Today’s The Stack is sponsored by Brave, by Svetlana Chmakova.
Svetlana Chmakova’s Awkward was an instant hit with middle grade readers in 2015, being named one of YALSA’s Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens 2016 and earning an Eisner nomination in the Best Publications for Teens category. Now Chmakova returns to the halls of Berrybrook Middle School, hot on the heels of this success, with Brave!
Celebrate Pride Month in literary style with our Read the Rainbow tees and brand new tote bag!
Hello Insiders,
We’re coming to you today with your first chance to help Book Riot explore a new project! (Now with a link for the form below, if it doesn’t load in your inbox!) For about as long as we can remember, we’ve wanted to offer readers a custom-recommendations book mail service — think of it as a Stitch Fix for books. Basically, you would tell us what you like to read and what you’re looking for, and we’d send you 3 handpicked books (or book recommendations) we think you’d love, along with a note about why we chose them.
We have a lot of ideas about how this could work, but we have a lot of questions too. That’s where you come in!
As part of our research, we’re offering 25 lucky Insiders the chance to participate in a one-time pilot program.
Here’s what you get:
Level 1: An email containing 3 custom book recommendations for $10
Level 2: A shipment of 3 custom-recommended paperback books for $50
Level 3: A shipment of 3 custom-recommended hardcover books for $75
Shipping is included in the above pricing.
25 participants will be randomly selected and notified by email. If you get into the pilot, you’ll receive a link to purchase the one-time pilot product and a survey about what you’re looking for. Then we’ll send you your picks in July!
Here’s what we need: If you are selected to participate in the pilot, we’ll be asking you to let us know when your books arrive and to give feedback on the process, the selections, and your interest in subscribing to an ongoing book-rec mailing service.
The fine print: The book-mailing portions of this pilot are open to US residents only, BUT we want to hear from those of you outside the US as well so that we know how to gauge interest and plan for the future. Additionally, we’re still figuring out how sales tax will work, so some states may be ineligible.
Complete this form by June 20th, and cross your fingers! We’ll notify the winners June 21st and send your books out in July.
Welcome back, book fans! I’m here to make your TBR list beg for mercy. There are SOOOOOO many amazing books out again today, I couldn’t just pick a few. SO here’s a giant list for your perusal. And you can hear about several of these great titles on this week’s episode of the All the Books! Rebecca and I talked about amazing books we loved, including The Prey of Gods, Hunger, and The Widow Nash.
Also, if you missed the news, I’m going to be hosting a little All the Books spinoff called All the Backlist! It swims into the All the Books stream starting June 23rd.
This week’s newsletter is sponsored by The People We Hate at the Wedding by Grandi Ginder.
A bitingly funny, hugely entertaining novel in which a fractured family from the Chicago suburbs must gather in London for their eldest daughter’s marriage to an upper-crust Englishman, proving that the harder we strain against the ties that bind, the tighter they hold us close.
Kingdom Cons by Yuri Herrera, Lisa Dillman (Translator)
A House Among the Trees by Julia Glass
Not Constantinople by Nick Bredie
Knife Creek (Mike Bowditch Mysteries) by Paul Doiron
The Grim Sleeper: The Lost Women of South Central by Christine Pelisek
Devil’s Due (Destroyermen) by Taylor Anderson
Saints and Misfits by S.K. Ali
Roar by Cora Carmack
The Chalk Artist by Allegra Goodman
Virology by Ren Warom
Undertow: A Novel by Elizabeth Heathcote
Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me by Janet Mock
The Beach at Painter’s Cove: A Novel by Shelley Noble
The Darkest Promise (Lords of the Underworld) by Gena Showalter
The Swallow’s Nest by Emilie Richards
The Ultimatum by Karen Robards
My Vanishing Twin by Tom Stern
Blind Spot by Teju Cole
Soldier Boy by Keely Hutton
Daylily Called It a Dangerous Moment by Alesandra Lynch
Joplin Wishing by Diane Stanley
Night Thoughts by Wallace Shawn
Continent: Stories by Jim Crace
Adua by Igiaba Scego, Jamie Richards (Translator)
I Was Told to Come Alone: My Journey Behind the Lines of Jihad by Souad Mekhennet
A History of the United States in Five Crashes: Stock Market Meltdowns That Defined a Nation by Scott Nations
Silver Silence (Psy-Changeling Trinity) by Nalini Singh
Hundreds of Interlaced Fingers: A Kidney Doctor’s Search for the Perfect Match by Vanessa Grubbs, M.D.
