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“During the 49-minute episode released Wednesday, the former first lady and first Black president of the US discussed social justice advocacy in the wake of George Floyd’s death, the importance of the younger generation being politically engaged, and family. The Obamas, who both received their law degrees from Harvard University, also stressed that the perspective they gained from their experiences influenced their passion for political advocacy in their communities.Michelle Obama’s first podcast episode is live!...

New York Times bestselling author Ian K. Smith returns with the first propulsive thriller in a heart-pounding new series. Former Chicago PD detective Ashe Cayne is hired to investigate the disappearance of a wealthy young woman. But as he digs into her life and her past, he quickly uncovers secrets she’s been hiding from her family. He also fears he’ll never find her alive. Then, when her boyfriend is found murdered, Cayne will have to navigate his complicated relationships within the Chicago PD to find the missing woman, see justice done, and earn his redemption....

Look closer and you’ll see it clearly. My parakeet’s cage gives off a very vintage black-and-white feel, in great thanks to the torn-out pages of Nicholas Sparks titles that I use to line its bottom. Because Nickie’s pages are treated for tear-resistance, they seem all but designed with such a second life in mind. How do my umbrellas remain so erect by my front door? Well, it’s thanks to the old dictionaries that I glued in a stack, then drilled a hole through the center of....

Don’t just promote straight white dude centered and written comics.I think every time there is a lady-led comic, it gets put in our folder with a heyy, heyy, you may like this. Most of the time we do, which is why our folder is so big if we forget to pick them up for two weeks (I’M SORRY; WE WILL GET THEM I SWEAR). That’s actually how I found out about Mockingbird-because my local shop told me about it....

— The Associated Press (@AP) August 6, 2019 Her family has issued the following statement: “It is with profound sadness we share that, following a short illness, our adored mother and grandmother, Toni Morrison, passed away peacefully last night surrounded by family and friends. She was an extremely devoted mother, grandmother, and aunt who reveled in being with her family and friends. The consummate writer who treasured the written word, whether her own, her students or others, she read voraciously and was most at home when writing....

I have an abnormal attraction to books that explore things that are unfamiliar to me. The Amish books that lined my shelves in my early twenties caused my friends a good laugh, but hey – if anyone ever had a question about the Amish, I was the girl to call. Next came Hasidic Jews, and, after moving to LA and learning (and by learning I mean hearing about but not learning one damn thing) about a religion called Scientology, I went out and bought their bestseller....

This definitive retrospective of “Friends” incorporates interviews, history, and behind-the-scenes anecdotes to explore how the sitcom changed television forever. When “Friends” debuted in 1994, nobody expected a show about six twenty-somethings living and falling in love in NYC to become a mainstay of “Must See TV,” let alone a global phenomenon. In the years since, “Friends” has gone through many phases of cultural relevancy, from primetime hit to 90s novelty item to certified classic....

The winner for Favorite Book of 2011 was Veronica Roth’s debut young adult novel Divergent. The winner of Best Fiction of 2011 was 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. The winner of Best Nonfiction of 2011 was Alexandra Robbins’ The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth. I’ve seen some comments that note Divergent‘s win is a mark of the growing commercial and cultural appeal of YA, which is a good point. You’re probably not going to see Divergent on any major “Best of” list, unless it’s a list specifically devoted to YA titles....

“Beautiful, inspiring, emotional, masterful.”—Heidi Chiavaroli, Carol Award–winning author of Freedom’s Ring and The Orchard House. This dual-time story from Amanda Cox deftly explores the complexity of the mother-daughter relationship, the way the secrets we keep shape our lives and the lives of others, and the healing power of telling the truth. You know the story: The main character, after many years away, must return to their hometown because of an illness or death in their family, or because they’ve been at war and now they’re back, or maybe they’ve gotten a divorce and need familial support while they get back on their feet — the reasons go on and on....

I’ve written about books for the past five years, on and off for Book Riot and elsewhere. If I ask this question, I assume other readers do too. So I took the deep dive to find the answers. What Are Book Preorders? Now, for this part, the answer is intuitive: this is the process by which you order a book before its publication date. This can be done in person at a bookstore, or online (which is most common)....

