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An ex-boyfriend introduced me to spoken word, in the form of the United States Poetry Slam competitions on YouTube. The boyfriend himself later ghosted me (ironic given his love of the strong feminist voices that pushed him down the rabbit hole of slam videos), but my affection for this format has remained through the years. A particular video, ‘Say No’, featured Olivia Gatwood and Megan Falley in the early days of their poetry careers, roaring for feminist justice and telling truths that, in my guilted Catholic world, tasted like freedom....

The Texas Book Festival The first festival I remember loving is the Texas Book Festival in Austin, Texas. It’s free and its mission is to “inspire Texans of all ages to love reading,” which is an excellent reason to organize any bookish event. While I am not a Texan myself, I appreciated being among Texans who love good writers and good writing. Despite living in Austin for years, I only made it to the festival once....

Resources will also be distributed through a wide range of partners in the US and globally, including community providers serving vulnerable families through Sesame Street in Communities and PBS stations.” Take a stroll down Sesame Street with all the free ebooks! “Teresa Mlawer was a Cuban immigrant who quickly made a huge difference in the Hispanic community; she was one of the most respected figures in Spanish publishing. She and her husband, Bill founded Lectorum Publications in NYC, a pioneer in the Latin publishing world in the United States and where I met my beloved husband, Arde, in 1990....

These books are all super fun and I didn’t think I would love them, but here we are. My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag … and Other Things You Can’t Ask Martha by Jolie Kerr. First of all: Best cover (and title) ever, amirite? Jolie Kerr writes and podcasts about being a clean person, and after reading her book, you better believe I’m her newest fangirl. She covers each room/area of the house and what sort of daily clean vs....

By then, the New Yorker was transitioning to the new Condé Nast tower, but before it moved, I would pass by the old building à la Lloyd Dobler, imagining the old offices with their Thurber drawings and cigarette-smoke ghosts. I idolized its fact-checkers. I read compilations of old “Talk of the Town” columns. Tell me I’m not alone here. Inevitably, to learn more about my crush, I turned to the heaps of memoirs and biographies written about the magazine....

I’ve never thought the purpose of reading fiction was to “relate” to the tale being told or see myself in the characters. I did read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing about 65 times as a young boy because, like Peter Hatcher, I too had annoying little brothers. High Fidelity was my jam about a decade ago, right as I developed an interest in collecting vinyl. But really, is that all?...

I didn’t have a lot of money growing up, but one area where my family splurged was magazines. If you found a good coupon or subscription pack, you could get a bunch of monthlies for a reasonable price. But even beyond the mail, we’d scour book sales and garage sales for old issues and grab them for a song. Fewer and fewer subscriptions had my name on them after high school, and it wasn’t until recently I ordered a quarterly magazine....

Pack your wagons, find your ride-or-(literally) die friends, and roll up to Matt’s General Store with a sack of cash—it’s time to hit the Oregon Trail, twenty-first-century style! …And Then You Die of Dysentery is the perfect send-up to the sometimes frustrating, always entertaining, and universally beloved Oregon Trail computer game. Featuring a four-color design in the game’s iconic 8-bit format, alongside pop culture references galore, the book offers 50 humorous, snarky life lessons gleaned from the game’s most iconic moments—it’s the ultimate trip down memory lane ....

A mesmerizing debut by Chip Cheek, Cape May explores the social and sexual mores of 1950s America through the eyes of a newly married couple. It’s late September 1957 when Henry and Effie, young newlyweds from Georgia, arrive in Cape May, New Jersey, for their honeymoon. There they meet a glamorous set of people who sweep them up into their drama. The empty beach town becomes their playground, where Henry and Effie slip from innocence into betrayal....

Best-selling photographer Beth Moon’s intimate portraits capture a startling range of emotions and personalities, underscored by excerpts from literature. A martial Spanish White Face is flanked by a passage from Beowulf; a fantastical Buff-Laced Polish, by a line from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland; and a refined Blue Polish, by a character sketch from Swann’s Way. With a foreword by Isabella Rossellini and an afterword by Jane Goodall, Literary Chickens is the perfect gift for the book lover on your list....