Stay Interesting: I Don’t Always Tell Stories About My Life, but When I Do They’re True and Amazing by Jonathan Goldsmith
Mad: A Novel (Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know Trilogy) by Chloé Esposito
The Switch by Joseph Finder
The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs by Mark O’Connell
Bad Romance by Heather Demetrios
The Circus by Olivia Levez
The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen
Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard
The Forgotten Girl by Rio Youers
A God in the Shed by J-F. Dubeau
The Great Rescue: American Heroes, an Iconic Ship, and the Race to Save Europe in WWI by Peter Hernon
Small Hours by Jennifer Kitses
Lockdown: A Novel of Suspense by Laurie R. King
Modern Tarot: Connecting with Your Higher Self through the Wisdom of the Cards by Michelle Tea
Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean
The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock by David Weigel
The Substitute by Nicole Lundrigan
Campus Confidential: How College Works, or Doesn’t, for Professors, Parents, and Students by Jacques Berlinerblau
Want by Cindy Pon
The Idea of You by Robinne Lee
Tom Clancy Point of Contact (A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel) by Mike Maden
The Widow Nash by Jamie Harrison
We Come Apart by Sarah Crossan and Brian Conaghan
Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland
Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity) by Victoria Schwab
Endgame: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Novels) by Bill Pronzini
Ash Falls by Warren Read
The City Always Wins by Omar Robert Hamilton
You Should Have Left: A Story by Daniel Kehlmann, Ross Benjamin (Translator)
So Much Blue by Percival Everett
Raven Stratagem (Machineries of Empire Series) by Yoon Ha Lee
The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden
The Accomplished Guest: Stories by Ann Beattie
Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman’s Awakening by Manal al-Sharif
The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne
Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History by Camille T. Dungy
Turf: Stories by Elizabeth Crane
Nothing Lasts Forever by Sina Grace
Grown-Up Anger: The Connected Mysteries of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Calumet Massacre of 1913 by Daniel Wolff
Fugitive in Full View by Jack Marshall
Away with Words: An Irreverent Tour Through the World of Pun Competitions by Joe Berkowitz
Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children) by Seanan McGuire
The Lost Letter by Jillian Cantor
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
Scribbled in the Dark: Poems by Charles Simic
Blue Money by Janet Capron
Hothouse by Karyna McGlynn
Fingerprints of Previous Owners by Rebecca Entel
Post High School Reality Quest by Meg Eden
The Other Side of Paradise: The Uncensored Memoirs of Bob Chinn by Bob Chinn
The Changeling by Victor LaValle
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal
Marriage of a Thousand Lies by SJ Sindu
The Forgotten Flight: Terrorism, Diplomacy and the Pursuit of Justice by Stuart H. Newberger
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Strange Magic: An Essex Witches Mystery by Sydney Moore
The Salt House by Lisa Duffy
The Space Between the Stars by Anne Corlett
The Black Elfstone: The Fall of Shannara by Terry Brooks
You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie
Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty by Ramona Ausubel (paperback)
Devils of Cardona by Matthew Carr (paperback)
Harmony by Carolyn Parkhurst (paperback)
That’s it for me today – time to get back to reading! If you want to learn more about books new and old (and see lots of pictures of my cats, Millay and Steinbeck), or tell me about books you’re reading, or books you think I should read (I HEART RECOMMENDATIONS!), you can find me on Twitter at MissLiberty, on Instagram at FranzenComesAlive, or Litsy under ‘Liberty’!
Stay rad,
Liberty
Take a Look, It’s in a Book, It’s a LeVar Burton Podcast!
Did anyone else notice the Explicit label on LeVar Burton’s new podcast, LeVar Burton Reads? Whatever. All I can say is this: when Mr. Reading Rainbow himself started narrating a snippet of fiction for the bumper episode (a speculative fiction reading, no less–we see you Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge), I got goosebumps. How many times can I click subscribe? The first full episode will appear on iTunes on June 13. Y’all.
Bet You Thought We Were Done With Harper Lee News
We’ll never be done. But iunno…I’m kind of looking forward to reading Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, the graphic novel. Lee’s estate is a-okay with plans for the adaptation, which will be illustrated by Fred Fordham who worked on Philip Pullman’s graphic novel, The Adventures of John Blake: Mystery of the Ghost Ship. I did not, nor do I ever plan to read Go Set a Watchman, but I’m fond of the “put an illustration on it” concept, and likely would only ever have reread TKAM in this format. It’s novel enough…
Down in the Underground, A Land Serene, A Library
I didn’t realize I’d be singing you links today. But here we are. And what deserves the magical treatment of a Labyrinth melody more than a library in an underground forest? It’s difficult to figure out what exactly is being said in the Architect announcement describing the reading and art space in Shanghai’s Onepark Gubei community club, but it sounds like different levels and areas of the space will complement different moods and levels of interactivity (put me on the waiting list for the “leave me alone I’m reading!” room). And, honestly, the gallery speaks for itself.
