Books

The lights started shortly after Matthew Vollmer’s mother died. It was the fall of 2019, and Vollmer’s father now lived alone, sleeping in the same bed where his wife of decades had released her final breath. He had spent 10 years caring for her as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases slowly took their toll. Now Vollmer,

In the winter, I love to sit in front of the fireplace show on Netflix and cuddle up with a good audiobook. I sip warm tea while listening to something like Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May, narrated by Rebecca Lee. Lee’s soothing voice with May’s comforting words

“I could see why so many stories were set in lighthouses,” thinks Julia, the titular narrator of Julia and the Shark, upon reaching her family’s unusual new home for the summer. “It’s a good place for adventures even before you go inside.” In this illustrated middle grade novel, award-winning British writer Kiran Millwood Hargrave (The

Grace Linn is a 100-year-old widow of a WWII veteran, a grandmother, and a craftivist. On Tuesday, she spoke at a Martin County, Florida school board meeting to protest the removal of 80+ books from the school library. Her statement has gotten a lot of media coverage, and she was later interviewed on MSNBC, Fox

Eb didn’t mean to mess up Flow’s brand-new shoes, and Flow would never hit a girl, but in Kelly J. Baptist’s Eb & Flow, an accident leads to angry words, then a fistfight and then a 10-day suspension from school for seventh graders Ebony (Eb) and De’Kari (Flow). As they stare down two weeks at

Eb didn’t mean to mess up Flow’s brand-new shoes, and Flow would never hit a girl, but in Kelly J. Baptist’s Eb & Flow, an accident leads to angry words, then a fistfight and then a 10-day suspension from school for seventh graders Ebony (Eb) and De’Kari (Flow). As they stare down two weeks at

Ah, to be alive during the Twitter era. It’s a blessing and a curse, isn’t it? On the one hand, you’ve got the thoughts and opinions of millions of people across the globe right at your fingertips. On the other hand, what if those thoughts and opinions are ones you never asked for on topics

Although Leta McCollough Seletzky wasn’t born until eight years after the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she has always been haunted by the photo of that tragic night—one of the most recognizable images of the 20th century. And no wonder, since in it, her then 23-year-old father, Marrell “Mac” McCullough, can be

If you thought we hit “full names in book titles” in YA prior to this seasonal roundup, you’d be wrong. This trend continues to grow, and in the world of spring 2023 YA books, it’s one that will showcase how YA is becoming more thoughtful and intentional when it comes to creating more diverse, inclusive

Little Cap is a shy, anxious mushroom who feels safest when surrounded by the comforts of home and the companionship of his best friend, Gustav, a lovable slug. But one day, Little Cap discovers that the gate of his white picket fence is open and Gustav is nowhere to be found, so he musters his

I am wholeheartedly a word game nerd. I love them. I’m still playing Wordle over a year since I started, and my family’s group chat is still going strong. Recently, on vacation, I heard my mom finish the New York Times mini crossword from the other side of the hotel room by the sound alone.

It’s been six years since Victor LaValle published his acclaimed modern fairy tale, The Changeling. Now the author returns with another fantastical story that could only take place in America. Set in 1914 Montana, Lone Women follows Black homesteader Adelaide Henry, who, after the mysterious death of her parents, flees her home in California with

In the summer of 2016, the speculative magazine Fireside Fiction published #BlackSpecFic: A Fireside Fiction Company Special Report. The findings were deeply troubling: Out of more than 2,000 stories published in 2015 in mainstream paying markets, only 38 were by Black authors. To put it bluntly, that’s less than two percent. The dearth of BIPOC

I don’t believe I’ve ever met a pasta I didn’t like. There are, however, many pasta shapes I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting—yet. In An A–Z of Pasta, Rome-based author Rachel Roddy introduces readers to 50 of them, some of which, like brichetti, are not often found beyond specific Italian regions. (As if I

The winners of the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Awards were announced last night at the New School. Books published in English in 2022 were eligible to win in six categories — Nonfiction, Fiction, Biography, Autobiography, Poetry and Criticism. Additionally, the best first book won the John Leonard Prize award, and this year is the

In previous bestselling, award-winning books such as The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Wonderstruck and The Marvels, author-illustrator Brian Selznick has centered his richly imagined, deeply cinematic stories on children growing up alone and navigating worlds both dangerous and wonderful. Selznick explores similar themes in Big Tree, but this novel’s children aren’t human; they’re the seeds

For years, hundreds of high-profile manuscripts — including early versions of books by Margaret Atwood and Sally Rooney — were stolen in a phishing scheme. The most puzzling part of the case was that nothing seemed to come from these thefts; uthe manuscripts were not leaked or sold, as far as anyone could tell. So