Manuscripts

It’s almost the new year, and if you’ve been waffling about whether you want a wall calendar in 2023, or which calendar it should be, let this post be your guide. Not only do these calendars help you keep track of important dates, they also are a fun piece of art/entertainment that changes every month.

Last year, Rachel Riley was the most popular girl at East Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin. This year, she’s persona non grata with the entire eighth grade class—except for Anna Hunt.  Anna, the new kid in town, is an aspiring journalist who loves listening to podcasts, reading and emailing her grandmother, Babcia, who lives in

My favorite part of any new year is taking the time to set up my new reading log to track my reading for each year. It’s always a joy to craft and refine this Sheets-based log for better reading tracking, and it seems like no matter how happy I am with the log at the

You’ve likely heard of the dystopian novel 1984 and maybe even Animal Farm. Sure, you might have known the author was British writer George Orwell, but maybe you’ve asked: Who was George Orwell, actually? In this article, we’ll explore George Orwell’s life and work so you have all the facts about this important and influential

As Aanchal Malhotra’s debut novel opens, it’s 1938 in the old walled city of Lahore, Hindustan (now Pakistan), and Samir Vij has just turned 10. He’s about to join the family perfume business as an apprentice; like his uncle Vivek, Samir has an unusually perceptive nose. On the other side of the walled city, 8-year-old

In Ronan and the Endless Sea of Stars, author Rick Louis tells the story of losing his baby son to a rare neurological illness in 2013. “This is not a story about grief,” Louis writes. “It is just the story of a little boy who was only here for a short while and what he

Pick your city: New York. London. Hong Kong. Jakarta. Athens. New Delhi. They are, all of them, studies in sharp contrasts, places where the uber-rich glide along gilded paths, cheek-by-jowl with the destitute, the desperate and the deadly. For the people who occupy the space between these extremes, it’s possible to ignore or be oblivious

Whether you’re dealing with reluctant readers, enjoying a book as a family, or just switching up the typical story time, there are tons of excellent reasons to stock up on audiobooks for kids. Reading via audiobook has been a staple in my family for almost a decade now, with books we’ve finished together becoming the

It’s hard to believe that 2022 is coming to a close. Until, that is, looking back on the books released this year. 2022 has been a year full of remarkable book releases, with plenty by debut as well as established authors to check out. This list rounds up 15 notable YA releases from this past

I’ve never paid much attention to literary awards. I’m not the kind of reader who eagerly anticipates the Booker longlist announcement or stays up late watching awards ceremonies. Until recently, when I started spending more time on Bookstagram, it was unusual that I even knew what books had won which awards. Literary awards, as far

I’ve been writing a sapphic book blog for more than a decade now. When I first started it, it was harder to find book with queer women representation. A lot of them had been published, but it required some research to find, and they often weren’t considered profitable to publish. Luckily, a lot has changed

“Trauma” has become a bit of a buzzword around the internet. This is the case in part because more and more research and understanding of trauma has come to light, and we’re better articulating the impact of trauma on the body and mind. Trauma is an emotional response to an event; it is not the

It’s the end of another year and that means we’re being treated to another look into the reading life of former President Barack Obama. Like previous years, it’s a diverse mix of titles and includes both fiction and nonfiction. This year includes a powerful graphic memoir as well. Of little surprise, Obama’s first pick is

As this year ends and the next draws ever closer, it’s a good time to stop and reflect. At Book Riot, we published thousands of articles in a year, ranging from longer, research-based posts to quick lists and bite-sized news stories. So after a year of uploading hundreds of posts a month, which ones were

Barnes & Noble has a plan to open 30 stores in 2023, making the bookseller the leader in what’s being called a big-box revival. This expansion comes after more than a decade of shrinking its number in response to competition from Amazon. There are even a couple of the new stores being opened in the

