Month: September 2020

5 Beautiful, Newly Released Picture Books

Post author By Karina Glaser
Post date September 25, 2020

What’s In a YA (Book Title) Name?

Post author By Kelly Jensen
Post date September 25, 2020

Sponsored by Channel Kindness by Born This Way Foundation Reporters with Lady Gaga.

In Lady Gaga and Born This Way Foundation’s first book, you’ll find stories of inspiration and community from young storytellers. Within the pages of CHANNEL KINDNESS you’ll meet changemakers who found their inner strength, prevailed in the face of bullies, started their own social movements, and decided to break through the mental health stigma. These storytellers share how they felt, created safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth, and embraced kindness with every fiber of their being by helping others without the expectation of anything in return.

Hey YA Readers!

You’re reading this from the future. Well, not really. But kind of. I’m on a two week break — no fancy vacation for me, unless you count the trips from my couch to the hammock fancy — and writing a few newsletters in advance, including this one.

YA book titles are something I always think about. They fascinate me, especially when it comes to trends. We’ve seen the single-word titles come and go. We’ve seen so many thorns and thrones over the last half decade, and there’s been so many things Of one thing And another. We’ve seen a surge in YA book titles featuring full names over the last few years. I could add so many more to this list I made!

But I wonder: what YA books have very long titles? Has anyone ever looked what what the longest YA book titles might be?

This highly unscientific exploration looks at long titles, which, as one researcher as pointed out, is a thing we’re seeing more often now in fiction. Let’s see how long we can go — note that I’m choosing not to include those titles which include a colon, since that can be too-easy a way to create length.

None of these YA book titles will come close to the lengthy title of Fiona Apple’s sophomore album “When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He’ll Win the Whole Thing ‘fore He Enters the Ring There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right.”

For librarians and teachers doing physical or virtual displays, this would be a really neat one to play with.

I’ve stuck to YA books, meaning that some of the titles you might think of are not included because they’re not YA. If you know of other YA titles, sans colon, over 9 words long, I’d love to hear about ’em! Note, too, since this list looks at book title length, it is no where near as inclusive as it should be.

Long YA Book Titles

I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President by Josh Lieb (15)

After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away by Joyce Carol Oates(13)

I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter (13)

On the Bright Side, I’m Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God by Louise Rennison (12)

Me Being Me Is Exactly As insane As You Being You by Todd Hasak-Lowry (11)

As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynn Rae Perkins (10)

Just a Boy and a Girl in a Little Canoe by Sarah Mlynowski (10)

The Lost Marble Notebook of Forgotten Girl and Random Boy by Marie Jaskulka (10)

The Sweet, Terrible, Glorious Year I Truly, Completely Lost It by Lisa Shanahan (10)

All the Days Past, All the Days to Come by Mildred D. Taylor (9)

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (9)

How to Pack for the End of the World by Michelle Falkoff (9)

The Last Confessions of Mara Dyer and Noah Shaw by Michelle Hodkin (9)

The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson(9)

Any surprises? What I found surprising in compiling this was some of the books I thought had long titles actually didn’t. Instead, the words each had numerous syllables, making them sound much longer than they actually are.

Thanks for hanging!

— Kelly Jensen, @heykellyjensen on Instagram and editor of Body Talk, (Don’t) Call Me Crazy, and Here We Are.

Today In Books

Be A Live In Book-Seller In The Maldives: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date September 25, 2020

Sponsored by See Her Die by Melinda Leigh.

Be A Live In Bookseller In The Maldives

Want to be a bookseller and live in the Maldives? Good news: a luxury resort in the Maldives–Soneva Fushi, on Kunfunadhoo Island–is looking for a bookseller to start next month and work through Easter. “When the position of ‘barefoot bookseller’ was previously advertised, Blackwell received thousands of applications from people desperate to escape the grind of daily life.”

The Most Popular Book Set In Every Country

NetCredit made an algorithm and used Goodreads’ ratings to figure out the most popular book set in every country. In the bigger picture takeaway the most popular book set in South America is Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is the most popular book set in the Middle East and Central Asia. Then some country winners say a lot (not great) about publishing and readers with The Help taking the popular book set in North America and Jurassic Park for Costa Rica. On the upswing, Like Water For Chocolate was the most popular book set in Mexico.

Publishers Weekly Now En Español

Publishers Weekly and Seville-based Lantia will publish Publishers Weekly en Español 26 times a year, starting with its first magazine issue in Spain this week. It contains feature interviews and profiles along with over fifty Spanish-language titled book reviews. Currently it’s available in Spain and El Sótano bookstores in Mexico, with the rest of the Americas to have access soon.

Celebrating Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Books that explore the extraordinary life and work of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Giveaways

092520-PodiumEAC-Giveaways

Post author By Hannah Cherie Hudson
Post date September 25, 2020

Riot Rundown

092520-SmashIt-RR

Post author By Natalia Heroux
Post date September 25, 2020

Sponsored by Smash It! by Francina Simone, published by Inkyard Press

Olivia “Liv” James is done with letting her insecurities get the best of her. So, she does what any self-respecting hot mess of a girl who wants to SMASH junior year does . . . she makes a list–a F*ck-It list.

