Best Sci-Fi Book Series With Technology Focus These reads go a step further in the technology realm either through how realistic they feel (i.e. hard sci-fi) or via the masterfully imagined technologies employed as a main plot point. Night’s Dawn trilogy by Peter Hamilton Reality Dysfunction, Neutronium Alchemist, The Naked God Sentient, organic habitats house large populations of humans. They also bond with one human that they can share thoughts with, which forms the foundation of one of the most endearing relationships between humans and what we generally consider inanimate objects (also see the Hyperion Cantos if you like that type of stuff)....

Climatologists have been warning us for years about climate change, environmental degradation, and the need to “act now” by changing practices that harm the environment. But equally important to this call for change is educating the kids who are inheriting these problems. They will need to innovate smarter and more sustainable ways of living. They will need to understand the impact we have and how to reduce our footprint on the earth....

Average Is The New Awesome: A Manifesto for the Rest of Us by Samantha Matt With people living Insta-perfect lives on social media, it’s no surprise that may of us feel less than satisfied, like we can’t measure up. In Average Is the New Awesome: A Manifesto for the Rest of Us, writer Samantha Matt argues that rather than reject our averageness, we should embrace it as an authentically awesome experience....

How can he catch a killer when his own mind is playing tricks? Dr. Theo Cray had a knack for catching serial killers until a mind-altering pathogen knocked him off his game. Luckily, his former professor is helping him track down his latest suspect: a nomadic health-care worker with hundreds of victims. Cray follows each new lead, but with his own grip on reality slipping away, he knows that he’ll find what he’s hunting only if he confronts his own dark side....

If you are looking to foray into the world of self motivation books or just looking for your next read, here are 15 self-motivation books that might help you on your personal growth journey. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert In this book, Elizabeth encourages you to go out there and live a creative life. This doesn’t only apply to professional artists or people we call creatives, but to everyone, because we all create different things in our daily lives....

This list is certainly not exhaustive, and it barely even demonstrates the entire breadth and scope of the beauty and diversity of Asian America, but I hope that it’s a start. I’ve done my best to provide a sampling of titles from various genres, as well as of stories about different communities under the Asian American umbrella and of stories about different parts of the United States. My mind would have exploded without any parameters at all, so I’ve focused on books that have come out within the past year (approximately), as well as some upcoming titles....

Hello mystery fans! I have two different historical mystery series starters, both of which I am looking forward to continuing. While completely different in so many ways, both novels have a noir or noir-ish feel, leads this genre has historically not centered, and are set in New York pre-1950s. Set during the Harlem Renaissance, Louise Lloyd has never been able to avoid the spotlight after escaping a kidnapper as a teenager, and setting free the other girls in the process....

In the last decade since college graduation, I’ve picked up memoir after memoir, book after book, scouring library sales and used book stores to add to my personal library. Memoirs in recent years have outdone themselves, showing an incredible amount of creativity and innovation. From graphic memoirs to experimental entries into the genre, there’s no singular way to write a memoir, making each story unique. If you’re looking to read more memoirs, it can be difficult to figure out where to start....

For me, the wonderful thing about Hourly Comic Day isn’t how interesting or polished the comics are, but rather that folks choose to participate in a giant group art project and share a bit of their lives with the world. Most of our day-to-day lives are full of mundane moments and boring tasks that we don’t really talk about. Personally, I think there is something truly comforting and beautiful about someone creating a tiny piece of art centered around those mundane moments....

The Aurealis Awards have been going since 1995, when they were founded by Chimera Publications, the publishers of Aurealis magazine. Their purpose is to recognize Australian SFF and horror. I wanted to put a spotlight on the finalists this year because, particularly in the U.S., we don’t get to hear a lot about the SFF scene in Australia. So here are the finalists for best science fiction and best fantasy novel!...

Since Book Riot is all about reading harder, we think no student should leave high school without reading a few books written by people of color. Therefore, we bring forth this list of books for 12th graders from authors of color, because no excuse shall prosper against diversifying your reading lists. Contemporary Fiction for 12th Graders The following are books for 12 graders of the here and now, with several books about the experience of being 17....

