Gregorio de la Vega, better known as Extraño, debuted in 1988 and is the first openly gay superhero in a mainstream comic. Well, depending on how you look at it. He’s not the oldest character to be currently depicted as canonically queer: that distinction probably goes to Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, who debuted in 1940…but didn’t come out until 2011. He’s not the first superhero to explicitly come out — that was Marvel’s Northstar in 1992, four years later....

The most famous such adaptation is, of course, Marvel’s. Since his first appearance in 1962, Marvel Loki has become one of the company’s most famous (and marketable) villains. Both he and Mythology Loki have played many roles — from mischievous but generally decent chap to murderous would-be despot — and have made significant contributions to popular culture…but how well can you tell them apart? This quiz will help you find out....

In the last few years, I have grown increasingly focused on books in translation. It has enriched my reading life, as I dive into books from all over the world, find new presses doing incredible work, and start exciting new projects. I’m in love with the moment of joy that lights up in my chest when I stumble on a book translated from a more obscure language (by obscure I mean solely that we don’t have many books from it translated yet into English) or a feminist queer author who hasn’t been translated before, but now finally is....

TBR is Book Riot’s subscription service offering Tailored Book Recommendations for readers of all stripes. Been dreaming of a “Stitch Fix for books?” Now it’s here! Tell TBR about your reading preferences and what you’re looking for, and sit back while your Bibliologist handpicks recommendations just for you. TBR offers plans to receive hardcover books in the mail or recommendations by email, so there’s an option for every budget. TBR is also available as a gift to give to the readers in your life!...

TBR is Book Riot’s subscription service offering Tailored Book Recommendations for readers of all stripes. Been dreaming of a “Stitch Fix for books?” Now it’s here! Tell TBR about your reading preferences and what you’re looking for, and sit back while your Bibliologist handpicks recommendations just for you. TBR offers plans to receive hardcover books in the mail or recommendations by email, so there’s an option for every budget. TBR is also available as a gift to give to the readers in your life!...

All joking aside, being someone’s mom figure, no matter how much you love them, no matter how much you wouldn’t change a thing about deciding to be that being’s mother, is hard. It is grueling. And you never give it up, not even when they’re wholeass adults perfectly able to care for themselves. So if they want to give us a special day, I suppose we can accept it gracefully....

When I moved to the Netherlands in 2019 and I wanted something that would help improve my Dutch, I got a library card and found myself being pulled into comics again, specifically graphic novels. Of course, graphic novels can be heavy, have a lot of text, and be even more complicated to read than regular text-only novels (the only reason I haven’t read Maus yet – even though it has been recommended to me several times – is because it is so dense)....

I know I’m not alone in finding it difficult to concentrate on reading this year. I feel guilt about the books whose words I’ve stared at, roughly in the order written, never quite breaking through the fog between the book and my brain. There have been a number of books I’ve read this year that I could tell were good but that I did not connect to emotionally as I might have in different times....

I had already been making BookTube videos for years on my personal channel. Book blogging has always come more naturally to me, but I enjoyed making connections with people in the BookTube community. I never got big, maxing out at under 2,000 subscribers, but I had friends there and loved the conversations that I was having in the comments. It never occurred to me that I could make money as a BookTuber....

In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf writes, “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” Oh, I ate well in Livermore. At Uncle Yu’s on the Vineyard, I spent every Sunday I could slurping noodles while sipping tastes of reds and whites. Never have I met a better wine list and gluten-free menu. Nearby, two of my go-to takeout places include Viet Noms for pho ga and Saigon Cafe for tofu and vegetable noodle soup....

This is why readers love a musician memoir; we get the most personal version of the story straight from the source. The last year alone has brought us memoirs by some true musical icons: there’s the Rocket Man himself Elton John; the incomparable musical genius that is Prince; the elusive chanteuse Mariah Carey (Lambily fam, where you at!?). So tell us, Riot readers: what musician memoirs should we read next?...

A bit of magic, a sprinkling of adventure, and a whole lot of heart collide in this extraordinary story of a girl navigating the foster care system in search of where she belongs. Red has power over the wind. Whenever she gets upset the wind picks up, and moving from family to family keeps her skies stormy. Red’s newest family, the Grooves, fit like a puzzle piece into her heart....

Why are screenplays passed over, while plays are embraced? One factor could be accessibility: you can watch the performance of most any screenplay thanks to Netflix, Hulu, cough Torrent cough, but when it comes to viewing a theatrical performance, your options can be quite limited by your location and income, and video recordings of plays (in the opinion of many, including this writer) take away the excitement of live theater....

Stereotyping itself has a long history, of course. As Jonathon Green writes of racially specific terms in Words Apart: The Language of Prejudice, “Race is based on stereotypes; without them the majority of these terms would not exist…In this world of aggression, what matters is not the ingredients, but the brand-name…Not every one of these words has the same effect, nor have all been as deadly as the sedulous preaching against the Jewish ‘Christ-killers’ which led inexorably to Auschwitz and Treblinka, or the doctrine of Black inferiority which helped fill the slave-barracoons of the West African coastline and justify the horrors of the ‘Middle Passage’ – but the general effect is all too simple: brand a people long enough and anything is possible…....

None of these actions need to be big or grand. Small actions can have big impact. But today, take a few moments to develop a checklist of tasks you can do in 2023 to help combat book bans. We’ve been sharing tips, tricks, and insights, so you don’t need to do any reinventing the wheel. Grab a notebook or open up a Google doc and your calendar, and sketch out plans for how you can help end book censorship in the new year....

Carry the One begins in the hours following the reception of a shotgun wedding, when a car filled with the siblings and friends of the bride and groom accidentally hits and kills a young girl on a dark country road. We follow the driver and passengers of this car through the next twenty-five years of their lives in vignette-like chapters. We stand in the shadows and watch these characters lives play out in moments both monumental and microscopic....

1. Read Me Romance Hosted by New York Times Bestselling Authors Alexa Riley and Tessa Bailey, Read Me Romance is a weekly podcast that brings you a new, original audiobook novella from one of your favorite romance authors. The first section of the audiobook is published on Monday and the podcast continues to publish throughout the week with the conclusion releasing on Friday. Check out their upcoming novellas to see what they have planned through the rest of the year....

I can’t even believe it took watching Game of Thrones for me to discover the series of books it’s based on, George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Usually I’m leading the obnoxious horde shouting, “The book is better!” at every television/screen/radio/stage adaptation of every work, but in this case, I was embarrassingly behind. Oh well. At least I discovered Martin’s series, because devouring these books has been the first reading experience that’s really come close to filling the Harry Potter-shaped hole in my soul now that the books and movies have all been released....

Not the character. He’s a magical psychopath. He’s fine. I feel sorry for the Bram Stoker novel. “Why do you feel sorry for a really famous book?” the Bitter Chorus of Unpublished Authors shouts at me. I feel sorry for Dracula precisely because it’s so famous. Everyone’s so sure they know the story because they know the tropes: the cape, the coffin bed, the castle in Transylvania, the bat flapping off into the distance, the courageous band of brothers on the hunt with their wooden stakes, the sexy virginal girls with blood dripping from their bite mark covered necks....