Month: June 2018

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Today In Books

U.S. Poetry Readers Have Almost Doubled: Today in Books

This edition of Today in Books is sponsored by We Are Gathered by Jamie Weisman from HMH.

Poetry Readers In The U.S. Have Almost Doubled

New research by the National Endowment for the Arts has shown that poetry readers in the U.S. have almost doubled in the past five years. People ages 18–24 and African American, Asian American, and other non-white readers make up the largest increase in poetry readership. The increase has been attributed to a number of factors including social media, and the pursuit of insight and comfort during challenging times.

Watch The Girl In The Spider’s Web Trailer

The newest installment of the Lisbeth Salander movies–or, rather, the Millenium series adaptations–has a trailer. The film adaptation of The Girl in the Spider’s Web (the fourth book in the series–this one written by David Lagercrantz, not Stieg Larsson) does not include a bunch of spoilers, according to director and co-writer Fede Alvarez (Don’t Breathe). Claire Foy (The Crown) plays Salander, and Swedish actor Sverrir Gudnason (Borg vs. McEnroe) plays Blomkvist.

When You Just Can’t Wait For That Library Book

I mean, I get impatient waiting for books to become available, but a Hong Kong librarian took reader’s anticipation to a new level. The librarian in question has been arrested for allegedly stealing patrons’ personal information. The reason? She wanted to expedite the return of loaned out books she wanted to read. By reporting their cards stolen and changing their passwords, the librarian compelled patrons to return their books immediately. Yeesh.

 

Don’t forget we’re giving away $500 to the bookstore of your choice! Enter here!

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Giveaways

Win a Copy of THE BURNING GIRL by Claire Messud!

 

We have 10 copies of Claire Messud’s The Burning Girl to give away to 10 Riot readers!

Here’s what it’s all about:

Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace. But as the girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put her life in danger and shatter her oldest friendship. The Burning Girl is a complex examination of the stories we tell ourselves about youth and friendship, and straddles, expertly, childhood’s imaginary worlds and painful adult reality―crafting a true, immediate portrait of female adolescence. A New York Times bestseller and finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Go here to enter for a chance to win, or just click the cover image below:

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Riot Rundown TestRiotRundown

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Today’s Riot Rundown is sponsored by The Hawkman, by Jane Rosenberg LaForge

Set against the shattering events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an imaginative American schoolteacher and a homeless Irish musician survive bloodshed, poverty, and sickness only to be thrown together in an English village. Hiding from the world in a small cottage, reality shatters their serenity, and they must face the parochial community. Unbeknownst to everyone, a legend is in the making—one of courage and resilience, even as outside forces threaten to tear them apart.

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The Stack

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Today’s The Stack is sponsored by CubHouse, an imprint of Lion Forge.

The Wormworld Saga Vol. 1: The Journey Begins

Written and Illustrated by Daniel Lieske

This gorgeous fantasy epic follows Jonas, a young boy from our human world, who stumbles into an alternate universe through a painting in his grandmother’s attic. When the portal closes behind him Jonas must find another way home and begins a journey through this strange and mesmerizing land. Along the way he meets Raya, who becomes his guardian in the new world. But there are many things Raya is not telling Jonas, and this world is not peaceful.

Volume one is in stores now!

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Today In Books

Haruki Murakami Will Host Radio Show: Today in Books

This edition of Today in Books is sponsored by Visible Empire by Hannah Pittard.

Women’s Prize for Fiction

Kamila Shamsie has won the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction in recognition of her seventh novel, Home Fire. Rioter Deepali Agarwal writes that this retelling of Sophocles’ Antigone “follows the lives of orphans Isma and her twin siblings Aneeka and Parvaiz after Parvaiz joins the media arm of the Islamic State.”

Netflix’s Running Total: 39 Reasons

We’re getting a third season of “13 Reasons Why,” the controversial adaptation of a YA book by a controversial author. The series started streaming in March of 2017 and has featured suicide, sexual assault, and a school shooting plot.

Haruki Murakami Is Very Haruki Murakami

The prolific Japanese novelist will host “Murakami Radio—Run and Songs” on August 5. He’ll be sharing selections from his personal music collection with a focus on the tunes he likes to listen to as he trains for ultramarathons. Nobody is surprised and everybody is delighted.

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Audiobooks

Audiobook Recommendations for Your Road Trip

Hello, audiobook listeners! Amanda Nelson here filling in for Katie while she’s on a summer break. Lots of you are probably in the middle of planning a summer road trip, and want to stock up on audiobooks to listen to while you drive. I’ve got a few links to help you out, with recommendations and how-tos:

Sponsored by THE EMPEROR OF SHOES by Spencer Wis

A transfixing story about an expatriate and his burgeoning relationship with a seamstress intent on inspiring political change.

