Books

The Downers Grove Public Library in Illinois had planned to hold a Drag Queen Bingo event October 11th, to recognize National Coming Out Day. It has since been cancelled after the library received threats. The library was mailed a letter from “Your Friends at Maga” with a confederate flag, a note that says “[F-slur] Lover

On the surface, Shay Evans has it all; a more than comfortable middle-class existence funded by financier husband Cal; free time to enjoy the Texas countryside and the space to work on her writing. The reality is somewhat different; Shay quit her job at The Slice six months ago and has barely written a word

Last week, I put together a combined list of the biggest bestseller lists to see where they line up and where they differ. It looks like I wasn’t the only one curious about this, so here it is again for a new week! This time, I’ve used the Amazon Charts page, both Nonfiction and Fiction

In Nicky Shearsby’s new psychological thriller Green Monsters first-person narrator Stacey Adams makes no secret of her hatred for her married older sister, Emma. Emma is a successful businesswoman, lives in a huge house with dishy husband Jason and a toddler daughter, has a designer wardrobe, yada-yada-yada. Perfect, in other words. Emma’s every remark seems

In her third novel, Our Missing Hearts, the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere delivers a timely dystopian tale about Bird Gardner, a 12-year-old boy who is desperately trying to hold on to memories of his mother from before she left their family. Bird, who is called Noah by

Books are an ideal helpmate when dealing with mental health issues. I don’t mean self-help books, although they can certainly help if you like them. I mean books in general: literary and genre fiction, nonfiction, poetry. To be clear, books aren’t a substitute for professional help. But they can be an addendum: there is a

British author Guy Morpuss was a barrister and QC, and saw some unusual cases during his 30-year legal career, but certainly none so strange as the one he crafts in Black Lake Manor. His second novel after Five Minds, it’s a dark, complex mystery, set in the future with time travel, spooky elements and even

Since the early 1990s, Jeremiah Moss has lived in—and fiercely loved—New York City. In 2007, the poet and psychoanalyst launched the blog Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, which became the foundation for 2017’s well-received Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul. In blog and book, Moss bemoaned the damaging outcomes of hypergentrification. Five

“Moms for Liberty” and similar groups say that they are fighting for “parents’ rights” by trying to remove books from schools. They claim to speak for all parents. The truth is, though, that most parents (and people in general) do not support book bans. When given the choice to opt their children out of access

Whenever the theme of love intersects with crime fiction, not only will hearts be broken but blood will be spilled. And so it is this week in our news column as we bring you a fairytale wedding gone wrong with Alex Pine, a kidnapped wife in Lilja Sigurdardóttir’s latest, an angry jilted wife with a

Guided by Dadaism, an art movement that sought to reject logic, author Jon Scieszka and illustrator Julia Rothman turn traditional nursery rhymes on their heads in the playful, subversive The Real Dada Mother Goose.  Nonsense and absurdity take center stage as Scieszka and Rothman spin and twist six evergreen verses inside out and upside down.

It’s almost October, which is prime horror reading season. If you’re preparing to pack your seasonal TBR, now is the time to start exploring the best the genre has to offer. Like many genres, there are a few authors and titles that are classics that show up on every list, like Stephen King’s older works

Five Moves of Doom is the kind of novel we like to point to when we talk about independent publishing and how it feeds vibrant new material into the crime fiction scene. I’m not sure any mainstream publishers would dare touch a book where the main character is ‘Hammerhead’ Jed Ounstead, a private investigator who

Many books have been written about the pressure cooker effect of working in the White House. But as chief speechwriter during some of the most pivotal days of President Barack Obama’s time in office, Cody Keenan has a unique story to tell. In Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America, Keenan

As conservative groups are making their presence known in Canada by proposing book bans, they’re hitting a bit of a road block. Turns out, Canadian school boards have limited control on what is taught in classrooms. Similar to book banning groups in the U.S., conservative groups like ParentsVoice B.C. are targeting books like All Boys

The popular French crime drama Astrid: Murder in Paris is coming to More4 and the subtitled streaming service Walter Presents in October, bringing with it peculiar murders, difficult investigations and an unlikely pair of women sleuths. The first episode of season one will air on More4 at 9pm on Friday 21 October, with all nine

