What I love about metal bookmarks is how sturdy they are, as well as how intricate they can be. I love the rabbit bookmark I have, with his long ears, sitting in a collection of toadstools. It’s thin, flexible, and also nearly indestructible. The second metal bookmark I have is a cat in a winter coat, with a long tail perfect for hooking on top of a page. I’m in awe of how many clever ways that metal bookmarks can be designed, and as a bonus, I love knowing how sturdy and reliable they are for the job....

As I said last March after the Sandman news broke during Emerald City Comic Con, it’s Vertigo’s 25th anniversary, but we comic fans are getting all the treats. Among them are three new October #1s, all perfectly suited to drop in the month of acceptable goth, demons, devils, snarky ravens, and angry witches: Lucifer (10/17), Books of Magic (10/24), and Hex Wives (10/31). I’ve mentioned each of the aforementioned in the linked articles above, but now I’ve read the first issue of each (I know, right?...

Are there folks on the inside starting these censorship calls? Sure. But the vast majority are not, and in a not-insignificant number of cases lately, the adults who are complaining aren’t parents of students in the district. Rather than offer any insights or clear up any misconceptions roaring around this week’s censorship news, I’m just going to list them. In many ways, this is a really useful way to see just how widespread this issue is....

This post originally ran on March 9, 2015. _______________ Trigger Warning: This post contains scenes of self-harm and cutting. Rori’s a badass, but she hasn’t had the easiest life. Her parents split; her father lives in Ireland and her mother lives in Japan. Rori has to move to Tokyo to live with her mom and confront cultural differences, changing schools, and being the only redhead (accused of dyeing her hair, and reprimanded for standing out)....

Reading this book in high school, I found Briony callous but also felt a shiver of recognition. Like Briony, I always wanted to be a writer. Unlike her, I’m an only child. Years earlier, I’d often “played” by trying to persuade other kids to act out scripts I’d written. Friends have told me stories of acting similarly when they were little, particularly if they grew up to be writers, filmmakers, or directors....

First of all, consistency. I went into my reading journal with the aim to update it a couple of times a month. I know that I’m not the kind of person who can sit down and write down their thoughts about every single book I’ve read, so I wasn’t going to try and force myself to change. I wanted the idea of writing in my reading journal to be fun – not feel like a chore....

Here’s the scenario: You’ve got a great idea for a book, you read copiously, and you’re a pretty talented writer (if you say so yourself). You’ve read On Writing by Stephen King and The Writing Life by Annie Dillard and you’re acquainted with copious theories on plot and pacing and characterisation, but you just can’t seem to get that New York Times bestselling book from your head to paper. Or, you’ve got a great idea for a nonfiction book but don’t quite know how to flesh it out into a full-length, award-winning book....

Where Nordic noir is known for its gritty crime and dark subject matter amid bleak, cold, and gray landscapes, sunshine noir features those same gritty crimes and dark subjects, only in the blistering heat and sweltering humidity. It also, in the vein of traditional noir, features a protagonist with a troubled past that comes back to haunt them. Many noir novels are set from the point of view of a detective or officer or investigator trying to solve the crime, but not all....

One of my infant daughter’s first friends was a high contrast board book called Spots and Dots. There are no words in this board book, just colors and patterns. My daughter would sit and stare at the illustrations, giving the book her undivided attention, smiling when she began to smile, babbling to the illustrations when she began to babble. When I propped the book up for her to see, her expression would transform to that of someone meeting a dear friend after a long time of separation and needing to catch up on everything they’d missed....

It was summer and life seemed bleak. Perhaps my state of mind explains my choice of book. Instead of gravitating toward one of Didion’s well-known essay collections, I picked up The Year of Magical Thinking, a 2005 memoir about her husband John Gregory Dunne’s sudden death by heart attack. Or, as Didion herself puts it: “You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” Even as a teenager I lived in fear of the moments when “life as you know it ends....

As far as summer releases I am personally excited about (besides the ones in this list), I can’t wait to get my hands on Vera Kelly: Lost and Found by Rosalie Knecht — even though I am sad the series is ending. I’m looking forward to the debut novels Greenland by David Santos Donaldson, On Rotation by Shirlene Obuobi, and The Catch by Alison Fairbrother. I’m delighted Nevada by Imogen Binnie is being reissued by a larger publisher, because it deserves a bigger audience....

Why read different iterations of the same story? Isn’t that the same thing as reading it twice? I have books I reread every couple of years because I adore them. Fair enough, that’s not everyone’s bag so, returning to the first question: no, not exactly. The joy in reading a story or novel first in prose and then as a manga is similar to the best part of reading a themed anthology: you get an opportunity to see how different creative minds play with the same source material which is always an incredible reminder of the depth and breadth of human neuroplasticity....

Of course, this question comes with a lot of unknowns. When are you dying? Under what circumstances? How long do you have to read the book? Will you have time to finish the book? Answering this question may also force you to grapple with another philosophical uncertainty: Would you want to know when and how you’ll die? And would that change your book choice? I’ve been a voracious reader for as long as I can remember....

I’m almost certain this will devolve into a love letter, but I’ll try to show some restraint. I’ve been planning this piece for a while—as in planning on writing it, not actively considering what I’m going to say—and we’re finally down to the last few days before the deadline, so it has to get done. Eventually, I’ll have to write words for public consumption about Margaret Atwood, easily my favorite living writer, and that there’s even a small chance she might stumble across this piece on the vast World Wide Web is so intimidating that it makes me downright bashful....

Romance always felt like that thing that would derail my plans to save the world. But as I got older, the genre began to appeal to me more. And as cliché it is, I have to be honest and say it: the book that got me into romance was Pride and Prejudice, which I’ve read about four or five times at this point. But just as I was diving deeper into romance books in high school and college, I was also developing my interest in more “respectable” literature....

To enter for your chance to win, sign up using the below form, including signing up for email updates from Tor.com Publishing. Here’s what they’re all about: Tor.com has published award-winning science fiction and fantasy short stories since 2008. Over the past few years, we have been hard at work expanding our publishing program to include novellas and novels in DRM-free ebook, print, and audiobook formats. Sign up for our newsletter to receive news and updates on all of our titles and authors, plus excerpts, features, new acquisitions, sweepstakes and more....

Book Riot is teaming up with Nightfire to give away one $250 gift card to the famous Powell’s Books! Here’s a little more about Nightfire: A new horror imprint from Tor & Macmillan that publish fiction that unsettles and delights, exploring the full range of horror, dark fantasy, and the supernatural. Bonus: If you enjoy these books, check out the movie Miss Juneteenth, which isn’t based on a book but is about a single mom and former beauty queen who enters her daughter in the local Miss Juneteenth pageant, which offers scholarships to winners....

9 YA Books About Summer Break #1. My Summer of Love and Misfortune by Lindsay Wong Eighteen-year-old Iris Wang’s parents have finally had enough of her. She spends all her time getting wasted with her slacker boyfriend, Peter—when she’s not spending way too much money on designer dresses with her best friend Samira. The last straw comes when Iris crashes her parents’ brand-new Mercedes after learning that Peter was cheating on her with Samira....

Ghosts are more than the white, shapeless creatures they’re often rendered as on screen. They can be something as deep as the afterlife of a beloved person or creature who has died, completely invisible to any eye. Part of what makes them so appealing is the endless range of possibilities that exist because, well, a big part of the fun is whether or not we believe ghosts exist. (I do!...