Mara Franzen is a Chicago based lover of literature (duh), coffee (also duh), and sunset picnics at the beach (wink wink). Both a writer and an actor, Mara is pretty much always working on some creative endeavor. A Minnesota native, she moved to Chicago for school, and just never left. She and her dog, Fig, can be found rifling around for loose character development and spare story arcs.
If you've been using Goodreads for a while but are curious about StoryGraph, here's a great comparison on a few key points.
From adorable animal-themed book tabs to soothing neutral sets, these are the best book tabs to annotate your reading.
Move over cyberpunk. The best post-cyberpunk books, like Nexus by Ramez Naam, are a bit more hopeful, a little less dark, and incredible to read.
As subjective as poetry is, there are still some poets who inspire their contemporaries, and even generations. Here are a few of their works, like The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde by Audre Lorde.
Audiobook adaptations of comics, like The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, often come with a full cast and offer a whole new perspective on the story.
Exploring new genres through video games helped me to realize that I hadn't fallen out of love with books: I was just in a reading rut.
We've all been there: a friend asks you for a book rec and you go blank! Here are some tips for giving excellent book recommendations.
If you love science fiction and fantasy books, you need to have these new releases on your radar.
If you and your kids are looking for some of the best fairytale books, collections, and anthologies you've come to the right place. For starters, check out The Girl Who Married The Moon by Joseph Bruchac.
What's in a name, or lack thereof? These books with anonymous narrators prove that lack of a name can be a very powerful tool, including Chemistry by Weike Wang.