Certainly, it wasn’t because of the subject matter, although I am in a minority in this: Jack the Ripper, the mysterious figure who in 1888 killed (arguably) five women in the Whitecapel part of London, entered almost immediately into the popular imagination, and his stature there has only grown larger in the 100+ years that have passed. There is a staggering amount of attention given over to Jack the Ripper....

Where to Start With Science Fiction C.J. Cherryh Books Would you rather read some fantasy? While most C.J. Cherryh books are science fiction — and her longest series fall under that — she has written some fantasy! There are more than 20 novels considered to be in this series, but most were purposefully written to be read in any order, and you can read as many or as few as you like to still enjoy this massive take on Earth’s future....

Who is Emily Dickinson? An inventive and wildly original writer, Dickinson (1830-1886) was known to be somewhat reclusive. She was very prolific, writing almost 1,800 poems, but hardly any were published until after her death. Much of her writing was found after she died by her sister, Lavinia, but even then, her poetry was often altered by editors before it was published. Dickinson’s poetry was quite different than the established poetic standard of 19th century American literature....

And yet, somehow, Hurston’s words kept coming back to me over the years, snatches of the book made real in my life. In fact, at some point, I had to admit that the vehemence of my dislike was probably tied to the vividness with which her characters and moments were rendered in the first place. So, a few years ago, I decided to give Zora a try once more. I went back to Their Eyes Were Watching God and then on to Every Tongue Got to Confess and found them not only to be gorgeously written, but deeply resonant, especially as a Black woman living in America....

But there is a gap (gasp!) in my collection. This summer, my daughter turns seven. And though I didn’t experience menarche until I was 13, there are some kids who enter puberty as early as eight years old. And god knows I don’t want Em to be blindsided by blood in her underwear or other bodily changes. And so, I recently did what any mildly obsessed mother would do: I went in search of the best puberty books for kids....

There is a category of books that I do not really talk about, and not for lack of having enjoyed them. Across comics and prose, these are the ones I do not want to share because I liked them too much. Sometimes a story, a character, a tone resonates so much with you that it becomes hard to talk about. I am more than willing to talk about certain comics that have had a very deep impact on me, the way I see the world, or the way I interact with it....

Twin sisters Sunshine and Margot are as different as chalk and cheese, but what they do have in common is a complete lack of luck when it comes to love. Emotionally stunted by a mother who dropped everything to follow boyfriend after boyfriend, the sisters have ever only had each other for support and to share a pint of post-heartache ice cream. When Margot, an etiquette specialist, is hired to work with Bianca, an icon from Hollywood’s Golden Age with romantic entanglements of her own, she and Sunshine become the daughters she never had, and their friendship teaches them how to embrace the quirks that make them unique, and how to demand the love they deserve just as they are....

Soon, though, these men and women would have the chance to join the largest literary project in American history: the Federal Writers’ Project. For eight years, the FWP would support the work of luminaries (Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, and John Cheever, to name a few) as well as thousands of other writers. The FWP created a huge archive of individual stories and fading local cultures that defined Americana in the early twentieth century....

Yes, we all die and technically run out of reading time, so it isn’t that imaginary, but I’m really not thinking about that. I’m just staring at my list of unread books, and they are demanding. They’re loud. Immediate. Needy. The books I’ve already read are quiet. Cozy. Snoozing. Even the ones that have burrowed under my skin, that I carry around with me, they tell me I’ve already charted them....

Even if you don’t consider the Bee itself prime-time viewing, perhaps you’ve watched the 2006 movie Akeelah and the Bee or seen one of the numerous spelling bee documentaries released since 2000. Heck, maybe you even caught the 2005 Broadway musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Our culture is infatuated with spelling bees and, in particular, the grand dame of them all, the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee....

With Kenny were a number of strangers, and when Blumberg asked who they were and what they were doing at his house, they announced themselves as the FBI and that, upon finishing their warranted search of his home, Blumberg would be arrested. Behind the doors of 116 N. Jefferson Street, an old, red-bricked home sitting atop a hill, was an entire floor packed with antiques, including records, paintings, laps, and rugs....

Book clubs can take on tons of different forms. There’s the simple idea of “buddy reading,” where a group of people (as small a group as just two buddies!) decide to read the same book at the same time. There are online book clubs like Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge, where readers follow prompts to help them stretch their reading wings and read more diversely, or the likes of the Belletrist Book Club or Girls Night In, where the whole community reads one selection once per month....

I’d love to do Comic Cons more often, but being a single parent to a toddler does not exactly lend itself to travel around the country to various cons (nor does my wallet). So in the meantime, I have to content myself with reading comics and books that remind me of cons/the spirit of cons. Here are my favorites. Dark Horse Anthologies Dark Horse has put out several anthologies that I really love about geekdom and cons: The Secret Loves of Geek Girls, The Secret Loves of Geeks, and the newest one, Pros and (Comic) Cons....

Polyamory is the practice of engaging in a romantic relationship with more than one partner, with the consent of all parties involved. While there are certainly YA books that depict a teen character engaging in multiple romantic relationships, the most common narrative is that the person with multiple partners hasn’t informed their other partners of this, which is not ethical. I think there are a few reasons for why there aren’t more depictions of polyamory in YA, but most likely it’s because polyamorous relationships haven’t quite been accepted into mainstream society and pop culture....

When we decided to make Toni Morrison the focus of our first Riot Reading Day, I’d been kicking around the idea of re-reading all nine of her novels for a couple years already. “Kicking around” being the operative phrase in that sentence. I liked the idea of the project–and I find something really valuable about reading an author’s body of work in chronological order–but I was scared of it, too....

Nevertheless, she taught Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown” for many years. It is a tale about a Puritan who leaves his beautiful young wife for the night. He goes into the woods in search of good and evil. Young Goodman Brown is upstanding, publicly pious, and somewhat innocent for someone knee-deep in 1690s New England. He is also fascinated by the devil. Like many young men, religious or not, he has been socialized to battle the righteous battle, even when there is nothing there to fight....

One common response to this increase in censorship attempts is that nothing makes people want to read a book more than it being banned. Also known as the Streisand effect, the idea is that book bans will actually make those book more popular and sell more copies. It’s a comforting thought, but it’s misleading. For one thing, in a list of 850 titles, no single book is getting a boost in popularity through word of mouth or media coverage: they all blend together....

Thrillers! You chill, you thrill, you love that good, good suspense. The distinction between thriller vs. horror is often a matter of how slowly the killer creeps toward their unsuspecting victim. That’s what thrillers are all about: the mounting tension that builds to a crescendo. A good thriller will draw out the agony as long as possible, but what it probably won’t do is toss in a ghost. Not a real one, anyway....

Toni Morrison was an American novelist, essayist, book editor, and college professor who wrote multiple novels, children’s books, short stories, plays, and essays that would change the literary world forever. But who was Toni Morrison? Here are facts about Morrison that will show you (or remind you) just how significant this author and her work is. 1. Toni Morrison was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford Morrison was born on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio, to parents Ramah and George Wofford....

So what do we do when we love Sailor Moon and want everyone else to know about it? Well, we buy a bunch of cute Sailor Moon stuff, of course. From clothing to bookmarks to home decor to jewelry, there are so many different ways to express your love for Sailor Moon. Here are some of the cute, beautiful, and fun Sailor Moon items you can buy on Etsy right now, just in time for Sailor Moon‘s 30th anniversary....