiction that gets further away from what is presently known is considered soft. Consequently, hard science fiction is rooted in the physical and natural sciences, and considered to be more realistic. For more info on hard sci-fi, see Rioter’s Mya Nunnally’s excellent take here....

Reading In Other Words, I found myself overcome with two feelings. One: guilt for not knowing another language fluently. Two: familiarity at Lahiri’s frustrations and triumphs in learning a new language. In theory, I should be fluent in Spanish. I am not. My Spanish is babyish, naming random objects and answering simple questions. When I attempt to speak Spanish, I feel like I am drowning. I revert to one-word sentences, or answer in English....

First of all, I was reminded that curating collections of books, categorizing them, and recommending them are all skillsets. Librarians and booksellers make these skills their stock and trade. But randos on TikTok? Hoo boy. I saw young adult books with no sexual content labeled as spicy, romances I thought were one tick beyond completely chaste labeled as spicy, and plenty more wacky recommendations. Obviously, everyone has their own metrics when it comes to explicit content....

Two addictive reads for fans of twisty psychological thrill-rides from New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica. The Good Girl: What seems like a safe one-night stand turns out to be the worst mistake of Mia Dennett’s life. A tautly written, compulsive read that reveals how even in the perfect family, nothing is as it seems… The Other Mrs.: Meet Sadie and Will Foust, the new couple in town. When their neighbor is murdered, Sadie is drawn deeper into the mystery, but the more she discovers the more she realizes how much she has to lose....

They have just released a gallery of the top covers of 2021 in a range of genres. They include nonfiction like Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births by Michelle Millar Fisher and Amber Winick, cover designed by Natasha Chandani and Lana Cavar and novels like The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, cover designed by Grace Han. Check out the gallery of all 50 of the AIGA’s top covers of 2021 at their website....

For 2022 in particular, there were a ton of excellent titles to choose from, in both biographies and memoirs. I am not being polite here but let me just say that it was genuinely hard to choose. To make it easier on myself, I have included some memoirs to pair with the best biographies of 2022 below. If you don’t see your absolute favorite, it’s either because I didn’t like it (I don’t believe in spending time on books I don’t like) or because I ran out of space....

On the flip side, it can be a lot of pressure. What if they don’t like the book you recommend? What if they think you’re a bad judge of books? And worst of all, what if your suggestion turns them away from reading forever? While those things probably won’t happen it certainly can feel that way. Especially if you haven’t had the opportunity to give many suggestions before. If you’ve ever been put on the spot to give book recommendations, here is my tried and true method....

And then there’s the type of episode that’s most relevant to this site: The Author Must Die. These feature a writer who, well-intentioned or otherwise, writes a book so damaging that they end up on someone’s hit list. (Sometimes, the book is only a smokescreen for a different motive.) I decided to collect as many of this type of episode as I could find. They are very white- and male-dominated; alas, I could not find episodes from the likes of Tenafly and The No....

It’s very ironic that this church was saved by a book, only to burn from a minor accident. As Lindsay Ellis’s video discusses, regarding The Hunchback of Notre Dame and its adaptations, Victor Hugo wrote the book to save the church. Otherwise, due to its disrepair, it would have been torn down and replaced. Note that for this article, I’m using the term “Gypsy” in quote because it is a racial slur....

Like everyone else, I’ve read John Grisham, though, perhaps surprisingly, not his adult fiction. (It’s on my TBR!) Despite being 30, I loved Grisham’s “Kid Lawyer” series, Theodore Boone. I also loved In Your Defence by Sarah Langford. I think it was Langford who sparked my passion for law books, to be honest. In Your Defence is non-fiction, sort of memoir, sort of not, by a British defence lawyer. Sarah Langford takes the reader through various cases she has worked on during her career....

Herein lies the trap, the Kobayashi Maru of my mission to read the best Star Trek books. It is a no-win scenario because I am not the same person today compared to the first time I read a Star Trek novel (many many moons ago). Not only has my reading style changed, so too have my expectations on the creative minds behind the LONG list of Star Trek novels. Most noticeably, I would expect some diversity in the authors....

— Lisa Kessler/L.A. Kessler – Wolf’s Witch – Out Now (@LdyDisney) June 1, 2022 This is a positive move for authors whose books were essentially being pirated through the ebook return loophole. For readers, while it may limit their ability to freely read and return ebooks, it’s a fair change. Presumably, readers will realize they’ve “accidentally” purchased a book within the first 10% of the text, and further help for returns is available through customer service....