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Novel Gazing is your destination for all things literary fiction, bringing you news from the world of fiction, and recommendations for under the radar reads, works in translation, buzzy books, and more. Stay in the know, expand your TBR and your view of literary fiction, and, of course, have some laughs with hosts Mary Kay McBrayer and Louise Johnson. Novel Gazing is a biweekly show available wherever you get your podcasts–go listen to episode one now!...

Read More 7 Books to Read in Honor of the 30th Anniversary of the ADA The second book in Beacon’s Revisioning History series, this is an overview of disability in what is now the U.S. from pre-1492 to the present. You may not have known about the extent of ableist laws in U.S. history: eugenics, sterilization programs, institutions, and the ugly laws, which punished people with certain disabilities for appearing in public....

If you don’t already have your Independent Bookstore Day planned, here are a handful of things you can do to celebrate all the reasons to love them. Stop By (Obviously) This one is a given, but it’s hands-down the best way to show your appreciation. Plus, you’ll probably catch some fun Independent Bookstore Day events—even some kid-friendly, pet-friendly ones. In fact, stop by as many shops as you can. After all, the beauty of independent bookstores is that each one is a unique experience....

Reluctant Royals Series by Alyssa Cole Alyssa Cole build out a beautiful world based on not only romantic relationships, but also based on friendships. With each new book in the Reluctant Royals series, we get to experience a different story from each member of this vast (and expanding) friend group. My favorite bestie situation is between Ledi and Portia, but I love how Nya gets folded in, how Reggie comes to feature in....

Book Riot is teaming up with Macmillan’s Nightfire newsletter for a chance to win a Horror Lover’s prize pack containing a $200 Visa gift card and copies of the following: The Living Dead by George Romero and Daniel Kraus, Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Slewfoot by Brom, Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, and The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward. Simply sign up for the Nightfire newsletter and fill out the form here to be entered to win....

Flight Girls by Noelle Salazar (July 2) Audrey Coltrane has always wanted to fly. It’s why she implored her father to teach her at the little airfield back home in Texas. It’s why she signed up to train military pilots in Hawaii when the war in Europe began. And it’s why she insists she is not interested in any dream-derailing romantic involvements, even with the disarming Lieutenant James Hart, who fast becomes a friend as treasured as the women she flies with....

Books That Remind Me of Audrey Hepburn’s Roman Holiday Bella Figura: How to Live, Love, and Eat the Italian Way by Kamin Mohammadi Bella Figura follows a year in Mohammadi’s life after she packs up her life in England and takes the chance to move to Italy. This self-help memoir will transport readers into the heart of Florence as Mohammadi tries traditional Italian recipes, takes long strolls down cobblestone streets, makes friends with the quirky neighbors around her flat, and embraces the easy-going culture of Italy....

I also enjoy that, in these particular comics, you don’t have a list of ingredients, a few instructions, and then a picture perfect snapshot of the final dish; pages and panels in comic cookbooks show you what shapes various ingredients should be, how to perform a technique you may be attempting for the first time, or why, exactly, you need to add this before that. Flipping through these comics is a lot like watching the old school cooking shows I loved in college....

Another note: There aren’t many quality seek and find books out there that I have found, and it seems that the market of excellent seek and find books for the youngest readers are dominated by male authors, and especially white male authors, hence their overrepresentation on this list. My Big Wimmelbooks: Cars and Things That Go by Stefan Lohr (ages 2–5) The My Big Wimmelbooks series are, by far, my favourite seek and find books....

A startling and timely debut, Julie Carrick Dalton’s Waiting for the Night Song, read by Barrie Kreinik, is a moving, brilliant story about friendships forged in childhood magic and ruptured by the high price of secrets that leave you forever changed. It’s a love song to the natural beauty around us, a call to fight for what we believe in, and a reminder that the truth will always rise. “A beautiful book that is also a hell of a read....

This novel brilliantly folds issues of race, complicated parental relationships, and neurodiversity into a fun and so sexy romp that is, above all else, fun from start to finish. Whether it’s publishing or law, watching high-powered women in action is always fun. Thank goodness for ballsy, talented authors like Stacey Abrams (writing under the pen name Selena Montgomery) who insist on doing so, and put POC heroines at the center....

Hello friends! For this last Friday of Pride Month, let’s get in some SFF with genderfluid characters.

Darcy Wells would rather spend her life between the pages of books than deal with the crushing reality of her mother’s hoarding. While Darcy is struggling to survive under the weight of mother’s compulsive shopping, Asher Fleet, former teen pilot with an unexpectedly shattered future, walks into her local bookstore . . . and into her heart. For the first time in her life, Darcy doesn’t have the right words....

Short Stories for Fans of Black Mirror “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury In the same classic vein as Black Mirror, “The Veldt” shows how technology that is seemingly the stuff of dreams can go terribly, terribly wrong. The Hadley family lives in what today we’d likely refer to as a smart home—anything that needs doing, the home does, including babysitting. The nursery keeps the children entertained for hours and hours, bringing any place they can imagine to life....

I’ve rounded up seven great new literary biographies for you to check out. They cover writers from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, and include famous writers and relatively unknown ones. Take a look at the list and see if you find any you want to add to your TBR! Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and RAdical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry Lorraine Hansberry is best known for her play A Raisin in the Sun, and a lot of readers don’t know much about her beyond that....

Destiny’s Embrace By Beverly Jenkins Series: Destiny A lot of people I know, whether they frequent historical romance or not, have read Beverly Jenkins’ Old West trilogy, which concludes with Tempest—the one where the wealthy mail-order bride shoots her doctor husband before actually meeting him. If you haven’t read any of those, definitely check them out. But the first Beverly Jenkins series I read was Destiny—Destiny’s Embrace, Destiny’s Surrender, and Destiny’s Captive....

From an unflinching look at Silicon Valley to a behind-the-scenes glimpse of royal life, here are seven highly entertaining and insightful nonfiction books to check out in 2020. Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis by Ada Calhoun (January 7, 2020) Despite having a solid career and being married with children, Gen X-er Ada Calhoun found herself miserable—and surrounded by other similarly aged women who seemed to feel the same way....

However, there is another fact that is not half as discussed or accepted: the consequences of this crisis disproportionally affect vulnerable communities. Ironically, these are mostly communities that have had no hand in the creation of the issues we’re dealing with; yet they’re the ones who have to bear the brunt of them. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, people were in uproar when a rebuilding plan was announced — one that meant predominantly white parts of New Orleans would be rebuilt, while predominantly Black parts would not....