Who is Goodreads Charles? Imagine that you are an author whose queer book is about to be released. How exciting! You are still going through the final edits, and ARCs are not released yet, but you do have a Goodreads listing of your book up. It’s being added to lists like “2020 Queer SFF,” and you’re looking forward to (and terrified of) people adding it to their TBR. But you already have your first rating!...

What is magical realism? Magical realism can be found in most art forms throughout the world, however the literary movement of magical realism was spearheaded by Latin American authors. Particularly from these Latin American authors it is often read as a genre of political subversion. Just as the fantastic and magical elements are presented as normal, the standard structure of reality is put into question. Essentially, magical realism is a chance for authors to show an alternative to an accepted reality, which can be an incredibly powerful tool against political regimes....

You might not think the movie is good (Voltaire supports your right to be wrong), but it’s undeniable that the performance of Doug Jones as a romantic lead as a fish man was a shock to some. As Kayleigh Donaldson described it, “That whole part about the inter-species sex scene has raised more than a few eyebrows since the film first screened…Some critics have been unnerved by the story, but there are also plenty of women who are incredibly excited to see this romance play out....

According to Emily Hanford, senior education correspondent at APM Reports, our brains are designed for talking, not for reading, so we have to put in extra effort to learn to read. Most of us rely heavily on phonics to learn how to read, which is the process of sounding out the words, and then marrying the sound to the letters. It took a long time for the focus to shift to teaching reading through phonics, as the original process was through a ‘whole-word’ mentality....

Well…it depends on how you define it. Humans have been combining art with words ever since we invented writing, basically. It could be argued that prototypical comics date back to as early as the 15th century and Hieronymous Bosch, who used sequential paintings to tell a narrative, but I don’t think there’s that much of a through line from Bosch to Deadpool. (Deadpool would probably disagree with me.) Political cartoons emerged in the 17th century and over the next couple centuries would develop techniques we still recognize in comics today, like captions and speech balloons....

For me, pairing a good book with someone I know well is a fun puzzle. I like trying to find the right pieces that fit together. Of course, it’s a different experience being on the receiving end, when a book is recommended to you. As much as I like book recommendations, I don’t simply pick up every book I am recommended. I go through a set of criteria when deciding whether to read the book....

Get to know more about the superhero—and the teenager behind the mask—with this brief intro to all things Ms. Marvel. Who is Ms. Marvel? Ms. Marvel has existed in the comic book universe since 1976. Several characters have used the moniker since that time, including Carol Danvers, who took the mantle briefly before becoming Captain Marvel in 2012. The latest incarnation of Ms. Marvel is Kamala Khan, an ordinary Pakistani American teenager living with her tight-knit religious family in Jersey City....

Why Did Marvel Create A Gender-Swapped Hulk? It’s easy to forget that, before Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man in 2008, comic book characters spent years without live-action adaptations. When Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. premiered in 2013, Marvel’s last popular TV show was The Incredible Hulk, which went off the air in 1982. She-Hulk owes her existence to that cheesy TV romp. According to Rotten Tomatoes, Marvel created She-Hulk just to keep a gender-swapped Hulk IP out of someone else’s hands....

The Executive Director of Audio Publishers Association, Michele Cobb, shared that “2020 was a banner year for audiobooks with over 71,000 titles published and the ninth year of double-digit sales growth.” While 2020 might have brought a lot of commutes to a stop, it looks like that couldn’t slow down the growth in audiobook listening. In fact, 43.6% of the survey answerers engage with audiobooks to some extent. While audiobooks were first produced by The American Foundation of the Blind and continue to be a great resource for accessibility in books, they’ve also taken off in a lot of different contexts....

Zelda is the subject of two new novels: Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler (St. Martin’s Press) and Call Me Zelda by Erika Robuck (New American Library, May 7th). I decided to read both books back to back and declare a Battle of the Zeldas winner. In the interest of full disclosure, my previous knowledge of the Fitzgeralds consisted of possibly reading The Great Gatsby in high school (pretty sure I didn’t actually read it, but I do remember hubba hubba Robert Redford) and watching Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris....