Books

A new Missouri law has made it a misdemeanor for a school employee to provide “explicit sexual material” to minors, which could come with up to a year in jail and $2000 in fines. The law applies to images only, such as in graphic novels, and does not apply to material with “serious artistic significance,”

Every once in a while we all need some sweet, low-stakes reads to lift our moods. There are plenty of stories and genres capable of doing that, but there’s something about slice-of-life that stands out. It probably has something to do with the fact that these stories are so quotidian that it’s easy to see

In case you missed it, at the halfway point of the year, Goodreads made lists of the overall best books of the year so far as well as the most popular books in several genres, including historical fiction. These books were selected because of positive early reviews from Goodreads users as well as the number

Boring book opinions are all alike; every controversial book opinion is controversial in its own way. Or something like that, anyway. I dunno, ask Tolstoy if I’ve captured the spirit of his famous line. I actually don’t believe it, though. The truth is that there is a very fine line between a controversial book opinion

Growing up, I read Harriet the Spy over and over. Each time I finished the book, I started back over and gave it another reread. I found such satisfaction in this story about a flawed young detective who struggles to make friends and manage her writer-y aspirations. In a lot of ways, I saw myself

I might be landlocked in the middle of Iowa but that doesn’t mean I don’t need a good bookish beach towel. Why, just a few weeks ago I went to a family get-together at a state park with a body of water in it. And as my brother-in-law said at the time, that body of

If you’re someone who, like me, is an Elder born in the 1900s, you probably remember the early days of self-publishing. For those of you who don’t, it was a dark time. People were throwing their LiveJournals into .epub format and calling it a memoir, there was little-to-no editing, and anyone who wanted to write

The world, to say the very least, has been very challenging lately. And that won’t be changed by a fast and/or easy fix at all. So, I’ve been making it a point to find joy wherever I can because, yay, serotonin boosts. One thing that has always brought me happiness is music and I often

One of the things I love the most about Star Wars is that there are so many stories in the galaxy. There are so many characters, so many stories, and such a rich history available that the possibilities are endless (I’m of the opinion that you can never have too many SW books, shows, or

There is not a wrong time to read some great witchy YA books. That said, there is something particularly good about reading new witchy YA books as the seasons begin to shift toward shorter days and nights. Lighting a candle and cracking open the windows to dig into a story about people who have magic

As the new school year kicks off — or is already in progress in many places — it’s worth taking a look at the states which have enacted laws that ban books. This guide is not comprehensive, but gives an overview of the legislation currently on the books that will impact how teachers and librarians

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On March 12, 2022, four editors from two Big 5 publishing houses, all mid-level employees, publicly announced their resignations on Twitter. “It’s funny how it happened because I think it was three or four of us who quit on the same day. We definitely didn’t plan it, even though it was a big moment on

For Pride month, Penguin Random House installed billboard with quotes from LGBTQ books in New York City, Chicago, Dallas, Austin, Orlando, and Miami. While New York City and Chicago are cities that PRH would regularly advertise in, they specifically chose cities in Texas and Florida because of both the increase in bans and challenges against

Welcome to another edition of Riot Roundup, where we ask our contributors to share the best comics and graphic novels they read in the last quarter. Some are ongoing series, others standalone favorites. Get ready to add to your pull lists! Now I know what you’re thinking: hey Book Riot, aren’t your Riot Roundups usually

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The news roundup this week is minimal because of the holiday, which is both worth celebrating and worth being wary of. This summer, right-wing groups across the country are planning their fall strategies for censorship, and it is already gearing up to be a season worse than this last school year. Rather than a rundown

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The best fantasy series (audiobooks especially!) can take us out of the world we live in and introduce us to perspectives we perhaps hadn’t considered before. The role of fantasy (and sci-fi), after all, is to allow us to explore new ideas and worlds we cannot yet reach on our own. Similarly, audiobooks allow readers

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‘Yu-Gi-Oh!’ creator Kazuki Takahashi was found dead off the coast of Nago in Okinawa on Wednesday after what appears to have been a snorkeling trip. The 60-year-old manga artist was wearing a T-shirt and snorkeling gear, including an underwater mask, snorkel, and fins. Takahashi is best known for his series Yu-Gi-Oh!, which started as a

I keep a close watch on LGBTQ new releases both for writing Our Queerest Shelves, Book Riot’s queer books newsletter, as well as for my sapphic book blog, the Lesbrary. One thing I’ve noticed in recent years is that July has become a less prolific month for queer book new releases: many of the bigger

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The HarperCollins union represents over 250 employees in various divisions of the company, from legal to design to editorial and sales. They have been in negotiations since December of 2021, and the process was made more complicated by HarperCollins recently acquiring the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt trade division. The union says HarperCollins will not allow the

Ah, summer reading. What some consider the best time of year to be a reader, summer is undoubtedly reading season. Even if you’re not taking a vacation (or staycation, at that), there is an indescribable air to the summer months that you can loosen up a bit and read whatever you want. Much of the

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One of the best things about reading nonfiction is that it reminds me just how big and weird this world we live in is. I read a lot of nonfiction that tackles big ideas about language, history, current affairs, and identity. But I’ve recently come to love another kind of nonfiction — books that explore

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