True crime has always been popular, but it seems to have become wildly popular genre over the last few years. Every week, it seems, a new true crime movie is added to the Netflix queue and every week, I find myself gazing, glassy-eyed at the screen. …

I can still remember opening to the first page of Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects nearly three years ago. Within a handful of hours, I'd burned through most of the book, pulled in deep by the voice of Camille Preaker, the protagonist and narrator of Fl…

Three years ago, Kamila Shamsie published a call to arms in The Guardian: The writer challenged the publishing world as a whole to publish books penned exclusively by women for a whole year. That year? 2018. And while most publishers did not pick up …

There are books that are scary — maybe they have a ghost, or a witch, or a zombie, and when you read them late at night, alone, they give you the chills. And then there are the books that are straight up terrifying. The ones that get under your skin.…

As soon as the calendar pages swish to June, it feels like a collective voice erupts, shouting, "It's PRIDE, baby!" For those who identify as the "A" of the LGBTQA spectrum — A for "asexual" and "aromantic" — there is an extreme lack of visibility th…

The lobby of the suburban Cleveland JCC smelled like chlorine and Lemon Pledge and sun. It was early in the morning, and as I waited to be called into my interview for a camp counselor position, where I would ultimately spend the summer wrangling fou…

This fall, a new tome of poetry may be hitting the shelves — but its author, Ursula K. Le Guin, will never witness its debut. Le Guin, the prolific writer who passed away in January 2018, was a visionary creator - and now her final work, a poetry col…

We're all familiar with comfort foods — snacks that bring back a memory, that taste good, that lift our moods no matter how awful a day we've had. But for lit nerds, there is also the small, deeply loved collection of "comfort reads" — the books we'v…

Required reading gets a certain, um, how do I say this... horrible, terrible rap? Even for those of us who love reading, who do it often, on our own time, there's just something about a teacher saying, "Read this. Now," that gets under your skin. But…

For many book-lovers, there's just... something.... about e-books. Whether we're reading them on our computers or our phones or our Kindles, many of us can't quite get behind them like we do tangible tomes, despite their upsides: they save space, the…

J.K. Rowling has perfected the art of tweeting. Like, that's undeniable. The beloved Harry Potter creator needs only to clicky-clack on her keyboard for a few brief moments, or even just smash that re-tweet button, and the Potterhead Twitter-verse en…

There are certain books that feel almost inherently "classic." To Kill A Mockingbird. Catcher in the Rye. Moby freaking Dick. But do you ever wonder what the world thought when these books first hit shelves? Who was the initial voice that pointed to …

There's something about the summer that makes me begin to think way back, to a time when hot weather meant long days filled with nothing but swimming in various bodies of water and tearing through chapter books. There are childhood books I miss, like…

If you've ever been in a book club and been tasked with picking the next month's book, then you already know: It's a high stress, big stakes responsibility. You want to select a book that not only inspires conversation and debate and critical thinkin…

For those of us who are publicly avid readers, burning through books can begin to feel a bit like a competitive sport. One book a week! One book a day! Books and books and stacks of books and wow, it's crazy, we bleed literature, baby! We pride ourse…

There are certain books that, even if you didn't personally read them in ninth grade, you associate with high school reading lists. You know the type: strong moral character, conducive to in-class discussions and take-home essays. They're seemingly a…

Sure, we love to watch a whole TV series in one afternoon, but here's a pro-media-consumption tip: reading books all the way through, start to finish, without leaving your room or taking a break may be intellectually tough, but the payoff is kind of,…

For nearly 20 years, spring has been a season for rain showers, mud puddles and the announcement of TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People List. The honor of being included on such a list is undeniable, and although the public likes to grouse an…

There's a reason why comparing books to windows — or doors, or portals — to other worlds is such a common metaphor; literature is both a transformation and transportation, the journey itself and the boat that takes you through it. And as books often …

Attention all fans of fairies, and, uh, "Fowl": the wait is over. The Artemis Fowl universe is returning once again to bookshelves, this time with twins. Double the Fowl, double the fun (that's not a phrase but it's about to be, trust me). In a stat…