Books

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View

One recent morning, before I left home to plant white oak trees in a nearby park, I turned to Margaret Renkl’s The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year. As often happens, a passage from the New York Times columnist grounded me and pulled my vision forward: “Planting a tree is a gesture of faith in

I don’t know if it’s a product of being an ’80s child, my love of sociology, or the “why not both” mentality, but regardless of the reason, I love pop culture. Even when I am not watching a particular show or film that everyone is talking about, I will still listen in on the conversations,

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View

In Caroline O’Donoghue’s acclaimed novel, The Rachel Incident (9.5 hours), university student Rachel is extremely busy juggling a precarious love pentagon involving her Victorian Literature professor, her gay best friend James, her boss (who happens to be the professor’s wife) and her boyfriend. Naturally, mistakes are made. But despite being very funny, The Rachel Incident

The son of a librarian, Chris M. Arnone’s love of books was as inevitable as gravity. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Missouri – Kansas City. His novel, The Hermes Protocol, was published by Castle Bridge Media in 2023 and the next book in that series is due out in

Ashlie (she/her) is an educator, librarian, and writer. She is committed to diversifying the reading lives of her students and supporting fat acceptance as it intersects with other women’s issues. She’s also perpetually striving to learn more about how she can use her many privileges to support marginalized groups. Interests include learning how to roller

Gennaro’s Cucina: Hearty Money-Saving Meals From an Italian Kitchen by Gennaro Contaldo focuses on cucina povera, the traditional cooking of rural Italy, where seasonality and a “waste not want not” lifestyle deliciously intersect. If you love to buy loaves of artisan bread but often find them stale before you can eat them up, grab this

Laura Sackton is a queer book nerd and freelance writer, known on the internet for loving winter, despising summer, and going overboard with extravagant baking projects. In addition to her work at Book Riot, she reviews for BookPage and AudioFile, and writes a weekly newsletter, Books & Bakes, celebrating queer lit and tasty treats. You

“Think about this: The Italians didn’t have the tomato until after 1492,” writes chef and food historian Lois Ellen Frank. “The Irish didn’t have the potato.” Let that sink in, then get a copy of Frank’s Seed to Plate, Soil to Sky: Modern Plant-Based Recipes Using Native American Ingredients. Written with Walter Whitewater, the book

Addison Rizer is a writer and reader of anything that can be described as weird, sad, or scary. She has an MA in Professional Writing and a BA in English. She writes for Book Riot and Publishers Weekly and is always looking for more ways to gush about the books she loves. Find her published

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View

Anyone immediately transported to a riverside pier by the lyric “So open up your morning light” will love Thea Glassman’s Freaks, Gleeks, and Dawson’s Creek: How Seven Teen Shows Transformed Television. “Today’s teen shows are leading the charge when it comes to progressive, diverse, and creative storytelling,” Glassman writes, but they wouldn’t exist without the

Addison Rizer is a writer and reader of anything that can be described as weird, sad, or scary. She has an MA in Professional Writing and a BA in English. She writes for Book Riot and Publishers Weekly and is always looking for more ways to gush about the books she loves. Find her published

The Hidden Language of Cats Sarah Brown knows and loves felines: She has a doctorate in the social behavior of neutered domestic cats, and the dedication page of her new book simply reads, “For the cats.” Those who said “Aww!” at that information will delight in Brown’s The Hidden Language of Cats: How They Have

Carina Pereira, born in ‘87, in Portugal. Moved to Belgium in 2011, and to Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in 2019. Avid reader, changing interests as the mods strikes. Whiles away the time by improvising stand-up routines she’ll never get to perform. Books are a life-long affair, audiobooks a life-changing discovery of adulthood. Selling books by day,

Rachel is a writer from Arkansas, most at home surrounded by forests and animals much like a Disney Princess. She spends most of her time writing stories and playing around in imaginary worlds. You can follow her writing at rachelbrittain.com. Twitter and Instagram: @rachelsbrittain View All posts by Rachel Brittain Rachel is a writer from

By day, Leah Rachel von Essen is the editor-in-chief of Chicago Booth Magazine at the University of Chicago. By night, she reviews genre-bending fiction for Booklist, and writes regularly as a senior contributor at Book Riot. Her blog While Reading and Walking has over 10,000 dedicated followers over several social media outlets, including Instagram. She

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View

Sam Becker loves—or, okay, likes—his job. Sure, managing a bed and bath retailer isn’t exactly glamorous, but it’s good work and he gets on well with the band of misfits who keep the store running. He could see himself being content here for the long haul. Too bad, then, that the owner is an infuriating

Addison Rizer is a writer and reader of anything that can be described as weird, sad, or scary. She has an MA in Professional Writing and a BA in English. She writes for Book Riot and Publishers Weekly and is always looking for more ways to gush about the books she loves. Find her published

Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until

Patricia Thang is an educator located in Los Angeles. Though a native Angeleno through and through, her heart also belongs to Tokyo, where much of her family is from. Besides books, she is an enthusiastic devourer of many things, including podcasts, television, and J-pop. She realizes there’s not enough time in the world to consume

R. Nassor may spend more time with books, tea, and ceramic mugs than recommended by professionals but it hasn’t failed her so far. Nassor has a MA in English Literature from Georgetown University, where she looked at the way medieval and early modern literature reappear in fantasy books today. She’s been writing about romance, fantasy,

Welcome to another round of book club picks, the first this year in fall! I love looking at what book clubs have selected and seeing what they want to shout about, especially how wildly different it can be, while also seeing certain patterns of what may be hot at the moment and even sometimes getting

Erica Ezeifedi, Associate Editor, is a transplant from Nashville, TN that has settled in the North East. In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a victim advocate and in public libraries, where she has focused on creating safe spaces for queer teens, mentorship, and providing test prep instruction free to students. Outside

When Renée Watson read her first Ramona Quimby book as a child, she was startled by where Beverly Cleary’s beloved heroine lived: Klickitat Street was just around the corner from Watson’s aunt’s home in Portland, Oregon. “I was so in awe that a character in a book could live in my city and in a

In my favorite episode of the greatest TV show of the 21st century, cash is king. As a way of cutting a Gordian Knot of corporate merging (put a pin in that for a moment), the would-be founders of Sterling Cooper Draper Price are deciding which accounts they can bring/poach so that they have a

Tan Twan Eng’s third novel, which was longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, is set in the early 1920s, when the British writer William Somerset Maugham and his secretary (and lover) Gerald Haxton visit the coastal province of Penang, Malaysia, as the guests of Lesley and Robert Hamlyn. Part of Penang’s European elite, Lesley and

The world honestly needs more of iconic actor and literacy advocate LeVar Burton, and will get just that during the National Book Awards’ 74th award ceremony. Though today’s announcement of Burton hosting is cutting it a bit close to the November 15th date for the black-tie ceremony. The scrambling is because of a last minute