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Agualusa began his career as a journalist; according to the writer, he always had trouble sticking to the facts while ignoring all the possibilities reality has to offer. What I like the most about Agualusa’s stories is his writing, and how rich the characters are. So here is a reading pathway if you’re considering picking up a few of his books (which you definitely should). I hope this guide will help you possibly discover a new author, or a new book by the author, and more about the history of Angola....

If you’ve never read Louise Erdrich, I recommend this order. She’s written many more books, all varied and must-reads. She frequently includes maps, family trees, glossaries, and historical notes in her books. This helps readers keep track of complex family connections over several books. For a non-Native reader from New England, like me, this can also be a first step to learning some historical and cultural context. As with The Night Watchman, Erdrich uses her afterword to explain historical context and ongoing social issues....

Cusk was born in Canada to British parents and spent her early childhood in Los Angeles before moving to the United Kingdom when she was about 7. Her family was both Catholic and wealthy; Cusk was educated at a convent in Cambridge and then attended Oxford to study English. Cusk is not without her detractors. When she wrote A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother in 2001, she left the rose tinted glasses firmly on the shelf, detailing the difficulties of pregnancy and the rigmarole of antenatal classes, parenting books, breastfeeding and sleepless nights....

Here, presented the day of Kincaid’s 70th birthday, is a suggested reading order of some of her major books. Start with the Novels and Memoir Readers new to Kincaid would do best to start with Annie John, her debut novel. From ages 10 to 17, the title character falls in love, rebels in school, and experiences a drastic change in her relationship with her mother. This is familiar territory if you’ve read enough coming-of-age stories (Funny enough, Annie’s general restlessness reminded me of Larry McMurtry’s debut Horseman, Pass By, about a daydreamy teenager itching to leave his family’s North Texas ranch), but the book will strike a chord with any reader who’s ever had a desire to radically change their life and surroundings....

Generations later, and with redesigned covers, Judy Blume books still have so much to offer to readers of all ages. Many of us remember her from our teen years, but she has also written for children and for adults. She published her first book, The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo, in 1969, went on to publish 13 more in the next decade, and has written 30 books in total....

Here’s a quick and dirty guide to these related terms: As you might imagine, with 80 years of history, superhero comics do this all the time. For example, Wonder Woman’s origin story was once closely tied to World War II, and Iron Man’s to the Vietnam War. Since both heroes are supposed to be vaguely 30ish in that nonspecific comics way, their backstories (and those of many other characters with similar origins) have been retconned many times over the years to keep them young and spry....

I was prepared for laughter, at best. Until then, I’d always followed the advice Nicholson Baker dispenses in The Anthologist: “Never recite. Please! If you recite, your listeners will look down and play with their cuticles. They will not like you.” (Why did I obey? I don’t usually follow the unsolicited advice of white men. Do I?) But instead, my partner gasp-moaned. So I murmured the next lines of Keats’s “Bright Star” between gentle nibbles along their naked shoulder....

These short poems tell the stories of various trans women, giving vivid glimpses into complex and fully formed lives. In pieces that are sometimes shorter than half a page she has managed to give us women who resonated more with me than many characters from 500 page novels I’ve read. These stories are honest and funny and sad and burning brightly and sexy, often all at once. I was most taken with what felt like the intentional self-determination throughout the characters as they fuck, reflect on coming out to the parents and dress in outfits that come together to be dangerous: “Sequins, a precursor to scales – as in / lips, a warning of teeth....

Half-angel Trinity and her bonded gargoyle protector, Zayne, have been working with demons to stop the apocalypse while avoiding falling in love. The Harbinger is coming . . . but who or what is it? All of humankind may fall if Trinity and Zayne can’t win the race against time as dark forces gather. Don’t miss Rage and Ruin, book two in the fantastical Harbinger trilogy from #1 New York Times Bestselling author Jennifer L....

