The portion about the mortifying ordeal of being known comes at the end. He describes a dream his friend relayed to him once. A staircase to descend and, as you did, what people said about you rang out. The catch? The worst of it came first and you had to get through it all to get to the good. Kreider writes, “There is no way I would ever make it more than two and a half steps down such a staircase, but I understand its terrible logic: if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known....

Yet despite these severe prohibitions, LGBTQ+ South Asian writers have been gaining prominence. In the last two decades, their works have gained a wide audience and made the process of coming out a possibility for many South Asians. The books listed below provide a sampling of LGBTQ+ South Asian writing. Peruse and keeping adding to your Pride Month list! We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib A 2020 Lambda Award winner, Samra Habib’s memoir charts her journey from her childhood in Pakistan to her work as a LGBTQ+ activist, writer, and photographer based in Toronto, Canada....

Thrift Books If you’re looking for good deals on books, look no further! Thrift Books offers a huge selection of second-hand books at amazing discounts. And they’re big on social responsibility, too. Their website notes that they “save millions of books every year from being destroyed” and donate books to prisons, schools, and other literacy programs. I love supporting a book shop that is also focused on doing good! Bookshop.org Want to support specific local bookshops?...

So when I decided in early 2018 that I’d spend most of 2019 traveling, I knew I’d have to decide what to do with each of those books: give it away, pay to store it, or make space to take it with me. Over the course of a year, I went through every last one of the hundreds of books I owned. Here’s what I learned. Start Early In fact, start now....

Despite the disappointing lack of works by authors of color getting adapted to the screen this season, serious bibliophiles will probably want to check out the novels that are about to become movies. So take a temporary pause from the slew of new fall reads you’ve probably already added to your TBR list, and revisit some of these past releases before they hit the big screen. Caging Skies by Christine Leunen Christine Leunen’s novel, Caging Skies, serves as the basis for the upcoming black comedy JoJo Rabbit....

Posavec’s work opened up new possibilities for me: data visualizations and art. Or more specifically, data visualization and fiction. I have assembled a list of seven books (and a bonus) that use data visualizations as a part of their narrative. I have kept a broad definition of visualization to include bar charts, graphs, X-Y plots, and much more. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne Tristram Shandy is known as a long-winded, convoluted book where the main character narrates his life in stops and starts....

These 50 short stories—from a Galatea retelling by Madeline Miller to a reimagining of Odysseus’s dog Argos by Joy Williams, and many more—reinvents mythological figures in ways that are both beautiful and strange. Persephone has lived a comfortable life, but not a free one. When she meets Hades, goddess of the Underworld, she is offered the first choice of her life: stay in Mount Olympus, or pursue her own destiny in Hades’s realm....

Enter superhero podcasts. The world of audio drama in general has been very exciting in recent years, with so many independent creators experimenting with all kinds of stories. And of course, there are plenty that feature characters with various powers and abilities. What I love about podcasts is that, due to the nature of the medium, creators have so much freedom to explore superhero narratives in new and unique ways, resulting in stories that aren’t just fun, but also diverse and representative....

1. Black Lives Matter Book Group Of all the unique book group ideas on this list, this is the one I’d most like to see in my hometown. A digital book group, The African American Literature Book Club, already thrives on the internet and its website is full of excellence. If an in-person group is more your style, then check out the Black women’s book clubs in Atlanta and Chicago....

For that reason, I’m compiling this list of eight weirdly specific libraries and collections from around the world. The buildings themselves are not necessarily weird, but their content goes into the deeply specific terrain that might otherwise go unnoticed. And, granted, I use “weird” as a term of endearment, not a pejorative, who-would-ever-be-interested-in-that adjective: ten times out of nine, I would be interested in that, just because it’s different. Plus, we’re all looking for ways to occupy our minds right now, and what better way to do so than learning about niche interests?...

It was the first absurdist book I truly had read. There were sentences like “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.” It’s often used as an example of bad descriptions but I beg to differ. The scenarios, the characters, etc. were so pitch perfect and strange. Perfect for me. Plus a five-book trilogy? Yes, please. I even like the BBC television show with the low-tech special effects — Zaphod Beeblebrox’s second head is clearly a mannequin head....

Enjoy. The Walking Dead #33 (2006) by Robert Kirkman (writer), Charlie Adlard (art), Cliff Rathburn (color) Of course, Robert Kirkman’s zombie epic has no fair share of horrific scenes. Honestly, though? After a while, the carnage starts to blend together as you (quickly) reach saturation. That is, until the Governor is introduced. He’s a whole different level of disturbed. A man who isn’t just making it through the apocalypse, but thriving on it....

But I digress. Because what I really want to talk to you about are culinary stories. I honestly have no idea who decided to mix food and books but it is absolutely genius and it makes my foodie heart all warm and gooey. Seriously, I love reading about characters baking or cooking some amazing-looking dishes that make me want to eat them too. This is especially true for manga because it’s visual and you can actually see all the delicious food!...

But the art world can be a messy and complicated place. Documentaries like Kelcey Edwards’s The Art of Making It (2021) explores how the art world really leaves its artists behind while millions of dollars are exchanged. There was also Antoine Vitkine’s Savior For Sale: Da Vinci’s Lost Masterpiece? (2021), which explores the power dynamics in the international art world and the possibility of making a lot of money can impact judgment and ethics....

Mary Shelley, author of the classic horror novel Frankenstein, is a goth icon. She wrote about the horrors of mankind, painted the grimmest of settings in her writing, and lived a life full of mystery and tragedy. While some may simply know her as the woman who wrote Frankenstein, there’s more to her story. Here are some fun facts about Mary Shelley that you might not know! 8 Fun facts About Frankenstein’s Author, Mary Shelley 1....

But haunted house novels are part of the tapestry of contemporary literatures, too. Whether literary ghosts conjure rememories of Toni Morrison’s Beloved or Stephen King’s The Shining, Tananarive Due’s The Good House or Helen Oyeyemi’s White is for Witching, the fact remains: haunted house novels are going to possess our bookshelves for a long time to come. Interestingly, some critics have noticed that haunted house novels (and stories) have some interesting implications for gender....

If you’re like me, you want to read about people who are in the exact same situation. Maybe you’ll find some solace reading about people dealing with zombie outbreaks or deathly cold temperatures while we drink tea and snuggle with pets and wash our hands? (Seriously. Wash your hands.) So I’ll definitely be curled up for the next two (?) weeks doing some quarantine reading about fictional characters who are also forced, in one way or another, to stay right where they are....

There has been a lot of conversation recently around the idea of trigger warnings vs. content warnings and what each means. A peer began using “content notes” instead of content warning, because some of it is just bringing to readers’ attention that the content exists, not trying to warn them against it. I liked it, so you’ll see me using it here and on my personal pages. Who’s the artist?...

An Unexpected Podcast: Talkin’ Tolkien Ezra and Lane, two old friends and long-time Tolkien enthusiasts, embark on a journey to reread The Lord of the Rings together (with plans to tackle the rest of Tolkien’s works afterward). With extremely long episodes (I’m talking upwards of three, even four hours) this podcast is best for listeners committed to lengthy, in-depth discussions or for long plane/train/car rides. By-the-Bywater Lord of the Rings Minute Instead of a close reading of The Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings Minute presents a close watching of Peter Jackson’s film adaptations....