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Out Now Emma The newest adaptation of the Jane Austen classic, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Bill Nighy, and Miranda Hart, is a wonderfully scenic and spot-on production. It’s full of beautiful costumes and great cinematography. It’s no Pride and Prejudice (2005), but it’s still a great addition to the Jane Austen film canon and perfect for a night-in after a long day of working from home. Original release: February 21 Digital release: March 20...

Etsy is home to millions of printables for homeschooling or bullet journals or any other time you don’t want to have to hand-draw a chart. Here’s a cute summer reading set that also comes with bookmarks. $1.50 Another printable reading chart, but this time with ice cream cones! $2.67 This hedgehog is living their best summer reading life. $2.99 (also available as a pin) This summer reading candle smells like pink lemonade, which has to be one of the official scents of summer....

A Thousand Steps is a beguiling thriller and a vivid portrait of a turbulent time by New York Times bestselling author T. Jefferson Parker. Laguna Beach, 1968. Matt Anthony is sixteen and his sister Jazz has just gone missing. The cops figure she’s just another runaway hippie chick, but Matt doesn’t believe it. Not after another missing girl turns up dead. In a town where the cops don’t trust the hippies and the hippies don’t trust the cops, uncovering what’s really happened to Jazz is going to force him to grow up fast....

Whether you’re a longtime comic book aficionado or just dipping your toes into the world of comics (don’t be intimidated! lots of us are nice!), you might be surprised by how many resources there are to read comics online for free. Free and legal, that’s what we like to hear! Graphite Comics I stumbled across this site recently by chance and was floored by the amount of comics and graphic novels I recognized from my own TBR — including some, like Steampunk Snow Queen, which I was unable to find through any other legal comic sites....

The finalists in the twenty-four categories have been announced and the lineup is stacked! Competition will be fierce, so may the best audiobooks win! There are too many finalists to list, so I would just like to highlight a few in each category. A full list of the 2019 finalists can be found here. Here are some of the finalists and their category in no particular order: Audiobook of the Year An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, narrated by Eisa Davis and Sean Crisden Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South....

Helps You Remember What You Will Never Remember About The Book — Including Whether You Read It Or Not Have you ever looked through your Goodreads and seen a book that you swear you’ve literally never seen nor heard of but in fact according to your review you read it? As a person with a terrible memory, I need to keep track of what I’ve read in order to 1) Not accidentally read it again and 2) Use the book for things like work....

Milena’s 20th birthday, the day she would join the ranks of her village’s hunters, should have been the most exciting day of her life. It meant she would be able to help protect her village from the murderous wolves who take human form—the creatures of the night. But a chance encounter with Elias, the enigmatic leader of the creatures, leaves her questioning everything she has ever believed to be true....

But before we get to that, I talked to a couple of established audiobook narrators for some tips on bringing out your A-game. Audiobook Narration for Beginners For beginners getting started in the audiobook industry, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the styles. “Listen to a lot of audiobooks! If you don’t already do this, get familiar with the pace, rhythm, what you like and prefer as a listener, and also what you don’t like… This will all help inform the type of reader you want to be,” says Danice Cabanella, the narrator of Mia P....

I relate to YA Muslim characters’ struggles with Islamophobia and finding a suitable Muslim mate, but as a 35-year-old I feel awkward reading about 18–25 year olds. That’s why I was relieved that The Chai Factor’s protagonist Amira Khan is in her 30s. The main plot point of The Chai Factor is Amira finishing grad school. In fact, the book starts out mentioning her master’s thesis, not her meet cute or marriage woes....

“The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin During my high school education, my English teacher assigned us “The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin. Set in space in the distant future, the short story features two characters: the pilot (Barton) and an 18-year-old female stowaway (Marilyn). During his flight to a frontier planet Barton discovers Marilyn, who stowed away in the hope of getting to her brother Gerry. By law, Barton must jettison all stowaways into space because his vessel carries the exact amount of fuel required to safely land at his destination....

The second thing that happens to me after My Obsessive Self (hereafter referred to as MOS) attacks, is that it wants to share its findings with anyone who will sit still long enough to listen (or read) about these discoveries. MOS has found shoes, accessories, clothes, THE PERFECT BOOK, and other “unfindable” things for many-a-friends who aren’t as, well, let’s call it “inspired,” shall we?, as MOS. And today, MOS is sharing the four bookish apps you need to have right now....

Yet as amazing as mushrooms are, they are just the above-ground extensions of the fungi below. The fungal world is a wild and fascinating place, and has shaped our environment in ways that we are only beginning to understand. The eight books below explore the Fungi Kingdom, sketch out its relationship to the human world, and reveal its paramount significance to life on this zany planet. Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World by Paul Stamets Mycelium Running was my introduction to all things mushroom....

For starters, this is faithful to the comics, where Brainy and Nia (there known as Nura Nal, aka Dream Girl) did have a thing for a while. Then there’s the fact that Nia is transgender. A happy trans person in a healthy relationship is practically unheard of in American television, so if this goes where it looks like it’s going, I will be cheering from the metaphorical rooftops. Or rather, most of me will be cheering....

Since the global pandemic has led to ever-more-restrictive social distancing measures, I must admit that I’ve lost my taste for feminist manifestas and cultural critiques. In fact, the only books that have been able to hold my interest for any significant length of time have been works of horror and speculative fiction. As this time of isolation is likely to continue for quite some time, I wanted to share with you some of the books I’ve been enjoying, and others that I’m looking forward to reading as a bulwark against overwhelming anxiety and utter boredom....

Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed. It’s December, clubbers! We’re wrapping up the year and the decade. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a reset! I’m really looking forward to a year in which I don’t get swine flu. But first, let’s talk about a book club idea involving 2019’s top titles. To the club!...

Naturally, like any parent-to-be, my mind of late has been preoccupied with the extremely important business of how to best set him up for success in life, which primarily means figuring out how soon the kid can be introduced to Middle-earth. For me, The Hobbit (which I read for the first time in 5th grade) was a gateway drug to a life-long love of fantasy. Perhaps one day you will even be able to read my own novel, a comedic fantasy heavily influenced by (and a loving ode to) Tolkien and his world....

You are what who you eat. Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food. Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of these book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories. But real life doesn’t like fairy tales, as she learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds....

That said, being nerdy about grammar — as opposed to judgmental about it — is fun. I love nerding out about things like semicolons, about the serial/Oxford comma, parallel construction, and more. I’ve even got an ampersand tattoo, symbolic because I love what it looks like, what it stands for, and what it means for me as a writer (I won’t go into the history of the ampersand, which I’ve already covered)....

The rules state that each year 1–2 romance authors will be honored and receive a prize of $1,000. An additional $100 will be donated to the charity of their choice. There are no categories or restrictions on length or publication type and authors are not required to submit their stories, or pay any fees, in order to be considered. The Ripped Bodice Awards are particularly welcome this year. The 2020 RITAs, previously the only romance award of note, were cancelled after the Romance Writer’s of America imploded following the censure of an author of color for publicly raising concerns about racism in the industry....

“‘I realised that I had thousands of these pages knocking about in a big wooden box in a shed at the bottom of the garden, and I ought to sort them out, see if they were any good,” says Gordon. “I was quite exercised to find out if they were any good. If I was going to do anything vis-a-vis my wife to show my love, my regret that she’d died, I wanted it to be good, so I was going through them with a fine-tooth comb....