Alex Cohen, a 26-year-old Jewish Bostonian, is living in southern China, where his father runs a shoe factory. Alex reluctantly assumes the helm of the company, and quickly comes to a grim realization: employees are exploited, and his own father is engaging in bribes to protect the bottom line.

Then Alex meets a seamstress named Ivy, who is secretly sowing dissonance among her fellow laborers. Will Alex remain loyal to his father and his heritage? Or will the sparks of revolution ignite?

The Best Mystery Audiobooks for Your Road Trip–I’ve long since held that mysteries are the best genre of audiobook for road trips: they’re usually ten hours or under, and engaging enough to keep you awake and distracted from the monotony of the highway. There are some excellent recs in that post!

Speaking of mysteries for your road trip, take a listen to an excerpt of the audiobook of Ruth Ware’s latest, The Death of Mrs. Westaway, or to this excerpt of Jessica Knoll’s latest, The Favorite Sister.

So you have a few ideas for what you want to listen to, but audiobooks are out of your price range? Load up your phone with a few free ones, all from your public library via Overdrive. Here’s how.

Mysteries aren’t your thing? Or maybe your drive is over ten hours and you need a real chunker to get you through? Use this as an opportunity to listen to some of those big history audiobooks you’ve been meaning to get to.

For the YA lovers around here: five YA audiobooks with multiple narrators (this is a great audiobook feature for those of us who get a little drowsy with just one narrator).

That’s it for now! Happy listening!

Amanda

Categories
Kissing Books

Queer Romances for Pride Month

Well lovers. It’s been a week. Things have happened, and outsiders have been confused by romance twitter talking about judges and hearing transcripts.

News and Useful Links

Since we last talked, we were waiting on a hearing in which a judge would hear a request for injunction against authors wishing to use “cocky” in titles moving forward. The injunction wasn’t granted, and the transcript (thanks, Courtney Milan!) is quite the read.

We’re giving away $500 to spend at the bookstore of your choice! Click here, or on the image below to enter:

RWA (Romance Writers of America) has put out a comprehensive statement about all the diversity issues they’ve been looking into this year, and I’m looking forward to seeing where they go from here. (They also have a statement on their efforts during the continuing ridiculousness that is cockygate.)

The Lambda Literary Awards were recently announced, and winners included one of my faves of this year, Yolanda Wallace’s Tailor-Made.

There’s been some weirdness going on with Kindle Unlimited that I don’t completely get, but Tessa Dare has a good thread about book stuffing, the biggest thing affecting KU and reviews. Amazon has also put some interesting restrictions on reviews so that you can’t post more than five unverified purchase reviews—meaning people who get ARCs from authors (bloggers and other regular reviewers) AND people who don’t reach a certain point in KU books will be limited in their capabilities to review on Amazon. I don’t do that anyway, but I can see this impacting readers and authors to a pretty good extent.

It may be June now, but can we look back on the magic that was #rombklove and remember it when we need it?

Deals

The Hating Game by Sally Thorne is 1.99. If you haven’t gotten to it yet, now is as good a time as ever.

Sarah Morgan’s Sleepless in Manhattan is 1.99 as well. If you’re looking for a series to try out, that’s got plenty of books to enjoy.

Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees is romance adjacent, but I know a lot of romance lovers who love it too. And it’s 2.99 right now.

Imaginary Men by Anjali Banerjee is 2.99 too!

Over on Book Riot

Need some military romance? Here are 50 for you to try?

We’re down for more choose-your-own-adventure romance.

I prefer experiencing the whole book at once, but if you like reading excerpts, here’s how to find them.

Trisha and I did some talking.

And of course, we’re still having that giveaway! 500 bucks, on us!

Recs!

It’s National Pride Month, and while I read queer romance all the time, I’m making an effort to try to read books by new queer authors (and I’m making a concerted effort to read only queer books this month). Looking for a place to start? Here are a couple I’ve read or am reading so far.

A Seditious Affair
KJ Charles

I started reading this book on my phone while I was in line waiting to pick up a Stocksund chair at Ikea, and perhaps that was why I stopped reading 10 percent in and took months to return to it. It’s got some heft; even as an ebook I could feel the weight of everything happening, all the layers. But once I was done I could see how it might end up on enough people’s favorite list to end up on All About Romance’s top ten of all time list. This book is intense, and emotional, and I wasn’t sure I knew where my heart was when I turned the last page. It wasn’t in my throat, or my stomach, as it had been for the final pages. It had just stopped beating, in need of rest, I guess. But damn, this book.

The second book in the Society of Gentlemen series, this books takes place at the end of the Regency and centers Silas and Dominic, who only know each other as “The Tory” and “The Brute” when they meet on Wednesdays at a clandestine location. They only find out for certain who the other is when Dominic arrives with his Home Office colleagues to raid Silas’s bookshop in search of evidence that Silas is the seditionist writer Jack Cade.