She kicks it off by trying out for the school musical, saying yes to a date and making new friends. However, with change comes a lot of missteps, and being bold means following her heart. So, what happens when Liv’s heart is interested in three different guys—and two of them are her best friends?

Check Your Shelf

Librarians Are Not Childcare

Post author By Katie McLain
Post date September 25, 2020

Swords and Spaceships for September 25: Happy Hamillday!

Post author By Alex Acks
Post date September 25, 2020

Sponsored by our 'Books by authors you should get to know' Book Bundle Giveaway!

Book Riot is teaming up with BookClubbish to give away one book bundle containing 5 books by authors you should add to your TBR list: The Woman Before Wallis by Bryn Turnbull, Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West, The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi, The Bright Lands by John Fram, and A Good Family by A.H. Kim.

Happy Friday, shipmates! We did it. We survived another week. Assuming that you haven’t completely transcended the mortal construct that is time at this point. It’s Alex, with a list of books that came out very silly, and some news items to share, many of which involve pre-orders being available so Past You can send Future You a nice present.

I hope you can keep on keeping on, and stay safe out there.

Happy thing for today: The new season of GBBO starts on Netflix TONIGHT. I am going to bake cake ALL WEEKEND.

Also, the Gundam is WALKING

Looking for non-book things you can do to help in the quest for justice? Louisville Community Bail Fund

News and Views

Cassandra Khaw has written her first full-length novel! You can already pre-order The All-Consuming World.

We’ve also got a cover reveal and excerpt for P. Djèlí Clark’s A Master of Djinn, which sure sounds like it’s in the same delightful universe as The Haunting of Tram Car 015.

Darcia Little Badger talks beautifully about her father, her grief for him, and the influence he had on her as a writer.

Rhianna Pratchett: “Dad would be smiling to see my name on a book”

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki announced the launch of The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction.

You can now pre-order Silk & Steel: A Queer Speculative Fiction Anthology

The last words of every fallen Lord of the Rings villain and hero

Judith Butler ethered both a completely unprepared interviewer and She Who Must Not Be Named with the grace of an ice dancer and the supreme cutting edge and power of a diamond-bladed pathology saw.

I know I’m wandering a little far from books here, but everything I’ve read about the African Fantasy MMO The Wagadu Chronicles is just really cool

The Evolution of Costumes in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Get your avocados to Mars

On Book Riot

9+ Tolkien-inspired recipes to enjoy on Hobbit day

5 great speculative fiction anthologies of 2020

This month, you can enter to win $50 to spend at your favorite indie bookstore and a free 1-year audible subscription.

Free Association Friday: Happy Birthday, Mark Hamill!

On this day in 1951, Mark Hamill entered the world. Presumably he was not yet wielding a lightsaber, as that could have gotten very awkward. So how about some books that touch on his incredibly varied career?

Please note: Since I was looking for very specific books, this list didn’t come out with quite the diverse authorship I normally want. But hopefully it’s still fun and silly, at least.

The Joker: A Visual History of the Clown Prince of Crime by Daniel Wallace – This is the hill I will die on: Mark Hamill is the best Joker there has ever been (though I will also accept Cesar Romero). And Mark Hamill himself wrote the introduction to this book!

The Legends of Luke Skywalker by Ken Liu – Luke is obviously Mark Hamill’s most iconic character, and this book explores the stories that the characters within the Star Wars universe tell about him–which may be true or not.

Or if you want a book that’s very Luke-centric from Legends, I definitely recommend Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambly.

Zorro by Isabel Allende – Mark Hamill totally voiced Zorro in an animated version of the tale, 1997-1998. This book is not about those cartoons, but it sounds like a cool book about Zorro nonetheless.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: Legacy by Michael Teitelbaum – I had absolutely no idea that Mark Hamill was the voice of Fire Lord Ozai until I started really diving into his work history. So if you didn’t know either, now you know. There’s some cool backstory stuff about the Fire Nation (and Ozai) to be found in this here book.

How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell – You see, when DreamWorks made movies from these books, they also made a TV series. Mark Hamill was the voice of Alvin the Treacherous in those, which honestly sounds like a lot of fun.

Wing Commander: Heart of the Tiger by – William R. Forstchen and Andrew Keith – The first time I actually saw Mark Hamill outside of his role as Luke Skywalker was when I played Wing Commander III… which I never finished because our PC at the time couldn’t handle it. But it was cutting edge, it had video of him and everything. He plays Colonel Christopher “Maverick” Blair, the main character.

The Art of Castle in the Sky by Hayao Miyazaki – Yup, Mark Hamill did a voice in the English dub of Laputa: Castle in the Sky (he was Muska.) It’s also still one of my favorite Miyazaki films, which doesn’t actually have anything to do with Mark Hamill, though I’m sure his presence didn’t hurt.

