When best-selling author Jodi Picoult learned her novel, “Nineteen Minutes,” was one of the titles being pulled from the shelves of Menomonee Falls High School, she wasn’t surprised.   Picoult’s books have been banned in about 41 school districts in the U.S. But she also didn’t want to let her book, which is about a…

While skimming the news, I saw a tweet about the popularity of MILFs. I didn’t have time to read the article itself but the headline didn’t surprise me. After all, MilSF—military science fiction—is very popular within science fiction, while fantasy generally outsells SF, so it stood to reason that military fantasy books—thus, MILFs (no need…

CHICAGO  —  Applications for the 2024 Will Eisner Graphic Novel Grants for Libraries are now being accepted by ALA’s Graphic Novels & Comics Round Table (GNCRT) and the Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation. These grants recognize libraries for their role in the growth of graphic literature and award funds and resources for graphic novel…

We are not the cultural consumers we used to be. Data, streaming, and Web 2.0 have remade how we read and how we watch. Platforms are the new publishers. But although we consume culture differently now, much of how we talk about and study it remains lodged in the analog world of the 20th century.…

Fans of thriller writer David Cornwell – better known by his pen name John le Carré – may have thought they had seen the last of recurring protagonist George Smiley when the author died in 2020. Yet the beloved spy is set to return next autumn – this time penned by Cornwell’s son. Publisher Penguin…

Modernity has always been profoundly unsettling. Living in an ever-changing world means that no one really knows how to be a human on any given day, and we all have to feel our way forward in the dark. But that’s precisely why the horror genre exists: to explore that darkness’ farthest edges with us. Through…

Bibliophiles are a pretty straightforward group—we love to read. That includes plenty of teachers. But finding a great gift that’s not another bestseller can be daunting. Use this list of 51 gift ideas (OK, a few are books) to find the perfect gifts for all the book lovers on your list. 1. Embroidered felt bookmark…

In the early summer of 2022, I flew into Lincoln, Neb., picked up my rental car and drove into a Willa Cather novel. Stretched out before me was an expanse of farmland alternating with tall, undulating grass. Once in a while, an isolated house would appear in the distance and a truck would rumble by,…

In 1906, Anne Carroll Moore was anointed the first head of the Department of Work With Children at the New York Public Library. There she oversaw the creation of the Central Children’s Room at the newly built flagship on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, established story hours and opened the previously locked shelves to all…

Imagine our world without writing. No pencils, no pens, no paper, no grocery lists. No chalkboards, typewriters or printing-presses, no letters or books. No computers or word-processors, no e-mail or Internet, no “social media”; and without binary code—strings of ones and zeroes that create computer programs—no viewable archives of film or television, either. Writing evolved…