Books

We’ve all heard of the things that go bump in the night, but what about the bogeymen that prey upon you during the day? Daylight horror is a fascinating genre that destroys any illusions of safety in the sunshine. I’ve got 12 daylight horror novels for your summer reading pleasure here. Horror tends to be associated with the dead of the night. That’s when vampires walk among us, werewolves transform, and zombies rise from their graves. It’s also when those oh-so-unlucky camp counselors face off against machete-wielding murderers. And who...

Who here is dreaming of traveling to Italy? *waves hand dramatically* Gimme some of ‘La Dolce Vita’; the sweet life with smooth sunsets, romantic culture, lemons as big as your head, and the most delicious food you can imagine. Oh, take me back to the rolling hills of Tuscany! The cliffs of Cinque Terre! The weaving cobbled streets of Assisi! For centuries, Italy has fed our lofty ideals of the perfect holidays, highlighted in every travel guide you can imagine. The oldest travel guide in the world dates back to...

This week, news broke that the workers at Barnes & Noble’s flagship shop in Union Square, New York City, voted to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) — and not by a small amount. Ninety-seven percent of staff voted in favor of taking part in the union. In the past few months, several other B&N shops voted in favor of unionizing as well, including Barnes & Noble College Booksellers at Rutgers University with RWDSU and Barnes & Noble workers in Hadley, Massachusetts with UFCW Local 1459. “It’s...

The 2023 Lambda Literary Award winners have been announced! This year’s winners were selected by a panel of over 60 judges from the literary world and from more than 1,300 book submissions from over 300 publishers. Now in its 35th year, the Lambda Literary Award is considered one of the most prestigious awards in LGBTQ publishing. The winners were announced live at The Edison Ballroom in New York City on June 9, 2023, marking the first time since 2019 that the ceremony was held in person. In addition to the winners in...

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 state legislatures and, where possible, on the national level. But where and how do we move from advocating against draconian legislation and shift into preparing for those bills to be passed? And when and where...

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 desire to keep sexual content away from children was cited in many complaints by book challengers, sometimes merely featuring queer lives and stories in a nonsexual way was enough for a book to be contested....

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 claims the poem means to “indoctrinate students” and “is not educational.” She also incorrectly lists Oprah Winfrey as the poem’s author, doesn’t specify the parts of the poem that are the source of her complaints,...

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 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Now, this story is heading back to the big screen, but adapted from the musical. It’s directed by...

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 ’90s, and well-known for his books that satirized capitalism and Western society, such as Money: A Suicide Note (1984), London Fields (1989), and The Information (1995). The same day Amis died, an adaptation of his book,...

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. But here’s the most intriguing thing that came out of the pandemic: businesses that are not necessarily bookish in nature also started their own virtual book clubs. One such company is MUDWTR, a coffee brand...

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 representative of the world unless I make a serious effort. One reliable way to naturally encourage diversity is to pay attention to heritage months. Of course, we need Black and Native American literature year round....

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 Emotional Wellness of Children, is a wide-ranging one covering everything from children’s mental health coverage to public libraries. Most pertinent to the ongoing removal of books from public and school libraries, though, is the bill’s...

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, who narrates the trailer. The romance of Burkhart and Mollie Kyle (played by Lily Gladstone) helps tell the film’s story of greed, betrayal, and murder. The movie also stars Robert De Niro and Jesse Clemons,...

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 M. Johnson, Ashley Hope Pérez, and Kyle Lukoff. The suit demands books that were taken out of school libraries be returned, stating that the removal of the books, which discuss LGBTQ+ and racial identities and racism,...