Books

October may be primarily known as spooky season. But to me, it’s also “curl up in a cozy spot and stay indoors with the thickest book you can find” season. As it gets colder outside, I feel like the weather gives me a chance to take things slow and really enjoy the books I read.

Founder of the Nap Ministry Tricia Hersey has created a startling, generous new work in Rest Is Resistance. Grounding her debut book in Black liberation theology, abolitionist traditions and Afrofuturism, Hersey provides a blueprint for rejecting the demands of modern capitalism in favor of our collective health and social progress. Hersey delineates American society as

Welcome, welcome to another edition of Riot Roundup! We’ve asked contributors to share the best comics, graphic novels, and manga they’ve read within the past few months. In this list, you’ll find everything from battles with mental illness to battles with literal devils, journeys of self-discovery and journeys through the cosmos. Some of the stories

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Grandma’s been staying with us since she got sick,” reads the opening line of The Bird Feeder, which gently ushers readers into a difficult, necessary story. “That means now I can visit with her anytime I want,” reads the next line, letting the reader know that, while this story might be sad, there are also

Fall is officially here, and with it, a bounty of new books for your towering TBR. Find here your ultimate guide to books hitting shelves in the final quarter of the year, including brand new books from beloved authors and new voices, standalones to series books, and fiction to nonfiction. There’s something here for every

Cassie Blake, the girl at the heart of Jodi Lynn Anderson’s powerful and timely Each Night Was Illuminated, was raised as a believer in the religious town of Green Valley. She even wanted to grow up to become a nun. But when Cassie was 11 years old, everything changed.  First, Cassie’s mother abandoned her family.

“More” is the key word in a newly released report from PEN America, the free expression group which has been tracking and detailing censorship and gag order bills across the country. The report, which updates their “Banned In the USA” from April, includes new data and information about the rise of book bans in the

Listening to music is a uniquely personal experience. It can evoke strong feelings and memories. It can unite us or be a source of debate. In This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You, Susan Rogers (cognitive neuroscientist and Berklee College of Music professor) and Ogi Ogas (mathematical neuroscientist

Escape, by definition, is rarely easy, and in Uncultured, Daniella Mestyanek Young illustrates just how difficult it can be. Leaving the Children of God, the cult she was born into, and surviving the U.S. Army, a group she chose to enlist in as a young adult, have both left many scars. Lucky for readers, she

Next week begins Banned Books Week, and rather than passively “celebrate” banned books, let’s spend this week regrouping and taking a series of small action steps toward actually curtailing the non-stop assaults on intellectual freedom and First Amendment rights. I’ve pulled together a list of seven action items for the week plus several bonus actions

Renowned filmmaker Werner Herzog has written more than a dozen books and screenplays, but The Twilight World (3.5 hours) is his first novel. Translated by Michael Hofmann and short enough to qualify as a novella, it’s the fictionalized story of Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, the real-life intelligence officer in the Imperial Japanese Army who defended Lubang

It’s still calendar and meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere, but before you know it, the calendar — and the leaves, the temperature, the weather, etc. — will begin their transition into autumn. We’ll be sporting our favorite hoodies with cozy leggings, trading in sunglasses for scarves, and enjoying a delicious warm pumpkin spiced beverage

Comics artist Kate Beaton, creator of the award-winning satirical webcomic “Hark! A Vagrant,” demonstrates her remarkable range and storytelling prowess with her debut graphic memoir, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands. With strong prose and striking art, she captures the complexities of a place often defined by stark binaries: the Alberta oil sands, one

Mary Roach investigates the uneasy relationship that exists between humans and wildlife in Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law. Traveling to India, Vatican City and other locales, she meets with a wide cast of characters that includes predator attack investigators, a bear manager and a human-elephant conflict specialist, all in an effort to understand how

When Orthodox Jewish teen Hoodie Rosen sees a girl dancing on the sidewalk outside the window of his yeshiva classroom, he has no idea that the connection they’ll form will lead them to question everything they believe and change both of their lives forever. Debut novelist Isaac Blum’s The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen

Fifteen-year-old Yehuda “Hoodie” Rosen and his Orthodox Jewish family, along with many members of their community, have recently moved to Tregaron, Pennsylvania, because the cost of living in their previous town became too expensive. When Hoodie meets Anna-Marie Diaz-O’Leary, the daughter of Tregaron’s mayor, he’s instantly smitten. Yet after he and Anna-Marie are spotted cleaning

The America Library Association reported 729 book challenges in 2021 that impacted nearly 1,600 titles, the highest number of challenges the organization has recorded in 20 years. Despite this increase in challenges, only 43% of the librarians who took the School Library Journal’s (SLJ) 2022 Controversial Books Survey reported facing a formal book challenge— which

Lizzie Blake knows that she’s a lot. A lot of energy and enthusiasm. A lot of creativity and vibrant warmth. But also a lot of mess and chaos. Her attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder can make things difficult, given that she lives in a world built for people whose brains don’t function like hers. After a lifetime of

Author Peter Straub died this past Sunday in Manhattan due to complications of a broken hip. Straub, born in Milwaukee on March 2, 1943, was a popular horror novelist with a somewhat unorthodox pedigree— before turning to writing about the fantastical, he had published short collections of poetry. Although he was reluctant to label his