Book Riot’s 2018 Read Harder Challenge

Book lists | Reader's Advisory | Reading

This year’s Read Harder challenged is presented by Libby.
Meet Libby. The one-tap reading app from OverDrive. By downloading Libby to your smartphone, you can access thousands of eBooks and audiobooks from your library for free anytime and anywhere. You’ll find titles in all genres, ranging from bestsellers, classics, nonfiction, comics and much more. Libby works on Apple and Android devices and is compatible with Kindle. All you need is a library card but you can sample any book in the library collection without one. In select locations, Libby will even get your library card for you instantly. Learn more at https://meet.libbyapp.com/. Happy Reading. Read more...

The Future Is Female: 7 Books on Female Leaders to Read Now

Books | Women | Book lists | Leadership

by Lisa Rosman | September 25, 2017 

Elizabeth Warren at testimony by U.S. Air Force Gen. Paul J. Selva, July 2017/Photo: CC/Flickr

 It’s safe to say that 2017 has been one of the most politically tumultuous years in U.S. history. But if there’s one silver lining, it’s that female leaders have really stepped to the forefront – from former Attorney General Sally Yates, who refused to endorse the proposed travel ban on people from majority-Muslim countries, to Senator Kamala Harris, the only sane voice in the Session hearings, to U.S. representative Maxine Waters, one of President Trump’s most vocal critics. Thank goddess, for we need as many strong women voices as possible to defeat the misogynist tenor of this current administration. These female political leaders should inspire us all to fight the good fight.

 

 

What Happened

Hillary Rodham Clinton

She may not have (officially) won the 2016 election, but the future is still female to Hillary. In this much-anticipated, admirably candid memoir, she explores why the first female U.S. presidential nominee of a major political party was defeated by a man whom even the GOP admits has a “woman problem.” From the anti-lady sentiment still holding sway – “I wish so badly we were a country where a candidate who said, ‘My story is the story of a life shaped by and devoted to the movement for women’s liberation’ would be cheered, not jeered. But that’s not who we are” – to her lambasting of press coverage – “[Trump’s actions] sucked up all the oxygen in the media” and Trump’s “dark energy” – Hillary never holds back, even when acknowledging her own blunders. (Yep, she regrets the “deplorables” comment as much as we do.) Brave, commanding, and painfully honest, it’s hard to read this memoir of loss and not wish she’d won.

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16 Genre Recs Based on Your Myers-Briggs Type | BookRiot

Book lists | Reading | Bibliotherapy

by Kate Scott | 09-18-17

 

It recently occurred to me that a number of book genres seem perfectly designed to appeal to people of certain Myers-Briggs types. If you’re not familiar, Myers-Briggs is a personality typing system. In the Myers-Briggs system, there are sixteen personality types. Each type consists of four letters: E (extrovert) or I (introvert), S (sensor) or N (iNtuitive), F (feeler) or T (thinker), and P (perceiver) or J (judger). Click here to learn more about each of these preferences.

I made a list of genres and Myers-Briggs types and paired them up. Sure enough, certain Myers-Briggs types and genres go together like ham and cheese.  Of course, there will be exceptions, but here’s which genre I think best fits each personality type. Read more...

Essential Anthologies: Poetry, Essays, and Letters in the Age of Trump

Books | Politics | Diversity

by Jennie Yabroff | September 7, 2017

Sad. Huge. Sick. Bigly. Unproud. Covfefe. Despite the fact that President Trump handles the English language like a three-year-old wearing frozen mittens, his words, both spoken and tweeted, have proved alarmingly successful tools of bullying, misdirection, and blame-shifting, enabling him to shape reality into an alternate version in which he is infallible and his critics are – another favorite – pathetic. As a literary critic wrote in The Guardian recently, Trump has used (or abused) the English language to “undermine the notion of objective truth more successfully than most novelists can dream of doing.”

What can you do when your enemy uses your weapon against you? Starting a few years ago, writers around the world began publishing essays, speeches, stories, and even, in a few prescient cases, novels warning of what awaited us were Trump to be elected. He was, and the weeks that followed were marked by reaction pieces by those same writers and others, many of them simply asking, what the hell just happened? Some two hundred-odd days later, Trump remains in office, and writers keep fighting his regime with the most powerful weapon at their disposal, trusting, or hoping, in its essential efficacy.