I know.

So there’s a lot to unpack here, including the fact that they have spent the past year using Wednesdays not only to get some kinky loving, but also to talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So yeah. Feels. On to the next, A Gentleman’s Position, which features two people I did not enjoy hanging out with until pretty much the end.

***

It’s a bit early in the month, so I’m still working on it, but here are some I’m currently reading or will be reading:

Love Bi the Way by Bhaavna Arora (that cover, tho!)

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann (published as YA but I would consider it crossover, as the protagonist is in college)

Syncopation by Anna Zabo

Month of Sundays by Yolanda Wallace

Gays of Our Lives by Kris Ripper (and maybe The Butch and the Beautiful, the second Queers of La Vista book)

21 Questions by Mason Dixon (pen name of Yolanda Wallace)

Pansies by Alexis Hall (which I have out from the library, so I had better get on that)

Jordan’s Pryde by Giovanna Reaves (did you hear me talking about this book in the RT episode of When In Romance? It was so weird but I took it as a sign.)

Sated by Rebekah Weatherspoon

We’ll see what happens.

New and Upcoming Releases

Shatterproof by Xen (rerelease/rewrite)

What Happens in Summer by Caridad Pineiro

The One You Can’t Forget by Roni Loren

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Huang

The Bashful Bride by Vanessa Riley

Inside Darkness by Hudson Lin (June 11)

The Varlet and the Voyeur by Penny Reid and LH Cosway (June 11)

Switch and Bait by Ricki Schultz (June 12)

As usual, catch me on Twitter @jessisreading or Instagram @jess_is_reading, or send me an email at jessica@riotnewmedia.com if you’ve got feedback or just want to say hi!

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Today In Books

Amazon’s THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD Series: Today in Books

This edition of Today in Books is sponsored by Little Do We Know by Tamara Ireland Stone from Disney Publishing Worldwide.

Amazon Orders The Underground Railroad Series

Amazon has ordered a limited series based on Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) is set to direct all 11 episodes of the series about a slave’s harrowing journey for freedom in the antebellum South. No release date yet.

Oprah’s New Book Club Selection

Oprah revealed her new book club selection, and it’s The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton. The book is Hinton’s memoir about his 1985 wrongful arrest for two counts of capital murder in Alabama, his time on death row, and his 2015 release. Oprah described how she randomly happened upon the book, and also noted that Hinton never received an apology for his wrongful incarceration from the state of Alabama.

Watch The Trailer For Mortal Engines

The official trailer for the film adaptation of Phillip Reeve’s post-apocalyptic science fiction novel Mortal Engines dropped. Peter Jackson is producing; he also wrote the screenplay alongside partners Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens. Christian Rivers (King Kong) will direct. Watch it here.

 

Don’t forget we’re giving away $500 to the bookstore of your choice! Enter here!

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Unusual Suspects

We’re Told That Lavinia Is Going To Die Soon

Hi mystery fans! I’ve got a vigilante, a missing artist, and toxic friendship for you this week in the world of crime novels. Plus, a ton of recent releases.

Sponsored By Murder In Greenwich Village, by Liz Freeland

After fleeing rural Pennsylvania for the bright lights of New York City, starry-eyed twenty-year old Louis Faulk finds herself investigating a big-city murder mystery when she comes home to the sight of her roommate’s cousin with a ten-inch butcher knife in her back in Liz Freeland’s historical mystery debut.

Great Cat-and-Mouse Game! (TW suicide/ rape)

cover image: yellow background with a bombDeath Notice by Zhou Haohui, Zac Haluza (Translator): The BBC show Killing Eve has definitely reinvigorated my love for a great cat-and-mouse game, and this novel delivered. Eumenides (or so he calls himself) is a vigilante out to make sure those who have escaped punishment get what’s coming to them. The police are racing to stop Eumenides from his next target, as he’s stated in his death notice, but Eumenides is always one step ahead. And there are more death notices to come. Will the police ever catch-up?… A great thriller with interesting characters that is filled with tension and action. And the audiobook had a good narrator, Joel De La Fuente, who changed his voice for characters without doing a weird high and low, plus you get the proper pronunciation of names.

A Mystery in the Modern Art World (TW suicide/ rape/ stalking)

cover image: a young white woman's face mirrored around the cover with different shapes of color painted overStill Lives by Maria Hummel: An interesting read which used art to speak about violence towards women. Maggie Richter is an editor for an LA museum who is currently working with the rest of the staff to save their museum with this one, hopefully great, art show. The artist of the show is Kim Lord whose exhibit is paintings of famous crime scenes where women were murdered that she has painted herself into. The problem is Kim Lord has disappeared on opening night. I’d say the first half of the book explores the art world and violence towards women–including how our society obsesses over the crimes–and the second half focuses on the mystery and solving it, which totally worked for me.

