In honor of every working person, whether you belong to a union or not, here is a U.S. Labor booklist that refutes any claim that the U.S. labor movement is no longer of any interest or benefit to the country’s workers. Included on this list are books that tell the story of the New Jersey factory women who fought their employer when the radium they worked with made them “shine and glow in the dark”; a recently published history on the contributions of African American workers in the U....

EXTREME WINTER Entertainment Weekly calls The Terror, “brutal, relentless, yet oddly uplifting” and Washington Post Book World calls it, “a difficult walk on fractured ice….this mix of historical realism, Gothic horror and ancient mythology…”. I call it, Gather all the duvets! The Terror made Book Riot‘s top five must-read creepy historical novels. The Terror ANd The Truth For the last two terrifically bleak weeks, from the warm, overstuffed comfort of my fireside armchair, I have been imagining being sealed into an ice tomb with the very failed 1845 Franklin Expedition....

Star Wars meets Robin Hood in this genre-bending, sci-fi/fantasy romance! Captain Tess Bailey and her band of thieves steal from the “haves” to give to the “have nots.” The Galactic Overseer Novalight commands the regime that rules the known galaxies, and Tess is always on his radar. ​After stealing a top-secret military laboratory and further inciting Novalight’s rage, Tess and her crew manage to escape. Docked on their new planet, Tess encounters the tall, dark, and haughty bounty hunter Shade Ganavan....

My previous entries in this series were Superman (debuted 1938) and Captain America (debuted 1941), so it might seem a little weird that I’m featuring a character who didn’t make the scene until 1992. But that does make her nearly 30 years old (which makes me feel like an ancient, moldering corpse, but that’s beside the point), and she’s hitting the big screen again this month in The Suicide Squad, so it seemed fitting to take this time to look at her origins....

Some of these challenges have gone well. Some have been less successful (why does this lace pattern scarf suddenly have 107 stitches? I don’t…damn it). As I was contemplating the sum total the other day, however, I realized I hadn’t yet done any sort of comics challenge. And thus Comics A–Z was born. I’m going to pick a topic and then, I’m going to find y’all a book for (hopefully) every letter of the alphabet under that general umbrella....

If it weren’t for fictional boys, my life as a teacher would be so much harder than it already is. The cheeky ones, the quiet ones, the cocky ones, the angry ones, the hearty ones, the supercilious ones — they’re all welcome on my bookshelf. I love mothering them. I love turning on my sharp Teacher Voice to tell them in no uncertain terms that the plan they’re thinking of is unequivocally ridiculous....

I’ve been hooked on spiritual memoirs ever since I read Confessions by Saint Augustine when I was seventeen. As a person of faith, I find the religious experience endlessly fascinating, particularly when said experience flies in the face of cultural assumptions about what faith is or should look like. Here are some of my favorites: Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber is my main squeeze in the memoir department. A conversion story interwoven with a love story, Surprised by Oxford is set in the magical academic world of Oxford University, as indicated by the title....

Is it a stupid kind of cliché to start a Genre Kryptonite piece about epistolary novels as a letter? Yes. However, it is a cliché I cannot resist, which is apropos, because I can’t resist an epistolary tale either. The other night, as I finished Maria Semple’s funny, engaging Where Did You Go, Bernadette? I tried to discern what it is about these kinds of stories that I like so much....

Here are a few of my favorites: Exiles by Ron Hansen Greg mentioned Mariette in Ecstasy by Hansen, but I prefer Hansen’s other book about nuns, Exiles. In 1875, a group of German nuns drowned while en route to America to start a mission in Missouri. Their death inspired Gerard Manley Hopkins to write his most famous poem, “The Wreck of the Deutschland.” Hansen’s novel tells the story of both this small group of nuns and of Hopkins’ subsequent literary eulogy for them....

I was fortunate enough to emcee the evening for the Long Island Regional Competition for Poetry Out Loud this year. Watching each student walk up on stage and emote poems from memory made me think about what I was like in 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. Different is the answer. I would not have gotten up in front of even one other person to recite a poem from memory....

