Posts

The best YA book deals of the day, sponsored by the audiobook of Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster. 

Unfortunately, my beach towel was a blue and white striped bore of a beach towel. Which got me to thinking: Surely there are bookish beach towels out there? So before I head on my next international vacation to lovely Iceland and its geothermal baths, I’m going to have to grab myself and my partner a couple of bookish beach towels. Luckily, my fellow Book Riot contributors have written great articles about how to further perfect my bookish beachy day....

As you can imagine, there are many different kinds of government, many different cultures, ethnicities, and religions. If you’ve ever looked at guidebooks of this area or visited, you know what a breathtaking area it can be; full of history, relics, and communities. But it can also be a tumultuous region. These comics/graphic novels show the joy, the history, the complexity, and the heartbreak of the region in a variety of ways....

Here are a few things I’d like to to tell my own students on the occasion of their graduation. Maybe a little more muted than most administrations would like, but it’s advice I myself would have liked to have heard at 22 (and am trying to remind myself of at 34). At this moment, you are more open-minded than you will ever be again. As you get older, your interests might deepen, but the range will almost certainly narrow....

Check out the awesome cover below by Colleen Reinhart, a synopsis beyond my “omg I loved this to pieces everyone read it” excitement, and read an excerpt introducing you to Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie on their first assignment. Killers of a Certain Age is a witty, action-packed thriller about four elite assassins — Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie — who also happen to be middle-aged women. After forty years on the job, the ladies are jet-setting on a retirement cruise…until they realize that, this time, they are the targets....

at Autostraddle: 67 of the Best Queer Books of 2020 at Brightly: 8 Interactive Books to Captivate Your Restless Reader at Bustle: There Are So Many Great Romance Novels Out This Week at BuzzFeed: 14 Cozy Romances You Won’t Be Able To Put Down This Holiday Season at CBC: The best Canadian comics of 2020 at Crime Reads: The Best Gothic Fiction of 2020 at Electric Lit: 9 New Poetry Collections that Highlight the Diversity of Latinx Identity at The Guardian: The best books of 2020 to support indie publishers this Christmas at Lit Hub: The Top 10 Most Totally Metal Books of 2020 at POPSUGAR: 11 Dark Academia Books to Read If You’re Into Moody Mysteries, University Settings, and Tragic Endings at Riveted Lit: The Ultimate Cozy Books for Cold Winter Days at Shondaland: 22 Authors on the Books That Gave Them Hope in 2020 at Tor....

But your bookshelves, well. The combination of books, photos, and the occasional plant is classic but could also use some livening up. It’s spring and we’re all looking for something new and interesting to do. Books contain beloved worlds within their pages; what if the magic could live outside those pages as well? My friends, I present unto you: the world of the DIY book nook shelf inserts. Book nooks are (thick) book-sized inserts for your bookshelf....

Where did this lie come from? The patriarchy, for one. Romance is a genre largely written by women for women. Anything a woman finds pleasure in and values must be inherently silly or fluff or pink. The patriarchy also wants to discourage anything that encourages feminism, which romance is. Heroines in romance have careers, friend groups, families, and big goals they are working toward. Along the way, they also find romantic love with a partner who not only won’t stand in their way and demand they give all those things up to become a wife and a mother, but who is rooting for her....

The ways in which each superhero celebrates their big day have changed over time, so I thought it would be interesting to look at ten of the biggest weddings in superhero history. To save time, I will only cover weddings that were actually completed (so no Nightwing/Starfire nuptials, since the wedding was interrupted when Raven incinerated the priest), weddings that happened in canon (so no Silver Age “what if?” stories where Superman marries Lois and then makes her travel everywhere in a bulletproof bubble-mobile), and weddings that were not preemptively axed by editorial mandate (RIP Kate Kane/Maggie Sawyer)....

Even page edges can affect our assessment of a book. Gilded hardcovers seem important and rare (even if they’re an inexpensive copy of Shakespeare’s complete works); lurid colors on vintage paperbacks make us think of busty molls and the hard-eyed men who love them or menace them. With comic books, where the goal is to fill the pages with lines and tones much less predictable than a typeface, an indication of what’s inside can bleed right to the edges....

This custom stamp will help spread the Little Free Library love. $18.71+ This stamp can’t be personalized but it is adorable. $16.00 You can even include your charter number on this stamp! $20.00 This stamp is not strictly for Little Free Libraries, but it is customizable and I love the leaf design. $22.95 You could use these stickers to decorate your library! $6.00 This stamp will let your patrons know that, yes, the books really are free!...

And some, apparently, get dressed in the dark. Here on Fashion Disasters, we’ll showcase those poor slobs who just can’t seem to get it right. Today: Jericho! Joey Wilson, AKA Jericho, first appeared in Tales of the Teen Titans #43 (June 1984) and was created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. He was the son of the assassin Deathstroke the Terminator, with mutism and the ability to jump into other people’s bodies and possess them by making eye contact....

In the fourth installment of the bestselling Hell Divers series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith, the Sea Wolf sets out to search for the Metal Islands. Leading the expedition is legendary Hell Diver Xavier Rodriguez. After enduring for a decade on the poisoned surface, his survival skills will be put to the test on the dangerous open seas. But storms, sea monsters, and the cannibalistic Cazadores aren’t the only threat to X and his small crew....

You may not expect to begin a review of a hot new thriller with discussion of a memoir, but there it is. It was in discussing Cheryl Strayed’s wildly (heh) popular new book (and first title for the resurrected Oprah’s Book Club) Wild that I realized what has been bothering me about all of the buzz surrounding Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. Why, I wondered to an author friend, do women read Strayed’s account of her dangerous, ill-conceived, and often horrifically distressing hike (duct-tape sandals, anyone?...

Two lawsuits filed in Virginia Beach by attorney and State Delegate Tim Anderson, on behalf of client Tommy Altman, sought to get both books not only removed from schools and libraries, but removed from private sale through bookstores across the state. The first lawsuit included a restraining order against Barnes & Noble and Virginia Beach Schools, and the second lawsuit focused on Oni Press, publisher of Gender Queer, as well as its author Maia Kobabe....

My favorite memoir of all time is Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I even got to teach it in an English class. Although for some students it was difficult to engage with the crash course in ancient Persian and recent Iranian history, Satrapi’s deft juxtapositions of her childhood and the conflict drew me in more than I originally expected. It was an especially exciting read for students who spoke English as a second language....

I’ve been writing for publication since I was 16 years old. Magazines. Newspapers. Book chapters. Blogs. You name it, I’ve written in. But I’ve never finished a draft of a book. I’m working on it actively and it’s the best part of my week when I get to sit down and write, but even a year ago I would have been too scared to even try. A lot of what keeps me going are books about writing....

But no matter if you think love or orgasms sprout from your heart (I say both — why not?), there’s no shortage of heart-shaped things to love this time of year. In the past, Book Riot has covered a whole heckuva lot of heart and love-related topics from 15 of the Best YA Books with Hearts in the Title to Literary Love Quotes for Your Wedding and even a quiz that promises to tell you Which Literary Lady is Your Soulmate?...

Romance in manga can be a wild ride. I prefer josei romances because I enjoy reading older femme characters as protagonists. Depending on what you choose to read, you might come across some subplot romance storyline in your manga — even when you aren’t looking for it. Popular sub-genres of romance manga include: forbidden romance, drama, fantasy, historical, and horror. While the historical and fantasy romance manga can be fun, please be aware that some sub-genres can be triggering content....