The reasons they offer for doing this are various: “I get anxious reading, so this calms me down”; “I am a rebel, so I like to do things in unconventional ways”; and even, “I do it in case I die before I manage to finish the book, so I don’t run the risk of missing the end.” If I hadn’t heard about it from others, it would have never occurred to me to start a book at the end, because who wants spoilers?...

I often tell other bookish types that I’m a recovering English major. I’ve read all the nerdy books, guys. All of them. A few years ago I started rehabbing on Harry Potter, Twilight and the Hunger Games. Tina Fey’s Bossypants was a revelation. But if there was one genre I thought I’d never crack, it was the thriller. I flirted with the idea of thrillers for ages. My New Year’s resolution one year was to read more “pulp,” and I fantasized about lounging on a beach with margaritas and vintagey B novels à la Harold Robbins but with heists and murders....

HOWEVER. In the spirit of unabashed Bad Feminism (™ Roxane Gay), I will admit that Beauty and the Beast stories are totally and completely my weakness, due to an early-age identification with the animated Belle (thanks, Disney!). I suspect I am in no way special in this regard. I have read or watched literally dozens of Beauty and the Beast retellings or adaptations (and for the record, turned out pretty great with lots of self-esteem and healthy relationships)....

Following the characters through empty rooms, down creaking corridors, or into musty attics was an addictive adventure. Would they find a keepsake, hide a treasure, or reveal a locked-up family member? What could be more romantic than a solo search for something unknown? I imagined that these rooms had the woodsy aroma of a good hardware store, laced with a dusty old-book smell. Intoxicating. In a rundown house, a heroine could rattle doorknobs and rummage in forgotten cupboards, free to explore and never knowing what would turn up....

A great audiobook narrator, besides delivering words on a page, must be able to distinguish between character voices. Often times a full-cast production of an audiobook is quite expensive, and so when a book gets a narrator that can do the work of many, they go to the hall of fame as one of the best. Another great mark of the best audiobook narrators is how immersed they are able to keep you in the story through variations in their voice, tone, or style....

Instead of pressuring you to read in any specific way, I’ll give you a few tips that I think can help alleviate some of the negative feelings that can surround reading. I’ve also got some advice that can help zero in on finding the joy in reading again. It’s okay to feel grief about a past self who used to drink books like water. I know I grieve that version of myself!...

We’re giving away 5 copies of Quantum by Patricia Cornwell! This sweepstakes is open to residents of the United States (excluding Puerto Rico and all other U.S. territories). Entries will be accepted until 11:45 pm, November 12, 2019. Winner will be randomly selected. Complete rules and eligibility requirements available here. Oops! We could not locate your form.

Turns out they are more than the angels of our communities; they’re spies in disguise. In World War II, librarians were sent to neutral cities in Europe like Lisbon and Stockholm to help gather intelligence. The spies presented themselves as American officials collecting materials for the Library of Congress in order to “preserve the records of the present crisis.” In this way, they were able to get their hands on all kinds of printed information to send back home on microfilm to aid to American and Allied intelligence....

What’s your initial reaction one someone tells you they don’t like to read? Shock? Horror? Disgust? If you’re here at Book Riot, then you’re probably someone who loves books. In fact, books might be a huge part of your identity. It might be difficult to imagine life without escaping into the pages of books. I get it. I have always been a book kid. When my parents let me choose between getting new toys or new books, I got the books....

There’s been a murder in the TRI, the high-rise building where two sisters Nik (age 11) and Norva (age 13) live. One of the building’s most favourite residents, Hugh Knightley-Webb, a dealer of antiques, has been found dead, and Nik and Norva are on the case. They are smart, they are stubborn and they know how to follow the evidence. In the wake of a lackluster police effort, Nik & Norva will get to the bottom of the case no matter what it takes....

Oh, and you’ll definitely have to take an English class. English class will be the best class in your entire schedule. You’ll be assigned books by Truman Capote and Ernest Hemingway, and you’ll read Shakespeare and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. You will be asked your opinions about complex themes that relate to the book, and your English teacher, despite being well intentioned, will assume you don’t know as much as you actually do....

My love for horror may not be as obvious my love for romance and cozy mystery, but I do enjoy it very much. In the last few months especially, I have found myself drawn to it increasingly. I’m not exactly sure why—maybe it is just the idea that as wild as the world is, at least I’m not dealing with supernatural baddies. Well, not yet at least. Whatever the reason, I am happy to start off the spooky book season early....

Over the years, as I read more and more books in this language not my own, I realized something: there is a difference in how I approach reading in a second language. And when I opened a blog in English to practice my writing skills, I noticed that…oh yeah, I also approach writing in English in a fundamentally different way. It took me some years to parse out the whys, but here’s what I’ve learned so far:...

One of my favorite genres is science fiction. I dearly love a good space story, but it is a tenet of the very sub-genre that it deals with colonization, often as a result of the “speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method,” to quote Robert Heinlein....

That’s how I remember my nights during college a lifetime ago. I used to stay up all night reading ebooks on my phone. I was such a heavy reader back then that no one would be able to talk to me for several hours in the morning. But alas, gone were those days when all I do was curl up with a good book and forget the world for a while....

Becoming a writer is one of those dreams. A blogger for the past four years, writing is my way of practicing my feminist activism. Challenging my marginalization as a cisgender Black woman has always been a relatively easy process for me. Writing about my life as a differently abled individual, on the other hand, is a different story. When writing about my paralysis, I feel as if I’m not being real enough to the experiences and emotions that I’m attempting to convey—Hunger has helped to change all of that for me....

Zooming out this wide is crucial, as freedom of the press is intricately tied to intellectual freedom. Without eyes on local government, it’s easy for stories to fall between the cracks; more and more people begin to rely on Facebook for their news, whether or not that information is accurate or comes from within their own community. Social media has been the perfect breeding ground for groups like those behind these book challenges....

But thinking about these tips and advice also made me wonder: how effective are these tips? Can readers be made or are they born? The rest of these musings are exactly that: musings based on anecdotes and in no way on rigorous scientific research but it’s interesting to ponder. There are two examples I wanted to explore a bit more closely. First, my own upbringing. I was raised by Asian immigrant parents in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia....

Goodreads only has a limited amount of titles available to read. Still, there are enough options that you have a good chance at finding something you’re interested in checking out. Read on for step-by-step instructions on how to read books on Goodreads. First things first: the Preview feature. As Goodreads outlines on its site, Preview is available on any book that has a Kindle edition. All you have to do is navigate to the book and click on the “Open Preview” button, as seen below....

So relatable, right? Not to many, as the majority of people reading were not clumsy white girls. The readership was so much more diverse than the characters that they were provided with. Diverse readers who slotted themselves in and lost everything that made them unique. The experiences of these cis, straight, white girls couldn’t possibly be stretched to accommodate the experiences of those from more marginalized groups. Then the world of YA started moving away from heroines like Bella Swan and towards nuanced protagonists who came from different backgrounds, races, sexual and gender identities, and many more ways to personalize a character’s experience for diverse readers....