Books

Christina lives in Grangeview, Texas, population 12,000, where she’s used to being one of the only Asian American students in her classes. She’s dealt with teachers who struggle to pronounce her last name and classmates who make fun of her lunch. When she explains that her dad is from Thailand, another student corrects her: “I
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The Norwegian detective William Wisting returns this October as BBC Four airs season two of this popular Nordic noir programme on UK screens for the first time. There are eight episodes to savour, appearing on BBC Four up until 5 November and available to watch here on iPlayer. Wisting is the creation of Norwegian author
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Author Marina Budhos has previously explored the experiences of immigrants, particularly Muslim teens after 9/11, in two acclaimed YA novels, Ask Me No Questions and Watched. We Are All We Have is set in 2019, after the U.S. Department of Justice implemented a zero-tolerance policy toward illegal immigration. The novel follows 17-year-old Rania, whose late
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Gabrielle Blair is the author of Ejaculate Responsibly, a new book out this week described as “moving the abortion debate away from controlling and legislating women’s bodies and instead directs the focus on men’s lack of accountability in preventing unwanted pregnancies.” On October 13th, she tweeted about some “book drama” happening around this title: several
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“No, no, don’t bother yourself with that independently published nonsense.” That’s what the big publishers might want you to think. They have experienced editors and publishers, well-oiled and financed marketing machines and big cheque books (or should that be PayPal accounts, these days?) to lure in the most talented writers. Simon McCleave doesn’t care. With
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This deceptively simple picture book explores the emotions we feel when friendships end. Deborah Underwood’s story focuses on Walter, a rodent-ish fellow with white fur, round ears and a long pink tail. Walter’s best friend is Xavier, a yellow duck-like creature whose feet and flat beak are green. The two friends do everything together. They
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Little Echo lives her life hidden away in the shadows of a cave. The bright yellow creature longs to join the cave’s other inhabitants as they frolic and play, but her terrible timidity keeps her silent and watchful. When someone loud, bold and adventurous stumbles into her cave on a quest for treasure, Little Echo
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Superheroes have been around a long time, and most of the characters and genre conventions are pretty well established. But did every character always look and act the way we expect them to today? In this series, I’ll be looking at the first appearances of iconic superheroes to see what’s familiar, what’s fallen by the
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Light Skin Gone to Waste, Toni Ann Johnson’s sharply observed linked story collection, follows the lives of psychologist Phil Arrington, his second wife, Velma, and their young daughter, Maddie, as they move from the Bronx to suburban Monroe, New York, in the early 1960s. Educated, sophisticated and striving for something different, the Arringtons are also
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Narrated by Clare Corbett and Cristin Atherton — This new crime thriller by KL Slater makes sly metafiction use of the audio medium as its two narrators read the story of Philippa Roberts. Roberts in turn is the best-selling author of nine novels about police detective Jane Tower and audiobook narrator Eve Hewitt. In an
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Marlene dreads Sundays, when she and her mom, Paola, spend most of the day at the salon undergoing the excruciating (and excruciatingly boring) ritual of getting their hair straightened. Marlene, who is Dominican American, has an imagination as vivid and untameable as her naturally curly hair, so she survives each week’s torture session by imagining
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No Plan B is a great title for a Jack Reacher book because, as crime fiction lovers know, Lee Child’s awe-inspiring rogue crime buster knows only one way forward. He doesn’t need a backup plan… or does he? Either way, this force of nature is back in the third collaboration between Lee Child and his
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Author Elaine Castillo proposes an open-minded and inclusive approach to literature and film in her radical, refreshing book on critical thinking, How to Read Now (9 hours). Castillo urges writers and readers to understand that nonwhite characters don’t exist for the sole purpose of teaching empathy to white people, and that the excuse “it was
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So, you made your way through not only “Bridgerton” but every other historical miniseries you could get your hands on, and now you’re faced with the daunting task of picking out a Regency romance novel from approximately one million titles. Don’t worry—we’re here to help. There are tons of terrific books out there, and because
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 The #1 bestselling, award-winning author of Life after Life transports us to a restless London in the wake of the Great War—a city bursting with money, glamour, and corruption—in this spellbinding tale of seduction and betrayal. 1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife.
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If you’ve been reading manga for awhile, you may have begun to wonder about its Korean cousin, manwha, or webtoons. The popularity of different kinds of manga and manwha continue to grow, but there is one genre in particular that stands out: action. Like with manga, action manwha are some of the most popular and
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Translated by Robert Bononno — With 12 million books sold worldwide, Swiss author Joël Dicker is a global success and one of the most popular authors in the French-speaking world. His road to fame began in 2010 when he was awarded the Geneva Writers’ Prize for unpublished manuscripts, and Parisian editor Bernard de Fallois purchased
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Once upon a time, in a galaxy not so far away, the hallowed institution of nerdom became mainstream. No longer are the niche predilections of geeks sequestered to the outskirts of pop culture; these die-hard fans have cultivated a recognized movement that can shift the cultural discourse. But for fans like New York Times critic-at-large
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Hold, the new medical thriller by Amy S Peele is a crime novel that takes place in the interesting and high-stakes world of transplant medicine, which in real-life often involves harrowing drama. The one-word titles of the two previous books in the series, Cut and Match, clearly relate to organ transplantation, but the significance of
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Swedish crime writer Anders Roslund returns with Detective Ewert Grens for the 10th instalment of his gritty crime series set in Stockholm. Grens, now 65, is as depressed and gloomy as ever, and the psychological scars of years of police work are beginning to show. When he inadvertently stumbles across a child pornography ring, he
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