Transcendent Kingdom is one of those rare books that is about so much, and yet fits together flawlessly. Yaa Gyasi tackles science, faith, work, addiction, grief, complicated family relationships, immigrant experiences, race, Black girlhood and womanhood, and more. It is a richly layered novel full of seemingly endless stories, and it is also intensely focused

There’s nothing better than a nice murder to warm the cockles at Christmastime. In fact, the fine tradition of festive homicide has given rise to such literary gems as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, Francis Duncan’s Murder for Christmas, J Jefferson Farjeon’s Mystery in White and CHB Kitchin’s Crime at Christmas, and each year new

Nancy Marie Brown’s Looking for the Hidden Folk: How Iceland’s Elves Can Save the Earth is a fascinating inquiry into the Icelandic belief in elves. Brown has a deep attachment to and knowledge of Iceland, its otherworldly landscape, its people and their beliefs. (She is the author of multiple Nordic cultural histories, and she has

I’ve never met a Tolkien fan who couldn’t use some more Lord of the Rings gifts, and I’ve never seen 10 more perfect Lord of the Rings gifts for LOTR fans than the ones I’ve collected here. Seriously, Tolkien-heads, you’re in for a treat. I’m talking sweatshirts fit for the finest hobbits, Shire cottagecore from

Think life is full of bureaucracy? Try death! According to Therese Beharrie’s A Ghost in Shining Armor, there’s a whole system at work once someone dies to help their soul move on to whatever comes next. For some, this means lingering as ghosts, visible only to rare humans like Gemma Daniels who help them resolve

If you don’t know about Joyce Carol Oates’s tweet history, I envy you. Suffice to say, she’s notorious for going viral with some truly mystifying hot takes. In her latest example, she claims that “fantasy as a genre is fundamentally YA” and misrepresents Ted Chiang as saying that sci-fi is “impersonal, never ‘magical’” and fantasy

When you crack open a new legal thriller by Scott Turow, you know you’re going to be in good hands. In the veteran author’s latest novel, Suspect, the hands he puts you in are those of narrator Clarice ‘Pinky’ Granum, a 33-year-old private investigator working for downmarket lawyer Rik Dudek. Pinky has acquired a bit

For 24 years, Hua Hsu has been carrying around a padded envelope stuffed with memorabilia. Things like “a pack of Export A’s with two cigarettes left,” a funeral program, letters, cassette tapes, receipts, punchlines written on napkins, a paperback copy of Edward Carr’s What Is History? Hsu hastily gathered all of these things and more

What better way to celebrate the season of crisp air, pumpkin spice, butternut squash, juicy apples, plaid, longer nights, and crunchy leaves than with new paperback books? Paperbacks let you tote your latest read around with you like no big deal, and at a lower price point, let you snag more at your local indie

By and large, our enterprising American ancestors hated swamps, which they saw as obstacles to travel and agriculture. In the timeless war between swamp folk and swamp drainers, most were firmly in the latter camp—supported with vigor by the government. Count Annie Proulx as one of the swamp folk at heart. The acclaimed author of

How would a middle schooler navigate an unspeakable tragedy? That’s the subject Liz Garton Scanlon beautifully explores in Lolo’s Light, her second middle grade novel.  Twelve-year-old Millie is thrilled when she gets her first babysitting job. Her older sister isn’t available, so Millie gets to watch their neighbors’ 4-month-old baby, Lolo. The Acostas make the

This week, PEN America released a report on the current state of book bans in the USA. The report discusses the 50+ “parents’ rights” groups operating across the country, both on the national and local levels, and how these groups are responsible or connected to at least half of the book bans that have taken

It’s a very exciting week if you’re a crime fiction lover. New books are coming from established authors and debutantes alike and they involve crows, crime kings and even a crazy president. The latter comes to us care of the prolific American author James Patterson, who has teamed up with Brendan DuBois for Blowback. Meanwhile,

Twelve-year-old Millie is thrilled to work her first babysitting job, but her world turns upside down the morning after, when she learns that her four-month-old charge, Lola, has died of SIDS. In her second middle grade novel, Liz Garton Scanlon beautifully depicts a middle schooler navigating an unspeakable tragedy. Let’s start with this book’s striking