Yes, classic chocolate chip cookies are fun to make, but there’s a whole world of cookie options out there. The best place to start that adventure is with these cookie cookbooks that are easy to follow and fun to explore. Here are 7 sweet cookbooks all about baking cookies. The Cookie Book: Decadent Bites for Every Occasion by Rebecca Firth This cookbook has every cookie recipe you would ever want....

Considering what everyone has gone through over the last two years, I think we all could benefit from reading about trauma and recovery. Coping mechanisms and how to get back in touch with our bodies and ourselves. This book’s popularity is testament to just how much the world agrees with me. The Body Keeps the Score has been on has been on the best seller list for nonfiction for 140+ weeks, over 20 of them at number 1....

With the U.S. elections approaching, you may be having a lot of conversations about preferences and making the best decisions. To conduct a productive conversation with someone, it is important to educate yourself first. Here is a reading list of books about democracy in its various forms to get you started. What Makes a Democracy? Equality in Voting and Inclusion Everyone has a right to vote, and effective participation in the government is the cornerstone of every democracy....

A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney Let’s start this list with a modern reimagining of one of the classic portal fantasies: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In this telling, Wonderland is literally a home for Nightmares, monsters forged by humans that can cause mayhem in our world. Alice is skilled in killing these Nightmares, but saving the world is a full-time job. And her real world commitments (school, friends, her mom) may have to take a backseat when Wonderland’s darkness begins to spread....

The relative lack of New Year’s Eve romance novels is somewhat confusing. There is something magical about New Year’s Eve, after all. The sense of possibility is irresistible: that’s what leads so many of us to make resolutions that, like clockwork, are usually abandoned sometime in mid-January. Reasonably, we know that the world won’t magically change because the calendar gives us a new number. We won’t suddenly develop a better work ethic, clearer skin, or go from being a couch potato to running a half-marathon on January 1....

What does this profession promise that despite its many pitfalls still tempts so many? While writing can often be a lonely business, so many people have vouched for the fact that they cannot imagine themselves doing anything else. What promise does this profession hold that allures so many? Here, I have curated a list of novels about the lives of writers who try to explore these areas in their own capacity....

Charlaine Harris, the New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, is back with an all-new alternate history thriller, The Russian Cage (on sale Feb. 23). This new book in her Gunnie Rose series gives readers everything they adore from Charlaine Harris—romance, thrills, supernatural—and takes Lizbeth Rose, her “sharp-as-nails, can-do heroine,” on a new adventure from the American west to the Holy Russian Empire. The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee The Brown Sisters by Talia Hibbert These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi Earthsinger Chronicles by L....

But not every book-based musical has the longevity of, say, The Wizard of Oz. For every mega-smash, there are plenty of musicals that have faded away until only the theater nerds remember them. Maybe it’s because they’re not that good, or maybe they didn’t have a big-name celebrity or a big-budget movie adaptation to keep them in the public consciousness. Or maybe it’s just the fickle finger of fate working its flighty magic....

Ancillary Justice meets Red, White & Royal Blue in Winter’s Orbit, Everina Maxwell’s gut-wrenching and romantic debut. A famously disappointing royal and the Emperor’s least favorite grandchild, Prince Kiem is summoned before the Emperor and commanded to renew the empire’s bonds with its newest vassal planet. To do this, he must marry Count Jainan, the recent widower of another royal prince of the empire…who may have been murdered. Their successful marriage will align conflicting worlds....

Someone once pointed out to me that vampires represent both humanity’s longing for immortality and our fear of the Tantalean. They’re constantly ravenous, but their hunger cannot be satiated. They’re permanently dehydrated, but can never quench their thirst. They’re always horny, but…well, you get the picture. That’s the trade-off vampires take to live forever: eternal dissatisfaction. If vampires are really about how we all want to live forever in cursed debauchery, it makes sense that they sprang back to deathly life in the last decade....

Fans of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Fever 1793, Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, and Katherine Paterson’s Lyddie—this riveting historical fiction YA novel is for you. Sixteen-year-old Orpha is imprisoned in the infamous Tothill prison for crimes she did not commit and harbors a terrible secret about the man who put her there. When an unusual invitation from Charles Dickens arrives, she finds the way out of the broken cycle of poverty and crime she was longing for....

Meet your new reading buddy: an all-in-one spot to record everything and anything book related. Inspired by bullet journaling, Book Marks offers ideas for setting up a multitude of book tracking pages with a mix of fill-in prompts, charts, lists, and plenty of dot-grid pages to customize. To help expand your literary horizons, the journal also includes a section of recommended reading lists compiled by Book Riot. Use Book Marks to jot down what you’re currently reading, what’s on your nightstand, your favorite quotes, new vocabulary words, memorable characters, your reviews of recent reads, and more....

For a lot of people, some less idealized version of this is their reality. Suburb life. But sometimes, it’s not always what it seems. Family secrets, haunted houses, monsters with pointed teeth. These things don’t go “Never mind!” at the sight of a self-built dog house and some manicured shrubbery. No, the suburbs are not immune to the monsters of elsewhere. Thus, the suburban horror subgenre was born. Whether you’re from the suburbs and want a little reminder of the horrors you could find lurking next door, or you get a little satisfaction at stories that prove the suburbs aren’t so great, here are eight suburban horror novels to dig into!...

So what is the death positive movement? Built upon death centered movements reaching back as far as the 1970s, this modern iteration is focused on removing the fear around death. It aims to show that it’s not morbid to talk about death in “polite society,” but in fact is part of living in a healthy society. The movement works to educate others on their options around death, fights to ensure that people have a right to choose how they die, and that they have access to those choices....

My love for Hindu Mythology books is thanks to fellow Book Rioter, Senjuti. Last year, she shared a list of 15 of The Best Indian Mythology Books for Children. Senjuti’s list was built on careful consideration for the tone and historical representation in stories she had grown up with. Books such as We Come from the Geese by Ruby Hembrom and Boski Jain lift the voices of the Indigenous peoples of India, shining a light on stories previously absorbed into the mainstream....

Subscription boxes are such a great, consistent way to treat yourself. Having one (or a couple, if this list has anything to do with it), feels like getting a little gift every month. It’s especially nice when you forget it’s coming, then it’s like you get this little surprise present and your mood instantly rises. And, let’s be real, instant mood boosters are a constant need these days cries in “I just read the news”....

The recent criticism around labelling LGBTQ #OwnVoices books has mostly concerned authors being pressured to come out to market their book, or being denied a book deal when they aren’t #OwnVoices — because they are exploring their identity, closeted, or have an overlapping but not identical identity. There are some infuriating stories about this, and it’s a symbol of how publishers continue to pit marginalized authors against each other instead of publishing a wide range of voices....

Woolf’s real name was Adeline, and in this novel, Adeline is Virginia’s “other,” and accompanies her through memories and writing; the former making the latter extremely difficult at times. This is a psychological examination of Woolf from a whole new angle, and the result is fractured and jarring- perhaps exactly how Woolf felt. My love of Woolf has made me highly protective of what I read of her, but this didn’t disappoint....

“In any case, the narratives I consumed as a child had a considerable impact on my creative pursuits. Like many of the heroines I read about, I yearned to write, explore, and play. And at 11 years old, a time when childhood feels dangerously close to being over, it was nice to escape into a fantasyland where other preteens could empathize with my yearning for magic, or ‘something more.’” For all of us who wanted to change our names to Matilda as kids!...