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at the B&N Teen Blog, 7 Great Books About Reproductive Choice at Brightly, 10 Next Reads for Kids Who Love Raina Telgemeier at Bustle, 25 New Short Story Collections to Read This Summer at Buzzfeed, 24 YA Books to Devour During Asian Pacific American Heritage Month at Electric Literature, 20 Translated Short Story Collections from Around the World at Entertainment Weekly, 15 of Our Favorite Pop Culture Bookshops at Goodreads, 23 Upcoming Books that Librarians, Editors, and Booksellers Think You’ll Love at Library Journal, Top 20 Best-Selling Books About Latin American History at LitHub, Six of the Best Bad Women in Fiction at Paste Magazine, Five Must-Read Short Story Collections for Sci-Fi and Fantasy Fans at Riveted Reads, 20 Road Trip Novels to Pack in Your Bag This Summer at Tor, 8 SFF Characters that Embody the Green Man

If you’re a fan of this list of the best queer historical fiction, you might also find some great new reads among these 28 excellent queer historical reads for Pride month, books about LGBTQ history, and bi and lesbian literary fiction. Get to reading! Told in a split perspective between the present-day interviews and Evelyn’s storied past, this book weaves an incredible tale of fame, love, and heartbreak. I was completely swept away by Hugo’s story....

What exactly makes a book “thought-provoking”? Modernist works, such as Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons, are thought-provoking in their opacity. Archaic language can add to the thought-provoking nature of a book; William Blake’s poetry is an excellent example of works that are thought-provoking for their content, syntax, and age. Thought-provoking books can also be labelled as such due to their intricate plots or large number of characters. The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle practically requires a bulletin board and red string to read....

The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Raúf (Delacorte Books for Young Readers, August 6, 2019) I’m delighted to see this middle grade book make its way across the ocean. It’s the story of 9-year-old Ahmet, a Syrian refugee, and how some of his classmates learn of what he’s been through and step in to help him. Book Riot’s own Lucas Maxwell has written about how he uses the book at his school to teach awareness of the plight of refugees....

The worst thing that’s ever happened to Craig is also the best: Amy. Craig and Amy should never have gotten together—Craig is a Dungeons and Dragons master with no life skills and Amy is the beautiful, fiercely intelligent student body president of their high school. Yet somehow they did…until Amy dumped him. Then got back together with him. Seven times. Seven breakups. Seven makeups. Seven of the highest lows and lowest highs....

Books About (Self) Love These books explore the importance of loving yourself and succeeding every step of the way. Bloom: A Gift for the Girl Learning to Love Her Beautiful Soul by Shani Jay There is nothing more powerful than loving yourself, and this book will teach you that. Let Shani’s words give you an instant confidence boost and remind yourself that you (and only you) hold the keys to your own happiness....

Note: ^ after the title indicates that a book is part of a series. January 2019 *Books without a publication date are already released as of 1/15/19. The Paragon Hotel by Lindsay Faye The year is 1921 and “Nobody” Alice James is on a train from New York to Portland, Oregon, fleeing for her life and carrying a bullet wound from a drug & liquor deal gone horribly wrong. In Portland, Alice finds sanctuary in the city’s only all-black hotel and learns that the KKK is out in full force....

Unfortunately, 6 years after the Rana Plaza Factory collapse, many garment workers across the world still live in poverty and dangerous conditions. These workers—many of whom are women—are subject to exploitation, abuse, and erasure, all for the sake of fast fashion. The first step toward a change in the fashion industry is increased knowledge and transparency. This year Fashion Revolution Week is April 22–28. We’re encouraging you to arm yourself with knowledge....

The Dark The Dark was my first literary magazine subscription. It was definitely love at first page turn. This monthly collection of dark and delightful stories is always a cause for excitement when it hits my Kindle. If you’re looking for diverse voices in your dark fiction, this is where you want to start. Co-editor Silvia Moreno-Garcia recently tweeted that The Dark reached a publication rate of about 70% authors of color, and notables like Stephen Graham Jones and Nnedi Okorafor, among many others, have graced its pages....

Here’s the thing. Books about being LGBTQ+ are important. We all need to know we’re not alone and that someone (even if that someone is a proxy elf or dragon or trickster god) understands what we’re going through. But it’s also important for audiences of all ages to have the opportunity to share in stories where LGBTQ+ folx are living full, multi-faceted lives in which they spend time with friends and family, spend too much money on books, fight eldritch horrors, check the corners of their previously abandoned Atlantean manors for supernatural squatters, pilot qi-powered mechs, and bring down empires, all while happening to be queer....

Growing up bilingual meant getting jokes in English and Spanish and easily switching from one language to the other, exploring my culture and the experience of others and their culture at the same time. Now, bilingual readers and readers from all cultures can explore characters whose quick and witty banter in two languages inspires and also gives us lessons. There are also some super cool ones with great stories that we would love to befriend....

Dogs and Books: You Can’t Go Wrong Two things that have always been a part of my life are dogs and books. I learned how to walk by the side of my German Shepherd, Abby, and I was lucky enough to grow up with books all around. Although I currently own two cats (who are amazing), I will always be a person who splits my heart equally between cats and dogs....

But while we’re paying less than ever for our clothes, more and more information is emerging about their true environmental and human cost. Fast fashion contributes to global pollution more than any economic sector except the oil industry—outpacing even international flight. And by concentrating production in countries with the lowest wages and least protective labor laws, big brands facilitate worker exploitation and contribute to the decline of unskilled jobs in countries with higher wages....

Adam and Zayneb from Love From A To Z by S. K. Ali Love From A To Z is about a lot of things, but at its core it’s a love story between two wonderful Muslim characters, Adam and Zayneb. From beginning to end, we see these two characters who have come to their religion in different ways and have different relationships with their faith, grow together. We see them slowly, but surely, fall for each other, while taking on the obstacles that life throws in their path....

The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me by Keah Brown (August 6) You may know Keah Brown as an outspoken disability rights advocate and the creator of the #DisabledAndCute campaign. In this insightful collection of essays, she delves further into her story, exploring what it was like to grow up with cerebral palsy, her relationship with her able-bodied identical twin, and her love of all things pop culture....

American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland by Marie Mutsuki Mockett In American Harvest, Marie Mutsuki Mockett joins a group of evangelical harvest workers as they migrate from Texas to Idaho, stopping along a decades-old route to help farmers bringing in their wheat harvest. As she gets to know the crew, Mockett contemplates her own position as a non-Christian person and how that interacts with the Christian faith she sees all around her....

In the 1960s and ’70s, the underground comics scene gained a lot of steam and started inspiring writers to tackle difficult topics in their work. With the wild popularity of Maus I in 1980, it became even clearer that comics and graphic novels were the right medium to ruminate on trauma, history, and darkness. Comics allow freedom of form and style to explore dark themes in more abstract ways. It can be difficult to find precise language to explain darkness, so that’s why art is the perfect medium....

Cornelia Funke wasn’t going to be signing for a few hours, so we decided to sit down for John Grogan’s discussion of his book Marley & Me. I remember thinking, “What a weird title for a book.” And “what’s up with the cute dog? Did this middle aged man write a book about his dog? Talk about dog people.” My teenaged judgement prattled on in my head until John Grogan himself got on stage to speak....

Before we jump into the list, what do I mean by middle-aged? Surely the term fluctuates, but since so many books feature younger (much younger) protagonists, I’ve gone to the younger side of the definition too. In this list, you’ll find middle-aged heroines who are older than 30 or implied to be so. Next, what do I mean by heroine? She’s the main character or one of the leads in a very small cast of point-of-view characters....