Poor Nubby. The plush toy rabbit has been “carried, buried, dropped, dragged, torn, worn, chewed on, sat on, and even used as a nose wipe. Repeatedly.” What a life! No wonder Nubby decides to head off in search of a place where he’ll be far more appreciated than he is at home.  First, Nubby tries

The Huntsville Public Library (HPL) has been under fire since this summer, when a book display riled up city officials. Now, following the removal of two book displays at the public library, the city decided to privatize the library. Though officials claim the move to hire Library Services & Systems (LS&S) will reduce library operational

Granbury Independent School District superintendent Jeremy Glenn was recorded telling librarians in the North Texas libraries under his purview to remove books that dealt with “transgender, LGBTQ and… sexuality.” In the leaked recording, he’s heard saying “I acknowledge that there are men that think they’re women and there are women that think they’re men. I don’t

Coretta Scott King Honor author Lesa Cline-Ransome has earned a reputation as an excellent chronicler of American history in more than 20 works of fiction and nonfiction. In For Lamb, she powerfully captures the events that lead to a fictitious lynching in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1940.  Cline-Ransome was inspired to write For Lamb after visiting

It’s fairly common for SFF writers to write all SFF, all the time. It makes sense: science fiction and fantasy are, like all literary genres, modes with their own histories, tropes, archetypes, and conventions. If an author is successful working within any genre, it makes sense that they might choose to continue doing so. Plus,

Historical fiction presents a certain narrative highwire act in and of itself, and each author confronts the challenge of weaving fictional stories into real historical events differently. No matter the approach, though, the balance of verisimilitude and invention is paramount. With The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre, Natasha Lester takes on that challenge and

2022 has been a wild ride. As I reflect back on the year, it seems like 2022 has been filled with truly scary moments. But at least the horror books of this year have been good scary and not fear-for-the-future-of-humanity scary. Horror novels, as always, remain a great way to escape from the terrors of

In Have I Told You This Already? Stories I Don’t Want to Forget to Remember (4.5 hours), Lauren Graham, the beloved actor and bestselling author of Talking as Fast as I Can, offers conversational, witty essays about everything from changing trends in undergarments to the process of coming to terms with aging, from adventures in

Beginning in October, here at Book Riot we’ve been watching as a slew of Best Books of the Year lists came rolling in from publications ranging from The New York Times to Buzzfeed. This was a great year for books, but it’s interesting to see just how little overlap there is between these lists. To

We like our politics to be binary. It is comforting to hear that we are on the good side and other people are on the bad. But life, obviously, is not binary, and neither are our politics. In V.V. Ganeshananthan’s second novel, readers are carried to a reckoning with this fact.  Set in 1980s Sri

Readers have likely noticed that super-bright colors continue to dominate book cover design in 2022, but while evaluating all the covers she’s seen this year, BookPage’s Brand & Production Designer Meagan Vanderhill was looking for more than eye-catching colors. Good book jacket design is certainly about grabbing a reader’s attention, she explains, but it’s also

Yesterday, I was standing in front of my desk, piled high with books I had checked out from the library or received for review, trying to decide what to read next. I shifted from foot to foot and gave myself a pep talk. “Pretend you are a normal reader. You’re just picking whatever book looks

Since about 2014, I’ve always kept an eye on Pantone’s Color of the Year. I like this idea of a color defining or giving shape to an upcoming year, much in the way I like thinking not about resolutions but about words or phrases as a means of organizing the next 12 months. Over the

Making its rounds on social media over the past two weeks is a story from The Atlantic about the end of high school English class. It’s not necessarily what you think it might be. The author, a high school teacher in Berkeley, California, explores how ChatGPT, a conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) system, might radically alter

Are you guilty of reading ahead? We certainly are: The January issue previews some of our most anticipated books of 2023, including upcoming books from Tom Hanks, KJ Charles, S.A. Cosby and many more! Plus, love will be in the air in our February issue, which includes Valentine’s Day features & an expanded romance column.