A whimsical, colorful storefront stopped me on my walk through the city’s pleasant Eastown neighborhood. It had the undeniable look of a small, independent bookstore, reflecting the form I’d seen many times in downtown Manhattan. I stepped inside, and there they were: rows and rows of beautiful, curated books. Books and Mortar opened a little over three years ago. Two years after that, the store’s founders offered to sell the business to one of their booksellers, Jenny Kinne....

As an avid reader since practically birth, I always loved the summer reading lists. I cheerfully earned my prizes (who else remembers getting free Pizza Hut?) and kept right on reading. Later, as an educator, I realized there was a lot more to this old practice. Read on to learn about the what, when, why, and history of school summer reading lists. Why Do Schools Assign Summer Reading? While there are likely multiple reasons for teachers and schools to assign summer reading, the biggest reason is the most obvious....

“What? Dan will love it,” she says defensively, referring to one of our brothers, “We’ve got to take something out of it, too, anyways.” My sister and I have spent the last two hours combing the streets of Coventry and West Greenwich, Rhode Island, for Little Free Libraries. It is my last night at home, sharing a living space with my younger sister, brother, and parents, and I decided I simply could not move all of my books with me....

Even before fan fiction expanded into the queerfest it can be, it was still about fixing or expanding on aspects of a fandom that felt lacking. In Here We Are: Feminism For the Real World, Brenna Clarke Gray points out the choosing your own path aspect to fandom: “…take those characters you love and reinvent their situations, bend their race and gender, and experiment with their sexuality.” Basically, take those characters and play....

Novellas are usually categorized as a piece of fiction that is between 10,000 and 40,000 words (or between 20,000 and 40,000 if you exclude the in-between category of novelettes). Because novellas are categorized by word count, translating that length into page count can be a bit tricky what with variability in font, type size, margins, etc. But let’s say, generally, novellas are somewhere between 100 and 200 pages, give or take....

Where picture books are so often seen as “for children,” picture books are different from wordless graphic novels in that there is little or no text to the story at all. Instead, the art and its sequencing unravel the story. This technique not only allows for incredible artistry on behalf of the storyteller, but it also leaves readers to explore meaning on their own; without being told the story textually, the story is left to readers to interpret in a fresh way....

Enchantée by Gita Trelease transports readers to the glittering and magical world of 1870s Paris. After her parents die, Camille must find a way to provide for her sister by transforming scraps of metal into money. But soon she begins to pursue a more dangerous mark: the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Camille transforms herself into a baroness and is swept up into life at Versailles. She meets a handsome young inventor, and begins to believe that love and liberty may both be possible....

The prize was started in 1996 in response to the 1991 Booker Prize Shortlist not having any women. Since its inception, the Women’s Prize for Fiction has become the largest international celebration of women’s creativity, highlighting “outstanding, ambitious, original fiction written in English by women from anywhere in the world.” The judges for this year’s prize consist of a panel of five women, headed by Mary Ann Sieghart, who served as chair....

I can pinpoint the moment that a dark shudder passed through my family. I know the moment that we opened our eyes to the slowly melting world around us in a way that endless, faceless news cycles and countless bookstore window displays had failed to do. A moment that now, in the wake of apocalyptic natural disasters and the collapsing infrastructures they cause, seems banal. Nevertheless, I am reluctant to deny the shattering impact of small revelations....

These free coloring pages come from across the internet and feature designs that range from simple to intricate. They are both fun and meditative, meant to help you step back for an hour, two hours, or a whole evening and sooth your nerves, even just a tiny bit. I’ve done what I can to trace these free coloring pages back to their creators, but it’s not always possible. Grab your colored pencils, markers, and crayons and let your creative self be free....

For one, while the core of the site is similar to Goodreads, StoryGraph is super in tune with analytics. It tracks the genres you’re rating most favorably, authors you’ve liked, and even the types of stories you are reading. All of this data is then presented to the user clearly, and with easy-to-navigate charts to help you find your next favorite book. So what’s the deal? Is it best to stick with the classic?...