Books

Salman Rushdie and publisher Penguin Random House announced today that the bestselling novelist will release a memoir about the knife attack he suffered in August 2022 that left him blind in his right eye. The attack happened at the Chautauqua Institution in New York during an event where he was set to speak about how

Mara (They/Them) has accidentally on purpose made their entire life about books and stories. Mara graduated with a B.A in creative writing and theatre and is halfway through an MFA in Creative writing. In addition to writing for Book Riot, Mara also has written for The Independent Book Review, Wargamer, and The Other Half, to

Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen. View

The inimitable Nikki DeMarco is as well-traveled as she is well-read. Being an enneagram 3, Aries, high school librarian, makes her love for efficiency is unmatched. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, and is passionate about helping teens connect to books. Nikki has an MFA in creative writing, is a TBR bibliologist, and writes for Harlequin,

Erica Ezeifedi, Associate Editor, is a transplant from Nashville, TN that has settled in the North East. In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a victim advocate and in public libraries, where she has focused on creating safe spaces for queer teens, mentorship, and providing test prep instruction free to students. Outside

Emily has a PhD in English from the University of Southern Mississippi, MS, and she has an MFA in Creative Writing from GCSU in Milledgeville, GA, home of Flannery O’Connor. She spends her free time reading, watching horror movies and musicals, cuddling cats, Instagramming pictures of cats, and blogging/podcasting about books with the ladies over

Patricia Thang is an educator located in Los Angeles. Though a native Angeleno through and through, her heart also belongs to Tokyo, where much of her family is from. Besides books, she is an enthusiastic devourer of many things, including podcasts, television, and J-pop. She realizes there’s not enough time in the world to consume

Gia R. is from Phoenix, Arizona. She graduated with two business degrees. While studying, her short nonfiction story was published in 2018 in Write On, Downtown, an ASU journal. Since then, she taught preschool students abroad. Now back in AZ, you’ll find her writing, reading, and adoring digital art. View All posts by Gia R.

R. Nassor may spend more time with books, tea, and ceramic mugs than recommended by professionals but it hasn’t failed her so far. Nassor has a MA in English Literature from Georgetown University, where she looked at the way medieval and early modern literature reappear in fantasy books today. She’s been writing about romance, fantasy,

Most of Tirzah Price’s life decisions have been motivated by a desire to read as many books as humanly possible. Tirzah holds an MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and has worked as an independent bookseller and librarian. She’s also the author of the Jane Austen Murder

Kelly Jensen is out this week, so Erica Ezeifedi and I are filling in on censorship news. Unfortunately, none of us can be Kelly, even with our forces combined, so we’re trying something a little different in the censorship news round-up. Instead of one big story and dozens of bullet points, we have each picked

Today, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Norwegian novelist and playwright Jon Fosse. Fosse’s work has been highly acclaimed across Europe, and is gaining more and more of an audience in English-speaking portions of the world. The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded for entire bodies of work, and Fosse’s win comes as

Alison Doherty is a writing teacher and part time assistant professor living in Brooklyn, New York. She has an MFA from The New School in writing for children and teenagers. She loves writing about books on the Internet, listening to audiobooks on the subway, and reading anything with a twisty plot or a happily ever

Children’s author and illustrator Ed Young passed away at the age of 91 on September 29th in his home in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. He leaves behind a vast legacy — the multiple Caldecott Medal-winning author wrote 17 children’s books and illustrated over 80. His books often contained the fantastical — fairy tales, folktales, and poetry, rounded

The son of a librarian, Chris M. Arnone’s love of books was as inevitable as gravity. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Missouri – Kansas City. His novel, The Hermes Protocol, was published by Castle Bridge Media in 2023 and the next book in that series is due out in

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr was published in 2014 and quickly became a bestseller, staying on the New York Times Bestseller list for 200 weeks. It also won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the National Book Award. The book has been adapted into a limited Netflix

In recognition of Banned Books Week, the New York Public Library is launching “Books for All: Protect the Freedom to Read,” a campaign that will run until the end of June. This will be the longest running anti-censorship campaign in NYPL history, and it’s in reaction to an “unprecedented” rise in censorship across the country,

Just in time for Banned Books Week (October 1-7), two California library systems — San Diego Public Library and LA County Library — have joined the Books Unbanned initiative. In 2021, the Brooklyn Public Library started the initiative as a way to counteract the deluge in book banning in schools across the country. Though this year

Goodbye summer, hello fall, and welcome to the Riot Roundup! Every quarter, we ask our staff and contributors to share the best books that they’ve read in the last few months, and that is why we’re gathered here today. These don’t have to be new books: whether it’s frontlist, backlist, or an upcoming release, we

Born into a family of readers, P.N. gained a love reading as a sort of herd mentality. This love of reading has remained a life long passion, resulting in an English Degree from The University of Houston in Houston, Texas. She normally reads three to four books at any given time, in the futile Sisyphean

Grace Lapointe’s fiction has been published in Kaleidoscope, Deaf Poets Society, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, and is forthcoming in Corporeal Lit Mag. Her essays and poetry have been published in Wordgathering. Her stories and essays—including ones that she wrote as a college student—have been taught in college courses and cited in books and

Kristian Wilson Colyard grew up weird in a one-caution-light town in the Appalachian foothills. She now lives in an old textile city with her husband and their clowder of cats. She’s on Twitter @kristianwriting, and you can find more of her work online at kristianwriting.com. View All posts by K.W. Colyard Kristian Wilson Colyard grew

On September 27th, we shared the results of EveryLibrary and Book Riot’s survey on parent perceptions of public libraries. This has been such a valuable partnership, and the results are fascinating — in both promising and concerning ways. This is the first of three planned surveys, so expect to see more of our results very

California’s Senator Dianne Feinstein passed away Thursday night after a long struggle with health that started with a case of shingles months ago. At 90, she had served as a senator for 30 years, making her the longest-serving woman senator ever. Feinstein details some of her career as a trailblazing democrat in Nine and Counting:

Jaime Herndon finished her MFA in nonfiction writing at Columbia, after leaving a life of psychosocial oncology and maternal-child health work. She is a writer, editor, and book reviewer who drinks way too much coffee. She is a new-ish mom, so the coffee comes in extra handy. Twitter: @IvyTarHeelJaime View All posts by Jaime Herndon Jaime

Independent journalism outlet Popular Information has shared the contents of a public records request that was first shared with them by the Florida Freedom to Read Project (FFTRP). It shows a document detailing a conversation had between Charlotte County Superintendent Mark Vianello, the school board’s attorney, Michael McKinley, and the district’s librarians. The librarians wanted

Book Riot and the EveryLibrary Institute have teamed up for a survey that examines parents’ perceptions of public libraries and book bans. The survey asked questions like, “Do you feel your child is safe at the library?” “How comfortable are you with LGBTQ+ characters and themes in children’s books?” and “At what age should children

In 1773, 12 years after she had arrived in Boston as an enslaved child, Phillis Wheatley set sail to London to promote her book of poems. This collection of poetry was the first ever published by a Black American. During the trip back home to Boston from London, Wheatley wrote a poem titled “Ocean” —

Erica Ezeifedi, Associate Editor, is a transplant from Nashville, TN that has settled in the North East. In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a victim advocate and in public libraries, where she has focused on creating safe spaces for queer teens, mentorship, and providing test prep instruction free to students. Outside

The Federal Trade Commission, alongside 17 states from California to Wisconsin, is suing Amazon for allegedly maintaining an illegal monopoly in their online retail space. They claim Amazon makes it impossible for other retailers to compete by doing things like placing ads within their search results and boosting their own products over third party listings,