Cozy up this holiday season with a set of books from Lion Forge! This collection of titles is perfect for every level of reader with titles ranging from This Is a Taco! for early readers, Sheets for middle grade readers, Mae Vol. 1 for teens, and Upgrade Soul for older readers. Enter for your chance to win one of ten sets of these books and more from Lion Forge! We have 10 sets of this prize pack to give away to 10 Riot readers!...

Logan McRae is looking forward to a nice, simple case—something to ease him back into work after a year off on the sick. But the powers-that-be have other ideas… A high-profile anti-independence campaigner has gone missing, leaving nothing but bloodstains behind, and there’s a war brewing between the factions for and against Scottish Nationalism. It’s all playing out in the merciless glare of the media, and Logan’s superiors want results....

Set in present-day and spanning the first five weeks following a traumatic childbirth, Lauren’s hopes and dreams of being a new mom are shattered when she encounters a mother’s worst nightmare—someone is threatening to take her twins if she leaves them alone. Inspired by dark fairy tales and folklore, Little Darlings ranges from the stark loneliness of returning home after birth to the confines of a psychiatric unit, as the reader is forced to question if Lauren is losing her mind—or does she know something we don’t?...

Nikki Griffin isn’t your typical private investigator. In her office above her bookstore’s shelves and stacks, she also tracks certain men. Dangerous men. She seeks justice for those who need her help in Save Me From Dangerous Men, the debut by S.A. Lelchuk. We have 10 copies of Save Me From Dangerous Men by S.A. Lelchuk to give away to 10 Riot readers! Just complete the form below to enter....

Moving through three generations and back and forth in time, The Guest Book asks how we remember and what we choose to forget. It shows the untold secrets we inherit and pass on, unknowingly echoing our parents and grandparents. Sarah Blake’s triumphant novel tells the story of three generations of the Milton’s, their family home on an island in Maine, and a country that buries its past in quiet, until the present calls forth a reckoning....

Gothic Poems: Additional Links Want more expressive material? 25 Dark Poems for When You Want to Explore the Shadows has what you need! 14 Gorgeous Poems Written and Performed by Poets of Color also highlights strong talent! Rios de la Luz: “Itza” Books by Rios De La Luz: Itza

Safe places to explore emotion are particularly important for teens and young readers, as many of them will be dealing with major life events for the first time and going through the emotional rollercoaster that comes with physical and mental development as they do it. Because of this, it’s unsurprising that YA tearjerkers make for such popular reads. There are plenty of YA books that are sad but satisfying, giving readers a chance to wallow in the characters’ feelings and explore our own....

Then I read two of the essays online (“Seduce the Whole World” by Carla Blumenkranz via the New Yorker, a piece I have already discussed at length, and“How Much My Novel Cost Me” by Emily Gould via Medium [titled “Into the Woods” in the collection] ) and I thought both pieces were provocative and mesmerizing as HECK AND HELL which made me want to read the book. On the release date I went into the bookstore expecting to spend hardcover money and then I found out that it was released JUST IN PAPERBACK, so I was already in a good mood going in, and then I was in a REALLY good once I realized how passionate and thoughtful and gossipy and prickly and deeply human this book was....

At The Folio Society (TFS), the art of books is elevated to an entirely new level. They specialize in making books works of art both inside AND out, with gorgeously (and expensively!) printed collector’s editions of famous novels, comics, and poetry. The Society has released this year’s Christmas Collection, and once again, there’s something for everyone on this exquisite list. If you’ve been reading my posts each holiday season, you know that highlighting diverse authors for their Christmas Collection is something TFS always struggles with....

Based on the best-selling novel by Celeste Ng, it’s the riveting story of family, secrets, and identity in Shaker Heights in Cleveland. Elena Richardson seems to have the picture-prefect life with her husband and four children. Mia Warren is a photographer with a secret who arrives in the Richardson’s neighborhood with her teenaged daughter Pearl. When Elena decides to rent a property to Mia and Pearl, neither anticipate the shockwaves it will end up sending through their lives....