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But first, a word about terminology. There are several terms to describe people in the U.S. who are descended from a country in Latin America. For example, there’s Hispanic, Latino, and Latinx. The latter is the gender-neutral way to say Latino, and is my preferred term to use. A Hispanic person comes from a Spanish-speaking country, but doesn’t automatically come from a Latin American country. Also, you can identify as Latino or Latinx, but not speak any Spanish....

Bunny by Mona Awad Samantha Heather Mackey is an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England’s Warren University. She inexplicably receives an exclusive invitation to join the fabled “Smut Salon”, founded by a pack of intolerably twee rich girls who call each other “Bunny”. She finds herself drawn to this group – ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. The Vegetarian meets Carrie meets Mean Girls in this deliciously dark tale about toxic female friendships, academia and class....

To be fair, there’s limited formal evaluation of the impact of these kinds of programs. They’re controversial in some quarters. And it’s not clear whether substance-affected people are being involved in this library programming, which would benefit everyone. But overall, anti-opioid library programming appears to be an important way of increasing inclusion, spreading awareness, and even saving lives. Drawing on a recent report by library cooperative OCLC, Public Libraries Respond to the Opioid Crisis with Their Communities, here are seven of the ways libraries are combatting the opioid crisis....

Originally I wanted this list to be science-heavy, full of cool, weird books about how drugs like LSD and “magic” mushrooms came to be and how they affect our brains, but it turns out that mostly white people write those books. Since we like a variety of voices around here, I added in the much-needed perspectives of marginalized people writing about the history and politics around the criminalization of recreational drugs, especially by way of deadly drug cartels in Latin America and the staggeringly high numbers of Black and Brown people being incarcerated for possessing or selling drugs....

The stories of King Arthur feature many characters whose names sometimes vary from text to text. You’ve likely heard of many of them, even if you’re not familiar with all the stories. For instance, you probably know King Arthur himself, the wizard Merlin, Queen Guinevere, and the knight Lancelot. But there are many other characters from the legends worth considering. Here, in no particular order, are eight of the most interesting characters from Arthurian legend....

In an inexplicable worldwide event, 47 children are born to women who had shown no signs of pregnancy. Millionaire inventor Reginald Hargreeves adopted seven of these extraordinary children. This dysfunctional family of superheroes formed the Umbrella Academy. At age ten, they defeated their first enemy. A decade later, they disbanded. But when their father dies mysteriously, the siblings reunite to face the threat of the apocalypse and save the world....

Some of these titles are specifically about the Woodstock experience, while others are slightly more periphery but provide important context or have specific stories within their text about Woodstock. Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies by Kobena Mercer In a tour through culture via ten essays, Mercer explores a variety of materials and experiences as he unpacks the work of black artists and beyond. Importantly, the book points out Woodstock as an example of appropriation while Mercer suggests Hendrix’s dissected rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” serves as a response to the white, middle-class mass that generally composed the Woodstock audience....

That said, I’m a reader who constantly challenges herself to become immersed in stories that are so beautifully complex, a linear timeline won’t do it justice. No, it needs a nonlinear timeline. A nonlinear narrative can manifest in many ways, but put simply, it’s a story that’s told out of chronological order. Authors employ various literary forms in order to achieve this. Some popular forms include flashbacks, flashforwards, foreshadowing, and even dreams....

None of these covers are explicit medical diagrams or anatomical closeups. They’re all works of art, either in the form of outlining the shape of the reproductive system in flowers or hand gestures, or in subtle allusions using shapes like buttonholes or flowers. They’re nuanced reimaginings of those medical diagrams. Turning vulvas into art is nothing new — hello, Georgia O’Keeffe and her giant, in-dept flower portraits — but it’s always a delight to let your eyes relax to see a hidden meaning, or to focus in on details that are like blaring neon signs saying, “Yep, it’s a vagina!...

Part of what made God of War so great was the writing. Kratos evolved from a rage-fueled killing machine into a father, a man struggling to be a father once again while holding the demons of his past at bay. Atreus, his son, is very much a teenager. He’s also someone who idolizes his father and desperately wants to know more about the past that Kratos is hiding. Both are grieving Atreus’ dead mother....

There’s still a long way to go, but the thriller genre’s seen some progress over the past few years. While queer characters were often delegated to be throwaway victims — if they were mentioned at all — more and more thrillers feature queer protagonists written by LGBTQ authors. These nine LGBTQ thrillers are the sort that are perfect for nights that you want to spend hours past bedtime glued to a book....

To the young Cheryl Diamond, life felt like one big adventure, whether she was hurtling down the Himalayas in a rickety car or mingling with underworld fixers. Her family seemed like an unbreakable gang of five as they crossed continents and changed identities. What Diamond didn’t yet know was that she was born into a family of outlaws fleeing from the highest international law enforcement agencies— a family with secrets that would catch up to all of them....

For over five years, the Four Monkey Killer has terrorized the residents of Chicago. When his body is found, the police realize he was on his way to deliver one final message, one which proves he has taken another victim who may still be alive. Detective Sam Porter, the lead investigator on the 4MK task force, discovers a personal diary in the jacket pocket of the body, and finds himself caught up in the mind of a psychopath, unraveling a twisted history in hopes of finding one last victim....

Her Daughter’s Mother by Daniela Petrova Lana and Tyler are in their late 30s and struggling to get pregnant. After several heartbreaking miscarriages and failed rounds of IVF, they find an anonymous egg donor. Even though the two break up, Lana goes through with the last procedure. This time it’s a success. Everything should stop here with a happily-ish ever after. But then Lana sees the egg donor, Katya, on the subway, recognizing her from the donation center photograph....

Below is a list of different types of poems, some with complicated rules, some that are very simple. We’ll be covering the most common types of poems including: For each type of poem definition, I’ve also given some examples so you can get a sense of what that form is like. Take a look and see what inspires you! Sonnet When you think about poetic forms, the sonnet might be the first one to come to mind....

The most beautiful bookstores in Mexico City, the libraries that blew me away, the hidden places to read that made me feel the most at peace. Here are my recommendations for anyone visiting Mexico City who plans to go home with a pile of books, or who just appreciates some great bookish places when they travel. To someone who, like me, spent their time pre-trip figuring out the best books to read when visiting Mexico City....

Feminist Beginnings The year was 1919. The first World War was still fresh in everyone’s minds. France and the rest of the world were in the midst of the last global pandemic. That was when Sylvia Beach opened the original Shakespeare and Company in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris. Sylvia Beach fell in love with Paris as a teen. In the 1910s, Beach, her sisters, and her mother “joined the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage,” writes Caitlin O’Keefe of The New York Review of Books, “later known as the National Woman’s Party....

Now listen, you might say that I was wildly off re: the winds and the tides. They turned, in fact, over the next four months. I would say: in the grand scheme of the universe, my 199 year and 8 months miscalculation is a mere fart. Future “how many books should I read at once” scholars may well look back at me as the patron saint of prediction, given my relative “nailing it....

The establishment of the Comics Code Authority in 1954 was largely a reactionary measure driven by overall fear of censorship. This was not a great time in history for media in America that was thought to be “dangerous” for children or anyone else. Fear for the Children in the 1950s Before the Comics Code Authority, the Motion Picture Production Code (widely called the Hays Code) was applied to most major studio pictures released from 1934 to 1968....

The worst thing a writer can do is put something into their story that jars readers from this fictional dream they’ve created, forcing us back into the real world, the escaping of which is probably why we picked up a book in the first place. Over the years I’ve developed a number of pet peeves concerning those things that jar me from the many fictional dreams I enter. At the very top of my list are cicadas....