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10 of the Greatest YA Series of All Time

By Emily Temple on

Yesterday, we were saddened to learn Donald J. Sobol, that the author the Encyclopedia Brown series, has passed away at the age of 87. We loved the Encyclopedia Brown books as kids, and the sad news sent us on a little trip down memory lane — but not just for Encyclopedia and Sally, for all the YA series that brought us joy as, well, young adults (and, we admit, since then). Just for fun, we’re going to look beyond the obvious choices, but rest assured that we consider The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter books, and The Hunger Games series to be among the best as well (even at the tippy top). It’s just that we think they’re so well established already that you really don’t need to see them on a list like this — you can probably just look over at your shelf. Click through to see a few of our most beloved YA (and older children’s book) series of all time, and if we’ve missed the books that made your younger self spin, please share the wealth and add to our list in the comments. … Read More

Books

10 Fictional Schools That We’d Love to Attend

By Emily Temple on

We’re huge fans of the campus novel, and this morning we’re adding another great one to our collection: Don Lee’s The Collective, which hits shelves today. The novel, which follows a group of young artists during and after college, got us thinking about all the wonderful houses of learning from books that we wish we could have attended — from grade schools to high schools to college. Though The Collective is set at a real-life school, Macalester College, we’ve narrowed our choices to fictional schools (though some of them may bear more than a passing resemblance to extant houses of learning) to make it a little more fun. Click through to read about ten literary schools where we’d love to study, and let us know where you’d go if you had the chance in the comments. … Read More

Books

Open Thread: What Is The All-Time Best Book for Young Girls?

By Emily Temple on

Last month, we read a great article by Deborah Weisgall entitled The Mother of All Girls’ Books, which extolled the virtues (and “secret subversiveness” of Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel Little Women. “It was Alcott’s genius,” Weisgall writes, “to fill the didactic frame of a girls’ book with her ambition — with disturbing ideas, anger, and frustration as well as her father’s inspiring and impossible striving for moral perfection, to which her mother provided a humane antidote.” Though she makes no overt claim in the article, it’s clear that for Weisgall, Little Women is the epitome of what a book for girls should be: vivid and captivating, intense but relatable, full of wisdom, and just good literature. Of course, we agree. … Read More

Books

10 Contemporary Novels Based on Classic Lit That Are Actually Worth Your Time

By Emily Temple on

This week saw the American release of Francesca Segal’s debut novel, The Innocents, a superb modern-day retelling of The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton’s classic novel of upper class scandal. Now, adaptation, cross-pollination and flat out stealing are nothing new in the literary world — after all, Madame Bovary was heavily influenced by Don Quixote, Finnegans Wake was inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Wide Sargasso Sea is a prequel to Jane Eyre. And those are just a few sterling examples — the trend of adaptation and re-adaptation is rampant, and sadly, there are plenty of cheap reincarnations of classic texts that put their inspirations to shame. However, we’re so excited by The Innocents that we decided to put together an entire reading list of wonderful contemporary novels based on works of classic literature, so you can indulge in the present and the past in equal measure. Click through to check out our list, and as always, if we’ve missed your favorite, be sure to let us know in the comments! … Read More

Books

10 YA Books That Scarred Us For Life

By Emily Temple on

Today is the 73rd birthday of YA staple Gary Paulsen, the author of over 200 novels, including Brian’s Saga (read: Hatchet and its ensuing sequels).  Hatchet is one of those books it seems like just about everyone we know has read, and just about everyone we know (ahem, including us) was at least a little bit scarred by it — or at the very least, picked up some important survival skills. So as a tribute to the author of this ubiquitous novel, and for a fun trip down memory lane, we’ve compiled a list of YA books that gave us some serious emotional wounds that we may or may not still be nursing a little bit. Click through to check out our list of YA books that totally scarred us for life, and let us know which ones still keep you up at night in the comments. … Read More

Books

The 10 Best Authors of Children's Literature

By Emily Temple on

Today, we’re wishing the legendary children’s book author Lois Lowry a very happy 75th birthday! One of our all-time favorite authors of children’s literature, Lowry published her first kids book in 1977, and has since penned over 30 more. To celebrate Lowry’s birthday, we’ve put together a list of the all-time best authors of children’s literature written in English, from the contemporary to the classic, from the wildly magical to the wittily familiar. Here, we’re defining “children’s literature” as being novels aimed at the 9 to 13 set, a little bit young for YA proper, but well into the chapter book stage and getting ready for more meaty fare. After all, there’s no better way to prepare a child for a life of creativity and curiosity than to give them a bunch of great books during their formative years. Or at least we think so. Click through to read our list — and since we wanted to make this list three times over (but you’ve gotta stop somewhere), be sure to chime in with your own favorites in the comments! … Read More

Books

40 Inspiring Quotes About Reading from Writers

By Emily Temple on

NaNoWriMo may be over and our schedules may be filling up with holiday parties and family visits, but despite all that, December is one of our favorite months to curl up and read. If you need a little extra inspiration in this most hectic of months, however, never fear. To spur you on, we’ve collected a few inspiring quotes about reading by some people who read quite a lot — the authors themselves. Click through to read forty of our favorite quotes from writers about books and reading, and let us know if we’ve missed any of your own favorite inspirational declarations in the comments! … Read More

Books

A Peek Inside the Libraries of Famous Writers

By Emily Temple on

There’s nothing like a well-stocked library to enhance a home. Especially when that library has been outfitted with books chosen by some of the choosiest readers of all — the authors themselves. We recently caught a peek at the literary collections of a few contemporary novelists in Leah Price’s excellent and newly released Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books, but we admit that our library-lust wasn’t quite sated, and we had to go hunting for more. We’ve already shown you a choice selection of the libraries of the rich and famous, but here, inspired by Price’s book, we’re focusing on the libraries, studies, and carefully organized bookshelves of the authors themselves. Click through to see a few snapshots of the libraries of famous authors, and let us know which ones inspire you to curl up and read in the comments. … Read More

Books

Literary Mixtape: Lyra Belacqua

By Emily Temple on

If you’ve ever wondered what your favorite literary characters might be listening to while they save the world/contemplate existence/get into trouble, or hallucinated a soundtrack to go along with your favorite novels, well, us too. But wonder no more! Here, we sneak a look at the hypothetical iPods of some of literature’s most interesting characters. What would be on the personal playlists of Holden Caulfield or Elizabeth Bennett, Huck Finn or Harry Potter, Tintin or Humbert Humbert? Something revealing, we bet. Or at least something danceable. Read on for a cozy reading soundtrack, character study, or yet another way to emulate your favorite literary hero. This week: the spunky heroine of the His Dark Materials trilogy, Lyra Belacqua. … Read More

Books

Lev Grossman’s 10 Must-Read Fantasy Novels

By Kathleen Massara on

Yesterday in The New York Times Book Review, David Orr wrote, “Fantasy of any kind tells us that the world we know is not the only one, nor the most enduring — and that truth can be anything but an escape or comfort.” And yet, magical realism and fantasy have been creeping into our book lists with ever-increasing frequency. For this reason, we asked Lev Grossman to curate a group of his favorite fantasy novels. Grossman is the author of The Magicians and Codex, and is the book critic for TIME magazine. He has also written for The New York Times, The Believer, The Village Voice, Salon, and Wired, among other publications, and his latest novel, The Magician King, is out now. … Read More