One of the reasons we decided to have a Kurt Vonnegut day this month was the release of several Vonnegut-related books. Only one of them, though, includes previously unpublished Vonnegut fiction. We Are What We Pretend to Be includes a novella Vonnegut wrote under a pseudonym in the 1940s, well before his first published work, and an unfinished novel, If God Were Alive Today. The good folks at Vanguard Press supplied us with 10 copies to give away to you guys, so if you want one, fill out the form below to be entered in the drawing....

Then came the dark days, aka season two. Flockhart left. Supergirl spontaneously decided she didn’t have a crush on the black leading man anymore and ditched him for the most annoying new character in the universe. Not even Tyler Hoechlin’s very excellent Superman could keep me interested. By the time the fourth season rolled around, I was willing to give the show another chance. Why? That is 100% thanks to the addition of Nia Nal, a transgender character played by transgender actress Nicole Maines....

Proclaimed a best book of the year by BuzzFeed, Bustle, NPR, and Paste, Tomi Adeyemi’s #1 New York Times-bestselling novel Children of Blood and Bone has taken the world by storm. Entertainment Weekly calls it “a phenomenon” and USA Today says it’s “impossible to put down.” Now the phenomenon continues in Children of Virtue and Vengeance, the stunning sequel that everyone is talking about. Debuts are exciting and anticipation-worthy things, right?...

Lin-Manuel Miranda, a pandemic hero, announced this A.M. on Good Morning America that the filmed version of Hamilton will be released on Disney+ on July 3, over a full year ahead of the original expected theatrical release. Our Hamilton film. THIS July 3rd. On Disney+.#Hamilfilm pic.twitter.com/cXTM949hRr — Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) May 12, 2020 That’s right. Disney has effectively scrapped the planned theatrical run for a streaming-only offering in a move expected to serve Disney well given the current landscape for movie theatres....

In a statement, Haymarket shared that the ebooks will be available for free for the next two weeks in an effort to support those whose lives have been disrupted by the COVID-19 outbreak. “Our gratitude and solidarity extends especially to those workers and communities on the front lines of this crisis, and we encourage those who are able to stay at home and follow CDC guidelines. Many of us will be turning to books in search of much-needed relief from constant worry as well as the tools to fight for collective liberation....

This sounded like fun. I’ll get into an argument with anyone who looks down on genre fiction, YA included. I probably read half a dozen YA books every year, and it sounded a lot more fun than Chaucer (sorry, Canterbury Tales fans). I don’t believe in blow-off classes, but of all the books we were reading, I’d read all but one at least once. What I didn’t expect was how much I would learn about these books that I’d already read at least once....

For example, I could tell you that my head hurts. It would be accurate enough. I could even say that it feels like a dull throb, a splitting headache, or a 5 on a scale of 1–10. But none of these describes what, specifically, the pain feels like. I used to have a body not in pain, and now I have a body in pain. It has changed my body, and so it has changed my relationship to my body, and so it has changed the things I notice and the way I move through the world....

But seeing all of these stores has also been incredibly frustrating at times. Many of the bookstores I’ve visited don’t have a romance section, and some of them don’t even carry romance titles. Mysteries are everywhere, fantasy occupies lots of shelf space, and if you’re looking for YA or middle grade titles, indie bookstores across the U.S. are here for you. But romance lovers are often out of luck....

But as I grew up, I started feeling a sense of disconnect with the Bengali literature that I read, owing mostly to the decline in writing in regional languages and a consequent dearth of contemporary narratives. Another reason for my eventual discontentment with Bengali literature was the underrepresentation of women writers. I swooned over Ashapurna Devi’s strong women, Mahashweta Devi’s fiery writing, and Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s hilarious travelogues, but in context of the vastness of Bengali literature from the 19th, 20th, and early 21st centuries, women’s perspectives were few and far between....

In honour of that, here are 5 novels that represent real people well, allowing the reader to “meet” strangers through their in-depth characterization. These books are like a sort of hello being exchanged between reader and character: you meet, experience their lives, and by the end, saying goodbye hurts. The depth of writing can immerse the reader in a way that is truly enthralling because you genuinely care. These people represent people you know, or people you’ve seen....