I also learned that there is a cartoon called Biker Mice From Mars (based on comics) and he voiced the character Pierre Fluffbottom, so if I have to know that, so do you.

See you, space pirates. You can find all of the books recommended in this newsletter on a handy Goodreads shelf. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.

Read This Book

Read This Book: We Are Not From Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez

Post author By Tirzah Price
Post date September 24, 2020

Sponsored by White Fox by Sara Faring, with Fierce Reads.

“A ghost story that will spook even the most hardened grown-ups.” —Entertainment Weekly. After their world-famous mother disappears under mysterious circumstances, sisters Manon and Thais are sent away from their remote Mediterranean home by their father. Lured home a decade later by the death of their father, the sisters discover their mother’s legendary last work, White Fox, a screenplay filled with enigmatic metaphors. The clues in this dark fairytale draw them deep into society’s surreal underbelly, into the twisted secrets hidden by their glittering family, to reveal the truth about their mother—and themselves.

Welcome to Read This Book, a weekly newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!

This week’s pick is a powerful, hard-hitting YA novel that I inhaled earlier this year: We Are Not From Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez.

Content warning: Violence, death, assault (not detailed, but both on and off page), grief, suicidal ideation

Pulga, Chico, and Pequeña are three teens living in a small city in Guatemala. Chico lives with Pulga and his mom after his own mother’s death, and Pequeña lives with her own mother, who is close with Pulga’s mom–they consider each other cousins, even if they’re not related by blood. At the start of the book, Pequeña is pregnant, and she goes into labor. The boys head to the nearby store for Cokes and fireworks to celebrate the baby’s birth, and instead end up witnessing a violent murder. Mere days later, it becomes obvious to the three teens that it’s no longer safe for them to stay in Guatemala thanks to the violent man who is responsible for the murder the boys witnessed and Pequeña’s rape that resulted in her pregnancy. Under the cover of night they leave and head north. But the journey is perilous, especially aboard La Bestia, the train that many migrants hitch a ride on in Mexico. It’ll take all their strength, courage, and determination to make it.

You may recall some controversy surrounding American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins earlier this year. Writer Myriam Gurba does a great job summarizing why that book is harmful. While I haven’t read it personally, after reading You Are Not From Here and some reviews from writers with much more familiarity on the topic of migrants from Central America than I possess, I think it’s safe to say that this book is absolutely essential reading and the better pick. The author writes these characters with such sensitivity and vibrance.

Pulga and Pequeña share narration duties as they reveal what it’s like to grow up alongside the violence in their neighborhood, so much so that it doesn’t come entirely as a shock when they are finally forced to flee their home. As they travel north and face danger after danger, occasionally sprinkled with some small kindnesses from strangers, Sanchez knows when to focus in on their journey, when to pull back in order to make the reader feel alongside them. She has a true gift for making the reader understand the horrors without having to spell them out explicitly. This is not an easy read, but it is essential and eye-opening. Yes, it’s written for teens, but adults should absolutely read it too. While this book is not without hope, Sanchez also makes it clear that the United States is no promised land–more danger and adversity face these characters at their destination, but they’ll chance it over certain death back home. This is a powerful read that has stayed with me, and I think will linger in my mind for a long time.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Marisa Blake, which I highly recommend.

Happy reading,

Tirzah

Find me on Book Riot, the Insiders Read Harder podcast, All the Books, and Twitter.

If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, click here to subscribe.

Unusual Suspects

Books Perfect for True Crime Podcast Fans

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date September 24, 2020

UK’s Most Prestigious Sci-fi Prize Awarded: Today In Books

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date September 24, 2020

Sponsored by Smash It! by Francina Simone, published by Inkyard Press.

UK’s Most Prestigious Sci-fi Prize Awarded

The United Kingdom’s most prestigious prize for science fiction, named after Arthur C. Clarke who cowrote the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, has been awarded! The 2020 Arthur C. Clarke Award and £2020.00 cash prize went to Namwali Serpell for her novel The Old Drift.

Trump Admin Accused Of Blocking Bolton’s Book For Political Reasons

Ellen Knight, the NSC former senior director for records access and information security management, has backed former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s claim that the Trump administration took over the review of his book, The Room Where It Happened, for political purposes rather than following protocol. Her lawyers presented a 19-page letter that states “…the book was in fact cleared of classified information after an intensive process—only to be blocked by political appointees, who later unsuccessfully pressured Knight to change her story and eventually removed her from her post.”

Natalie Portman Adds Children’s Author To Résumé

Actress Natalie Portman has authored her first children’s book. Natalie Portman’s Fables, illustrated by Janna Mattia, is a reimagining of famous parables that have become classic children’s stories so that they are not all male characters. “‘I didn’t want to feel like we had to throw out the history of child-raising,’ Natalie wrote, adding, ‘instead I wanted to make the stories reflective of the actual world, where about half of the animal kingdom is female, and half is male, and some are neither or both.'”

12 Must-Read Romances With Great Fat Representation

This must-read list of fat-positive romance features queer representation and spans multiple sub-genres, including titles like Guarding Temptation by Talia Hibbert.