Categories
New Books

Books I Am Thankful For: The 2016 Edition, Part 2

As promised, here is the second part of my list of books published in 2016 that I am thankful for, books that you may not have heard enough about. The end of the year is historically a slow time for grand new releases, so it’s a great time to remember fabulous books we read and share favorites. And you can hear Rebecca and I discuss some of December’s best titles on this week’s new episode of the All the Books! We talked about awesome books such as Kill the Next One, Whatever Happened to Interracial Love, and The Undoing Project.

audiobooks-comThis week’s newsletter is sponsored by Audiobooks.com.

Get your book fix on the go with Audiobooks.com! Whether you’re in the car, at the gym or on the couch, Audiobooks.com makes it easy to listen to over 100,000 titles on their user-friendly apps for iOS and Android. Stream books live or download for offline listening, and enjoy cool features like sped-up narration and custom bookmarking. You can browse by genre or curated lists, check out promotions and giveaways, and switch seamlessly between devices with cloud-syncing technology. And best of all, your first book is free! Try Audiobooks.com today.

guapaGuapa by Saleem Haddad

A fantastic story about Rasa, a gay man living in an unnamed Arab country, as he tries to discover what he wants from life in the middle of his country’s political and social upheaval.

Girl Mans Up by M-E Girard

A wonderful novel about a young woman who wants to escape labels and judgement associated with how she chooses to dress and act and love.

Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother’s Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South by Beth Macy

The horrifying true story of two African American brothers who were kidnapped in 1899 and forced to perform in a circus, and their mother’s 28-year fight to bring them home.

the unseen worldThe Unseen World by Liz Moore

A young woman raised and homeschooled by her brilliant but socially awkward scientist father seeks information about his life and work after his mind falters.

Christodora by Tim Murphy

A wonderful novel set in the iconic Christadora building in NYC, revolving around the AIDS crisis and the lives of the building’s tenants through the decades.

Known and Strange Things: Essays by Teju Cole

Cole’s first collection of essays are powerful, intellegent observations on art, politics, travel, and more. There are over fifty pieces to check out!

the winged historiesThe Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar

Four women caught in a violent rebellion struggle to make sure that their part in history will not be forgotten. (It’s also a companion novel to Samatar’s World Fantasy Award-winning debut, A Stranger in Olondria.)

The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis

One of the best dystopian novels of the year, The Wolf Road is about a young girl who is taken in and educated by a dangerous stranger after most of civilization is wiped out.

Rani Patel in Full Effect by Sonia Patel

A young Indian girl living in Hawaii, struggling to fit in with her peers as her parents’ marriage implodes, finds happiness and heartache in the world of underground hip hop.

blood in the waterBlood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson

An incredibly well-researched account of the Attica uprising and the cover-ups and lawsuits revolving around the incident that are still going on four decades later.

YAY, BOOKS! That’s it for me today. And if you want to learn more about books (and see lots of pictures of my cats, Millay and Steinbeck), or tell me about books you’re reading, you can find me on Twitter at MissLiberty, on Instagram at FranzenComesAlive, or Litsy under ‘Liberty’!

Stay rad!

Liberty

Categories
The Goods

$20 Tees – 5 Days of Deals

Book the halls and deck out your favorite readers with literary gear. 5 Days of Deals kicks off with adult tees for $20, today only!

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And don’t forget – you’ll get free mismatched library card socks with every purchase, while supplies last.

Categories
Giveaways

Win $250 to Spend at Amazon!

No need to mince words here: we are giving one lucky Book Riot reader $250 to blow at Amazon. Overstuff those stockings or get a jump on your New Year reading pile–up to you.

To enter, just try one (or more…) of our email lists, designed to help you get more out of your reading life, from finding out about cheap ebooks or keeping up with new releases. If you don’t like what you signed up for, unsubscribing is easy. No worries. (And if you already get these, go ahead and enter. Our email system won’t send duplicates to the same email address)

This giveaway is open internationally, and will be open to entries until midnight Eastern on December 8th, 2016. One entry per email address. I will randomly select a winner and email them for mailing info. The winner will have 48 hours to respond before I pick someone else, so use an email address that you actually check.

Ready? Go here to enter, or just click the image below:

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Categories
Riot Rundown

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Today’s Riot Rundown is sponsored by our very own $250 Amazon gift card giveaway!

No need to mince words here: we are giving one lucky Book Riot reader $250 to blow at Amazon. Overstuff those stockings or get a jump on your New Year reading pile–up to you.
Go here to enter.

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Categories
Giveaways

Giveaway: Win One of the Best Mystery Books of 2016

From now through January, Book Riot is giving away some of our favorite books of 2016.

Up first is one of our favorite mysteries of 2016: IQ by Joe Ide.

Author Joe Ide used his own history, growing up as an Asian kid in South Central Los Angeles, to create IQ, a new mystery set in a tough L.A. neighborhood about Isaiah Quintabe, nicknamed IQ,who is determined to help find justice and solve unsolved crimes the police don’t care about. Quintabe is inspired by Sherlock Holmes and the book has already been compared to a West Coast version of The Wire, so perhaps it’s not surprising that the television rights to IQ have already sold.

