Books

Anti-censorship advocates and activists have shouted from the rooftops that it is essential to vote. That it is essential to show up to school and library board meetings and speak up about/write those who sit on those boards against book bans and censorship. Advocates and activists have been on the front lines in their respective

The Washington Post released their analysis of book challenges they had obtained from PEN America researcher Tasslyn Magnusson. These 1,065 challenges, which were filed during the 2021-2022 school year, extended over 153 school districts and 37 states, and totaled 2,506 pages. They also tended to target books with similar content, specifically LGBTQ+ topics. While a

A K-8 school in Florida has banned Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem “The Hill We Climb” for its elementary students. In March, the Miami Lakes school received a complaint from a parent of children at the school, Daily Salinas, about the poem as well as four other books. In the complaint, which Gorman tweeted below, Salinas

The Color Purple by Alice Walker was published in 1982, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction for that year. In 1985, it was adapted into a movie starring Whoopi Goldberg directed by Steven Spielberg. In 2005, it was also adapted into a musical. The 2015-2017 revival won a

Martin Amis died Friday in his Lake Worth Florida home from esophageal cancer. Amis was born to a novelist father, Kingsley Amis, in 1949 Oxford, England, and won the 1974 Somerset Maugham Award for his first novel, The Rachel Papers. He became a big part of the literary scene in London in the ’80s and

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic circa 2020, there came the rise of virtual book clubs. With the strict adherence to social distancing rules, many started virtual book clubs in schools, libraries, or even just among friends. These virtual book clubs work in a similar way as those from Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon.

Why do I pay attention to AAPI Heritage Month? As a school librarian, I spend a lot of time thinking about the diversity of my collection. I’m a white woman working in a school where white kids are a slight minority. I know that my ingrained racism keeps me from selecting books that are appropriate

A couple of weeks back, I shared a roundup of pending legislation across several states and at the national level which would ensure the right to read. There is another bill worth highlighting during this legislative session that is making positive progress in Connecticut. Senate Bill 2, called the Act Concerning the Mental, Physical, and

The Killers of the Flower Moon trailer was released today. Martin Scorsese’s highly anticipated new movie is based on the book by the same name that shows how the Osage Nation — who were the richest people per capita in the world in the ’20s — were slowly killed off. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart,

PEN America and publisher Penguin Random House, as well as a few authors and parents, filed a federal law suit today against Florida’s Escambia County School District. The authors who joined the suit — all of whom have had their books either removed or restricted by the school board — are Sarah Brannen, David Levithan, George

A recent poll asked 10,000 US and Canadian TikTok users between the ages of 18 and 45 if they are reading more because of BookTok, the bookish community on the social media platform. BookTok is widely believed to have driven a big bump in book sales and increased the popularity of reading in general. The

The Nebula Awards were first awarded in 1966, and they recognize the best writing in science fiction and fantasy published in the U.S. the previous year. The winners of the 58th annual Nebula Awards, which consider works published in 2022, have just been announced! You can watch the whole ceremony on YouTube, or scroll down

The Cure has been my favorite band since I was about 14. This was not too long after Wish came out, and while I enjoyed “Friday I’m in Love,” it was pretty far on the light side of pop for my 8th grade punk-grunge taste; I liked it, but I listened to Nirvana and the

Researching and reading books for this piece has been an unexpectedly needed experience for me. I may be speaking for myself, but when I think of “Asian horror” my first thoughts are of works in translation and their movie adaptations that make me want to pour bleach on my eyeballs. And I say that as

With Pride just a few weeks away, it’s time for library workers to start thinking about the where, how, when, and what of their book displays. We know that queer books remain among the most targeted in the current book ban ~curation~ wave and we also know that Pride displays have historically been among the

Netflix has began filming an adaptation of Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo, marking the directorial debit of cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto. The highly influential Páramo is a modern Mexican classic that follows Juan Preciado after he promises his dying mother that he’ll meet his father for the first time. IN searching for his father, he finds a

On Saturday, Twitter user bigolas dickolas wolfwood (@maskofbun) tweeted: read this. DO NOT look up anything about it. just read it. it’s only like 200 pages u can download it on audible it’s only like four hours. do it right now i’m very extremely serious. pic.twitter.com/Pzb2FWvFlg — bigolas dickolas woIfwood (@maskofbun) May 7, 2023 The

The advent of machine learning algorithms in publishing ushered the era of online book recommendations. First there was Goodreads, and then came Amazon. And now, there’s Tertulia, which scrapes an excessive amount of public data to recommend books to its users. There are also others out there that function similarly, be it an app or

Since its founding in 1917, the Pulitzer Prize has recognized excellence in journalism, arts, and literature. You can see the winners in all categories, including 15 Journalism categories, at the Pulitzer website. You can also watch the ceremony in full on YouTube below. [embedded content][embedded content] Here are the 2023 Pulitzer Prize winners in the

What is literary fiction? I’ve been trying to figure it out, and I’m stumped. (Let me just say this up front: this essay is about 750 words, and I absolutely do not give a definitive definition anywhere in those words.) Like any genre or age category, “literary fiction” is a designation that is primarily a