The fact that writers keep writing, keep putting their faith in words to accurately describe reality, keep believing that there are still readers out there who will be moved, possibly even changed, by what they’ve written, is in some sense the most audacious act of protest against this singularly linguistically hostile president. So many writers are feeling moved to record and resist not just Trump’s abuses of Americans’ civil liberties but his more basic lack of respect for human decency and civilized discourse, that we are now seeing several anthologies of writers responding to the Trump regime.

Tales of Two Americas

Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation

Edited by John Freeman

Tales of Two Americas, edited by John Freeman, examines the growing economic and class divide in our country through lenses fictional, factual, and poetic. Thirty-six writers, including Joyce Carol Oates, Edwidge Danticat, and Karen Russell contribute pieces set in Appalachia, the Rust Belt, and other divided regions of our increasingly conflicted country.
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14 Back-to-School Reads for Life-Long Learners

Booklists | Reading | Lifelong Learning  | Non-fiction

 

September 14, 2017

By KERRY FIALLO

14 Back-to-School Reads for Life-Long Learners: We may not be kids anymore, but there’s still time to expand your mind and learn something new.

 

The New Jim Crow

by Michelle Alexander

 

A timely and invaluable exploration of the evolution of racism in America’s modern age of so-called colorblindness. From the Jim Crow laws of the Reconstruction era to today’s mass incarceration of black men, this is an expertly researched, deeply engaging, and profoundly important call to action in the United States.

 

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11 Novels About 9/11 Worth Reading

September 11th | Book lists | Reader's Advisory

September 11, 2017

By JULIANNA HAUBNER

Everyone has a story about where they were when the world changed on September 11, 2001. It’s simultaneously the most upsetting, most uncomfortable, and most fascinating conversation to have—to hear what people remember, what they felt, and how they responded. Though it’s been nearly two decades, the reminders of that day are constant, and the pain is still fresh for many. The role of fiction, now and always, is to explore experiences, emotions, and the extent to which we can share our humanity. These profound, powerful, and perspective-shifting novels set on 9/11 and beyond do all of those things, and are valuable additions to any bookshelf.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

by Mohsin Hamid

Mohsin Hamid’s novel should be required reading for anyone looking to
understand the event from all sides. Changez is a Pakistani immigrant
living the American dream, with an elite career and a beautiful
girlfriend, when 9/11 changes everything. Suddenly, people look at him
differently, and his proclamations of love for his adopted country seem
worthless to those around him—and as the cultural relations continue to
shift, so does Changez’s outlook. This book is a powerful reminder of
what happens to those caught in the middle of extreme situations, the
influence of prejudice in the wake of disaster, and how every action has
an equal, opposite reaction.

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Unearthing the history made by well-behaved women | BookRiot

Booklists | Non-fiction | Women in history

by Ann Foster August 5, 2017

You have likely come across Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s well-known quote, “well-behaved women seldom make history,” on ironic cross-stitch samplers, tote bags, and fridge magnets. Removed of its original context, it has become a rallying cry for women to make history by misbehaving, suggesting that the only way to stand out is to misbehave. In context of Ulrich’s original writing, though, the quote is less a rallying cry and more a depressing truism: women born outside of royal families, who followed the rules, who stayed out of trouble, tended not to have their actions recorded. The women we best know from history did so because they stood out from the crowd: as royals, saints, murderers, murder victims, performers, artists, and more. This doesn’t mean the “well-behaved” women weren’t as interesting or worthy, only that we have few documents left to let us know who they were. The following nonfiction works use letters, diaries and other primary sources to help excavate the lives of women who — like Eliza Schuyler in Hamilton — found themselves removed from the narrative.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
This bestselling biography outlines both the unknowing medical contribution Henrietta Lacks made, as well as the nuances of both her life and that of her daughter, memorably portrayed in the recent HBO film by Oprah Winfrey.
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The most famous author from every state | March 9, 2017

Book lists | American writers | American literature

by Melia Robinson

George R.R. Martin, whose book saga was adapted for "Game of Thrones," was born and raised in New Jersey.Kevin Winter / Getty

 

 

 

First, we looked coast to coast to find the most famous book set in every state. Now we're hitting the books to discover the most famous author from every state.

Not all the choices were cut and dry. To qualify for this list, the famed authors had to be born in their respective states, but not necessarily live out their years there.

We considered the authors' fame in terms of ubiquity, acclaim, and financial success — and awarded bonus points if the author showed state pride by setting their works there.

Melissa Stanger contributed reporting on a previous version of this post.
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