Books

January is a great time to read YA books about fresh starts, though I find it hard to believe it is 2023. To be fair, I’m pretty sure that it took me two full years to recover from 2020. Nonetheless, I am ready to acknowledge that we made it through another trip around the sun and that’s worth writing about. However, I am not a resolutions person. It feels like too much pressure to put on myself at the beginning of a new year. I know full well I’m not...

Right-wing politicians got the new legislative year off to an impressive start with several new bills across the country directly targeting books, reading, and intellectual freedom. Of course, we know that these bills aren’t about the books at all, but instead are another avenue to chip away at the rights of marginalized populations: people of color, queer people, and young people. Here are some of the bills of concern, and this is not comprehensive. If you live in these jurisdictions, it is crucial to begin calling and writing your representatives....

Ken Follett’s next novel will be published on September 26, 2023. It will be titled “The Armor of Light“ and will conclude the eight-volume Kingsbridge series that follows 1,000 years of Western civilization, from “Ethelred the Unready to the election of President Obama.” Readers will follow a group of linked families, starting in the fictional town Kingsbridge at the end of the 18th century. The members of the family experience everything from bread riots to forced military recruitment, as well as a British government that enacts new laws restricting criticism...

The books community on Reddit has released their list of the best books of 2022. The books were chosen by individual threads made for each category: Best Debut, Best Literary Fiction, Best Mystery or Thriller, Best Short Story Collection/Graphic Novel/Poetry, Best Science Fiction, Best Fantasy, Best LitRPG, Best YA, Best Romance, Best Horror, and Best Nonfiction. For a book to be nominated, it had to have been published in 2022 and posted as a comment in the thread that matched its category. Voting stayed open until January 15, and the...

The Scrabble dictionary has been updated for the first time since 2018, and it includes 500 new words — though Scrabble won’t reveal what every one is, telling players to hunt through the new dictionary to find them all. They’ve also removed several hundred slurs and other offensive words, so that they can’t be played in official tournaments. Some of the new words reflect changes in technology and culture since the last update, including “torrenting”, “doxxed”, “subtweet”, “pageview”, “unsub”, “stan”, and “vaxxed”. Others are slang words that will have some...

Writing Tips has compiled data from the most popular Google searches based in the USA beginning with “how to pronounce”. Here are the ten words words Americans found the most difficulty pronouncing in 2022. how to pronounce acai (18,000 searches) how to pronounce nguyen (15,000 searches) how to pronounce gyro (15,000 searches) how to pronounce omicron (14,000 searches) how to pronounce charcuterie (12,000 searches) how to pronounce gif (11,000 searches) how to pronounce gnocchi (10,000 searches) how to pronounce kyiv (7,900 searches) how to pronounce worcestershire (7,800 searches) how to...

Who’s ready to take a Judy Blume character quiz? Judy Blume books have been there for me at every age of my life. In elementary school, I laughed as my mom read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing out loud to me and my sister. I related to Margaret’s quest to discover who she is and where she fits in while reading Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret? I learned a lot about sex from the infamous Forever… and still reread Judy Blume’s adult book Summer Sisters on a...

It’s a new year, meaning that the groups and individuals creating hell for public educators will be developing their new plans for continued “work.” What began as an attack on “Critical Race Theory” in 2021 — spearheaded by the right-wing darling Christopher Rufo — has morphed into disdain for other categories of teaching and books, including “Social Emotional Learning” and “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” (yes, “sexuality”). These terms used by right-wing groups simply mean they don’t want their children “exposed” to any books by or about queer people or people of...

In a fantastic collaboration between two top-notch institutions working against censorship and book bans, high school students across the country are invited to apply to and take part in the Freedom to Read Advocacy Institute. Brooklyn Public Library–named Librarians of the Year from Library Journal for their Books Unbanned program–and PEN America–a leader in tracking and elucidating the current landscape of book bans–have teamed up to offer a four week, online training to help current high schoolers learn how to push back against the book bans impacting their schools, libraries,...

The official trailer for Lionsgate’s Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret adaptation has been released. The new movie is based on Judy Blume’s iconic coming-of-age novel with the same name that follows preteen Margaret Simon as she contends with a new school and longings to fit in. The trailer shows Margaret (played by Abby Ryder Fortson) learning about puberty, joining secrets clubs with friends, and praying for normalcy — all with nostalgic ’70s trappings. Margaret’s mother (played by Rachel McAdams) also tries to adjust to their new surroundings, as...

In addition to a list of the Most Anticipated 2023 horror releases, Goodreads has also released a Most Anticipated list for Science Fiction and Fantasy. They note that 2023 will be a great year for speculative reading, with a mix of releases of very buzzy books and those by popular authors, like Salmon Rushdie, Chloe Gong, Brandon Sanderson, Leigh Bardugo, and Martha Wells. Goodreads assembled the list by looking at a few things — books that had been shelved as “Want to read” by Goodreads members, author fanbase, and buzz....

Self-help has been a booming genre for adults for decades, with books available that can teach us everything from how to boost our self-esteem, overcome addiction, and deal with mental illness to how to actualise our wildest dreams. Adults often buy self-help when we reach a turning point in our lives, or find ourselves in a rut, and want to make some major changes. But what about children? Self-help books for kids are less of a well-known genre than their adult counterparts, because we don’t think of children as having...

Known for his novels exploring the wintry, rural lands of the Northeast including Sweet Hereafter and Affliction, as well as his award-winning work Cloudsplitter, which followed the life of abolitionist John Brown, author Russell Banks was considered by many to follow in the footsteps of other American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman. Banks died this weekend in upstate New York at the age of 82. Born in Massachusetts and spending most of his childhood there and in New Hampshire, Banks grew up with a father who worked...