Whatever your situation this Father’s Day, take a moment to immerse yourself in the eloquent wisdom of the poets who have been there before you. Sir Ronald Ross, The Father Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz Quincy Troupe, Poem for My Father Patrick Lewis, My Pa Li-Young Lee, The Gift Eduardo C. Corral, In Colorado My Father Scoured and Stacked Dishes Michael Dickman, Shaving Your Father’s Face Yehuda Amichai, A Child is Something Else Again Terry Savoie, Father-Milk Pete Oresick, My Father Toi Derricotte, My dad & sardines Anne Bradstreet, To Her Father with Some Verses This one dates to the 17th century and begins: Most truly honoured, and as truly dear,If worth in me or ought I do appear,Who can of right better demand the sameThan may your worthy self from whom it came?...

Fantastic. For World Poetry Day, I’ve collected 25 of my favorite gateway poets. Poets who dally on both sides of prose and poetry, or those who dig into the lyricality of language that appeals to our musical side. Finding these gateway poets is important. Because prose is great, but as the incomparable Roxane Gay recently wrote for the Poetry Foundation: “What I do know is that when I read poetry, good poetry, I forget to breathe and my body is suffused with something unnamable — a combination of awe and astonishment and the purest of pleasures....

So as L’Engle’s 100th birthday approached, I started to seek out books that would show me just exactly who this person was, in as much as we can know a person from biographies. Here are three. Becoming Madeleine by Charlotte Jones Voiklis and Léna Roy Two of Madeline L’Engle’s granddaughters wrote a biography of the author for middle grade readers. It includes never-before-seen photos, letters and more, and will give your 8–12-year-old a fuller picture of the child that became one of their favorite writers....

There is still a heavy stigma surrounding discussion of mental health issues, even in fiction. While discussion is, perhaps, a bit more open than it has been in the past, pop culture portrayals are still most commonly the facts altered and exploited to make interesting pages and hour-long episodes, rather than honest explorations of mental illness: the way it alters lives and affects every day of a person’s life going forward, and the lives of those around them....

May is truly a great month for new releases. It’s as if the book gods know that summer reading is soon upon us, and have gifted us with a billion amazing new books. Narrowing it down to a few was hard, so I’ll just mention briefly here that Sandhya Menon’s There’s Something About Sweetie, Stephanie Garber’s Finale, and Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff’s Aurora Rising are all releasing this month…but you probably already knew that, right?...

Fledgling by Octavia Butler Yes, the first I ever heard of Octavia Butler was randomly picking up the audiobook of Fledgling. (I do, indeed, live under a rock called white supremacy and patriarchy, thanks for asking. Octavia Butler is the absolute queen of Black women sci-fi writers, so if you are interested in the topic of this post and you don’t know her, read more here.) In this, her final novel, Butler tells the story of a girl with amnesia who turns out to actually be a 53-year-old vampire....

Some of these challenges have gone well. Some have been less successful (I swear to all that is unholy, the scarf I’m working on has a different number of stitches every time I get to the end of a row despite there being absolutely no evidence of added or dropped stitches, but I am going to finish this bastard out of pure spite). As I was contemplating the sum total the other day, however, I realized I hadn’t yet done any sort of comics challenge....

1. Fanfiction.net (Android, iOS, Browser) The oldest in the game, Fanfiction.net was launched in 1998. Although the site has grown since then, offering works in over 40 languages, its interface remains classic and easy to navigate. It’s open to guest users. Creating an account lets you post reviews and your own work, but otherwise, reading fan fiction is available to all. This website was where I first went to discover fan fiction and it’s still a go-to for those who are new to the genre....

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become a lot less go-with-the-flow, a lot more Type A. In fact, I’m not only seemingly willing to follow rules more now, but as I advance in my career, I’m also more and more frequently the enforcer of the rules. Back up even further. I have a career and wear suits and the whole bit—a very stereotypical one, right out of a Lifetime holiday movie....