Ready, Set, Speed Read!
Lifehacker, the site we all lovingly check in with to have our minds blown by tips destined to never be employed in our blithely inefficient lives (just me?), has compiled a list of speed reading apps to help you show books and other readables what’s what. Part of me wants to try these out, but the other part of me is as hesitant as I was that first time I upped my audiobook speed to 1.25x. :hand-wringing:
Thanks to A Dark So Deadly by Stuart MacBride for sponsoring this week’s newsletter.
A gripping standalone thriller from the Sunday Times No. 1 bestselling author of the Logan McRae series. DC Callum MacGregor’s career was going pretty well until he covered up a mistake to protect his pregnant crime-scene tech girlfriend. Now, Callum’s stuck on a squad with all the other misfits—the officers no one else wants, but who can’t be fired—never likely to get within reach of a decent case again. That is, until they accidentally get handed the biggest murder investigation the city of Oldcastle has ever seen. When a mummified body is found in the local garbage dump, the top-brass assume pranksters have stolen it from a museum. But as Callum and his colleagues investigate, it starts to look less like student high-jinx and more like the work of a terrifying serial killer…
Today’s Riot Rundown is sponsored by TarcherPerigee, publisher of Start Where You Are by Meera Lee Patel.
A lushly illustrated, interactive journal featuring beautiful watercolors and inspiring quotes from celebrated writers, artists and visionaries…
The hardest questions are the ones that open doors. Every spread in this book features an inspiring quote from a famous figure paired with an exercise. These exercises–often taking the form of a chart, list or written prompt–are designed to help you apply the lesson within each quote to your life.
There is no right or wrong way to complete this book. If you’re honest with your thoughts, you’ll become privy to various pieces of yourself – some that you know very well, and others that have previously gone unnoticed.
Take your time. Use what you have. Start where you are.
We have 10 copies each of The Fortune Teller and The Memory Painter by Gwendolyn Womack to give away to 10 Riot readers!
Here’s what it’s all about:
From the award-winning author of The Memory Painter comes a sweeping and suspenseful tale of romance, fate, and fortune.
Semele appraises antiquities for an exclusive Manhattan auction house—and when she discovers a manuscript written in the time of Cleopatra, she knows it will be the find of her career. Its author tells the story of a priceless tarot deck that appears to be the work of a powerful seer. But it’s not long before Semele realizes the manuscript is more than it seems, for it holds the key to a two-thousand-year-old secret, a secret someone will do anything to possess.
Go here to enter the giveaway, or just click the image below. Good luck!
Hello, Novel folks! We’ve got another round of Epic spots open, and as usual you get first crack at them. They open up today, Monday the 12th, at 9am Eastern — have at ’em!
In case you weren’t sure, in addition to the perks you enjoy already Epic subscribers get:
– Access to the Insiders-only Forum, limited to 250 spots! Come hang out with us!
– A special Monthly Mailbag drawing, because free books are the best books.
Just head to My Account on insiders.bookriot.com, click “Manage My Subscription,” and grab your Epic spot. Ready, set, click!
We have a prize pack of books perfect for Father’s Day courtesy of Chronicle Books to give away!
Dads are diverse. Celebrate all their quirks with just the right book this Father’s Day. With books about explorers, history, and geography (Explorers’ Sketchbooks and Atlas of Countries That Don’t Exist), an encyclopedic tome on surfing (A Brief History of Surfing), an intricately illustrated activity book (From Here to There: A Book of Mazes to Wander and Explore), a hilarious homage to the original Star Trek series with an unexpected twist (Star Trek Cats), and a handsome volume that celebrates all they do (The Greatness of Dads), Chronicle Books has you (and your dad) covered.
Now go here to enter the giveaway, or just click on the image of the prize pack below. Good luck!
Happy Monday, book lovers! There are a lot of exciting things happening in the world of books. (Including an All the Books spinoff!) Hope you enjoy your week. Be excellent to each other. – xoxo, Liberty
(PS – Totally unrelated to books, but I want to share the joy: My new favorite show, The Good Place, is streaming for free on NBC right now. It is SO delightful!)