Slow-Burn With Bite! (TW suicide/ rape)

cover image: a woman's eye with a lot of dark makeup smeared in the corner by tearsSocial Creature by Tara Isabella Burton: This had almost a wonderful frenzied mood that takes you into a friendship where one woman isn’t necessarily who she says she is, and the other is a larger-than-life selfish woman. What could go wrong? Lavinia’s family is wealthy, and she’s living off this money while basically partying her life away. Louise struggles to make ends meet and has never felt like the beautiful social butterfly. Until Lavinia takes her under her wing. The problem is we’re told from the beginning that Lavinia is going to die soon… If you’re a fan of Gillian Flynn/Megan Abbott, and the novels Green Girl, Paulina & Fran this should definitely be on your must-read list.

Recent Releases

cover image: a silhouette of a man's face in profile imposed with a man standing on a street on a red backgroundThe Good Son by You-jeong Jeong (Good psychological thriller that is more of a whydunnit.) (TW stalking/ suicide)

The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson (There weren’t galleys so this thriller is currently high on my TBR list.)

Tiny Crimes: Very Short Tales of Mystery and Murder edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto (Great way to find new crime writers with these bites of mystery stories.)

Invitation to a Bonfire by Adrienne Celt (Currently reading: I think historical fic slow-burn mystery told through diary and letters.)

The Good Mothers: The True Story of the Women Who Took on the World’s Most Powerful Mafia by Alex Perry (My next true crime read)

A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising by Raymond A. Villareal (Currently reading: labeled as “part International thriller,” so far I’m at the mystery part where the physician for the CDC is trying to figure out how the dead body in the morgue got up and left and has left a wake of dead bodies and missing people.)

cover image: black and white photo of a street in Lagos filled with cars and Nigerians walkingLagos Noir edited by Chris Abani (Abani wrote the literary mystery The Secret History of Las Vegas which I love so this is automatically on my TBR list.)

Santa Cruz Noir edited by Susie Bright

São Paulo Noir edited by Tony Bellotto

Dreams of Falling by Karen White (Currently reading: Think this is mostly a family novel with the mother-missing-secrets-to-come-out element.)

The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz (Author of Magpie Murders which I really enjoyed.)

cover image: black and white photo of a white woman in a bathtubWhite Bodies by Jane Robins (Paperback) (Suspense with bite: Full review) (TW: domestic abuse)

Sunburn by Laura Lippman (Paperback) (Suspenseful noir: Full review) (TW: domestic abuse/ rape)

Every Last Lie by Mary Kubica (Paperback) (Domestic suspense: Full Review)

AND Book Riot is still giving away $500 to the bookstore of your choice!

Browse all the books recommended in Unusual Suspects previous newsletters on this shelf. And here’s an Unusual Suspects Pinterest board.

Until next time, keep investigating! And in the meantime come talk books with me on Twitter, Instagram, and Litsy–you can find me under Jamie Canaves.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own you can sign up here.

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What's Up in YA

THE MORTAL ENGINES Trailer, New Rainbow Rowell In 2020, and More YA Lit News

Hey YA Readers! Let’s catch up on the latest happs in the world of YA.

“What’s Up in YA?” is sponsored by Epic Reads.

Robyn Schneider, author of The Beginning of Everything, delivers a sharply funny, romantic girl-meets-boy novel with a twist: boy-also-meets-girl’s-ghost-brother. Perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon.

Rose believes in ghosts. She should, since she has one for a best friend: Logan – her brother who is forever stuck at fifteen. But when Rose’s old friend Jamie moves back, things get complicated.

Jamie’s charming, confident, and a reminder of the life she’s been missing out on since her brother’s death. Rose finds herself drawn to Jamie, but how can she choose between the boy who makes her feel alive and the brother she isn’t ready to lose?

Settle in and catch up on the recent news from the world of YA. Like usual, this one is heavy on adaptation news (which is never a bad thing!):

 

Cheap Reads

Grab some great ebooks without spending a ton of dough.

Jennifer Brown’s powerhouse debut novel Hate List is $2. It’s unfortunate this book is still timely and relevant, but if you haven’t read it, here you go.

Pick up Andrew McCarthy’s (yes, that one!) YA novel Just Fly Away for $1.20.

Two great LGBTQ+ reads to scoop up on the cheap: David Levithan and Nina LaCour’s You Know Me Well and Julie Andrew Peters’s Keeping You a Secret. They’re $3 and $2 respectively.

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Thanks for hanging out, and we’ll see you back here in one week!

–Kelly Jensen, @veronikellymars on Twitter and Instagram.