The Washington Post interviews four Young Adult authors whose books go beyond coming out stories, these authors want queer love stories to be mainstream. Their books range from contemporary to historical to fantasy. “As authors get more comfortable exploring LGBT storylines, the coming-out tale isn’t disappearing. ‘I think we’ll always need for the foreseeable future both types of stories,” Silvera added. “While I’ve been so happy being able to live an out life, I think a lot about teens who aren’t able to be out right now and I want to write for them.’ Slipping back in time to write for teenagers gives authors the opportunity to explore first love again.” Take a look and consider adding these to your reading list.
More and More Queer YA Love Stories
Know Your Book Covers
Think you know your Arthur Conan Doyle from your Agatha Christie? This week, The Guardian quizzes you on the book covers of classic crime novels. In case you missed it, previous weeks featured science fiction and literary classics.
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My Ears! My Ears!
In a move that could scar you for life, Gilbert Gottfried reads selected passages (Very NSFW!) from E L James’ breakout book Fifty Shades of Grey.
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Election Year Reading
An election year is upon us, and at the Times, John Williams offers up some reading material for the months to come. Among the books mentioned is my favorite, Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72.
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The Great Silence
“I and my fellow parrots are right here. Why aren’t they interested in listening to our voices?” New short fiction from Ted Chiang over at Electric Literature (and introduced by Year in Reading alum Karen Jay Fowler)! Pair with our encyclopedic survey of primate lit.
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Big Sky
I’ve written before about Literary Enemies, a series at the Ploughshares blog in which two writers are shown to have opposing sensibilities. This week, Lily Meyer argues that Flannery O’Connor and Marilynne Robinson are a worthy addition to the series, as the former contracts narrative space and the latter expands it. Sample quote: “It seems to me that Marilynne Robinson’s project, in her books suffused with Protestant belief, has nothing to do with Jesus or with God.”
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Next Stop: The Perfect Book
“I don’t want to settle for distraction; I want to look forward to reading my book with the palpitating excitement of a second date with someone I’ve already fallen for. I want to miss my stop. Ideally, I’ll miss a few.” While it can be easy to spot a beach, airplane, or cabin read, Adam Sternbergh‘s writes about finding the perfect “subway read” for the New York Times. From our archives: our own Nick Ripatrazone‘s essay on reading and writing on trains.
Make-Outs Not Guaranteed
Live in San Francisco? Want to spend an evening with the fun-loving gang at The Rumpus? Well then, clear out your Saturday — they’re holding a Literary Pub Crawl.