We’ve got three copies to giveaway to U.S. and Canada residents. Go here to enter for a chance to win, or just click the image below. Good luck!
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Categories
This Week In Books

New Harper Lee Tourist Attraction in the Works: This Week in Books

Monroeville, Alabama Plans Harper Lee Tourist Attraction

Harper Lee’s hometown announced last week that it is developing the Harper Lee Trail. The tourist attraction will include a 1909 bank building where Lee’s father–on whom she based Atticus Finch–kept an office, along with replicas of three houses that are featured in To Kill a Mockingbird. Led by Lee’s erstwhile lawyer/advisor Tonja Carter, a coalition of local business owners hopes to bring hundreds of thousands of the legendary author’s fans to town. They also hope to avoid accidentally creating “Disneyland for racists” or drawing in white nationalists with an appetite for nostalgia. As with basically everything else connected to Lee’s legacy, “Whether Harper Lee herself would approve of the plans is open to question.”

 

Lin-Manuel Miranda to Produce Kingkiller Chronicle Series

If you gave me a hundred chances to guess who would be tapped to adapt Patrick Rothfuss’s monster fantasy trilogy The Kingkiller Chronicles for the big screen, I would never have gotten to Lin-Manuel Miranda. But the world is full of wonders, and that’s exactly what has happened. Miranda will serve as a producer and will compose original songs for both a feature film and TV adaptation. What a delightfully weird and unexpected pairing!

 

The Girl Gets Back on the Train? (New Paula Hawkins Novel in 2017)

The good folks at Riverhead are no doubt hoping to make lightning strike twice. Paula Hawkins, whose novel The Girl on the Train sold a floppity jillion copies and broke almost as many sales records, will release Into the Water in 2017. It’s another work of suspense that will “interrogate the deceitfulness of memory.” Gonna be fun to watch what happens. Will you be waiting for it?

Categories
What's Up in YA

Inclusive YA Adaptations In The Works, Best Books of 2016, and More YA News

Hey YA fans!

This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Swoon Reads.

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Swoon Reads publishes the latest and greatest in YA fiction with the help of readers and writers like you. We’re dedicated to the undiscovered, and we seek out the very best in bright, new bookish talent. From heroic epics, to alien adventures, to all-the-feels romance—if you’re loving it, we’ll publish it. We involve our community in every step of the publishing process, and work closely with selected writers to get their book ready for publication. Together, we bring new stories to life, because we believe that great books are better shared.

I’ve gotten and appreciated all of your amazing feedback the last couple of newsletters, so thank you all! Let’s take this week to regroup and catch up on some of the news going on in the YA world:

 

  • The UK hit by Beth Reekles, The Kissing Booth, was picked up by Netflix. I wonder if we’ll see it in the US…and more, I’m curious how the book feels, being that it’s set in the US but written by a British writer.
  • I’m of mixed feelings on this piece about one author being told it was too dangerous for him to write about a teen genderqueer experience. My biggest feeling though comes from the end of the publisher: are they now actively seeking a genderqueer author doing this kind of writing? Because if the danger is that the author writing the book is not, then this is where they step up and actively seek out an author who is genderqueer. Talk the talk and walk the walk.

 

 

Let’s take a look at the YA talk over on Book Riot from the last few weeks, too:

 

Thanks for hanging out again! We’ll be back next week with a very much necessary, crowd-sourced book list and I’ll be asking you to weigh in on your favorite YA reads from this year (& those YA reads you think deserve a bigger readership).

Categories
The Goods

Free socks with purchase

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Wanna go deluxe? We have some Best Books of 2016 boxes remaining, as well as some Strange & Peculiar YA boxes and Magic & Myth Book Mail boxes. Snag one while supplies last.

Categories
Riot Rundown

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Today’s Riot Rundown is sponsored by William Morrow.

searching-for-john-hughes_smallFor as long as Jason Diamond can remember, he’s been infatuated with John Hughes’ movies. From the antics in National Lampoon’s Vacation to the teenage angst in The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink to the insanely clever Home Alone, Jason could not get enough. And so the seed was planted in his mind that he should write a biography of his favorite filmmaker. It didn’t matter to Jason that he had no qualifications, training, platform, or direction. Thus went the years-long, delusional, earnest, and assiduous quest to reach his goal. What he did get was a coming-of-age story that fills the pages of this unconventional, hilarious memoir.

Categories
The Stack

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Today’s The Stack is sponsored by COMIC BENTO, the original graphic novel subscription box service.

bento_200wComic Bento is the original Graphic Novel subscription box!! Every month a box filled with $60-$80 worth of Graphic Novels ships right to your door! With a different theme each month, you’re sure to discover classic favorites, hidden gems and new and exciting worlds among the curated selections! If you’re a longtime comics reader or new to the world of ink and excitement, Comic Bento is for you!

Head to www.comicbento.com and subscribe! Use code RIOT15 and get 15% off your subscription!