Sponsored by Penguin Random House Audio
Enter the Penguin Random House Audio sweeps to help “Transform Your Commute! We all know commuting can be stressful, so why not take that time on your way home to unwind with a good audiobook? Visit TryAudiobooks.com/commute to download your free audio copy of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and be entered to win the Grand Prize of an iPad and a year’s worth of audiobooks for your commuting pleasure!
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Enter between 6/01/17 and 6/30/17. Open to US residents, 18 and older. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. See Official Rules (http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/commute-rules/) for full details.
Lauren Graham will adapt YA novel Windfall by Jennifer E. Smith.
Rainbow Rowell will be penning the upcoming ongoing Runaways comic series.
Hiao Jingfang’s Hugo award-winner, Folding Beijing, to be made into a movie.
Oprah will announce her new book club pick on June 26. (Click here if you want to see what book I think it will be.)
Harry Potter prequel about Voldemort approved by Warner Bros., to be released on YouTube.
To Kill a Mockingbird to be issued as a graphic novel.
Riverheard Books will publish Little by Edward Carey in 2018. (I adore his work! His Iremonger trilogy is so freaking fantastic!)
Joel Edgerton has scripted and will direct a film based on Garrard Conley’s memoir Boy Erased.
Ta-Nehisi Coates to write Wrong Answer, about the 2013 Atlanta high school cheating scandal, based on the New Yorker article by Rachel Aviv.
Terry Weible Murphy’s memoir, Life in Rewind, will be adapted for the screen.
Katherine Arden (The Bear and the Nightingale) sold her middle grade debut to G.P. Putnam & Sons for Young Readers. Putnam described the book, called Small Spaces, as Stranger Things meets The Walking Dead.
And in case you hadn’t heard, there’s a new Nick Harkaway novel coming down the pike.
Squeeeeee, it’s Shadowsong, the sequel to Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones! (Jan. 30, 2018)
Black Star Renegades, Michael Moreci’s galaxy-hopping debut novel, looks awesome! (Jan. 2, 2018)
Fabulous gif of the new cover of Gloria Chao’s American Panda. (Feb. 6, 2018)
Alex R. Kahler on his new book, Runebinder, plus the fantastic cover. (Nov. 14, 2017)
Beverly Jenkins has a new book coming next year: Tempest! (Jan. 30, 2018)
And speaking of romances, here’s Gentlemen Prefer Heiresses by Lorraine Heath. (Aug. 22, 2017)
New Anne McCaffrey Pern covers revealed. (After August 1)
The fabulous cover (and an excerpt) of The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert. (Jan. 30, 2018)
New TV spots for Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.
Marvel unveiled a new poster for Black Panther!
Book Riot Recommends
At Book Riot, I work on the New Books! email, the All the Books! podcast about new releases, and the Book Riot Insiders new release index. I am very fortunate to get to read a lot of upcoming titles, and I’m delighted to share a couple with you each week!
See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt (Atlantic Monthly Press, August 1)
It will surprise zero people to learn that I am obsessed with the Lizzie Borden and the axe murders of 1892, so when I heard there was a new novel about the case coming next year, I squealed and squealed. If you don’t know Lizzie Borden, she was the OJ Simpson of her time: famously accused of killing her father and stepmother, then acquitted after the century’s biggest trial, despite the overwhelming public opinion that she was guilty. (Basically, a jury of twelve men let her go because they didn’t believe women were capable of such brutal crimes back then. Which really works in your favor when you’ve just axed two people to death.) This novel is like a crazy murdery fever dream, swirling around the day of the murders. Schmidt has written not just a tale of a crime, but a novel of the senses. There is hardly a sentence that goes by without mention of some sensation, whether it’s a smell or a sound or a taste, and it is this complete saturation of the senses that enables the novel to soak into your brain and envelope you in creepy uncomfortableness. It’s a fabulous, unsettling book.
A Twenty Minute Silence Followed by Applause: Essays by Shawn Wen (Sarabande Books, July 11)
I will be completely honest: A book of essays about famous mime Marcel Marceau would probably not be something I would pick up on my own in a store. But luckily I read books for a living, and this wonderful essay collection crossed my path! Radio producer Wen became fascinated by mime, an art you can’t put on the radio. This led her to meticulously research the world-famous mime Marceau, whose incredible life she has beautifully detailed in this haunting collection. He was so much more than just a man trying to get out of in an invisible box.
Two of our favorite bookish Twitter accounts have a chat.