Drink Tea and Read Poetry With Us
Welcome to The Best of Book Riot, our daily round-up of what’s on offer across our site, newsletters, podcasts, and social channels. Not everything is for everyone, but there is something for everyone.
The Poetry Collections I’m Reading During National Poetry Month
One of the benefits of working for Book Riot is my continued exposure to things that I wouldn’t normally read. For the longest, I, like many people, didn’t read as much poetry as I do now. After editing all the lists of great poetry written by our contributors, I finally got my life together and started picking up more poetry collections.
Its ability to get right, straight to the crux of the thing in as few words as possible feels low-key mystical at times, and I’m sure today’s poets were yesteryears’ shamans. This magical quality is what I love about poetry, and I really wish more people would read it. If you don’t normally reach for chapbooks or poetry collections when you, I hope you reconsider at least once during National Poetry Month. You can even get started with the collections below.
Booked and Brewed: 11 Bookish Tea Blends
The tea cabinet in my kitchen houses every kind of tea under the sun, from a basic Assam or Ceylon to an herbal tisane, and I keep buying more because I am a sucker for a themed tea blend. Does a blend of assam, cacao shells, caraway, and almond extract taste any different when you call it The Library blend? Not to some. But do those flavors and aromas evoke the feeling of sinking into a sumptuous chair in a beautiful wood-paneled library? I say yes.
Each of the teas below have a literary connection, from blends inspired by specific books and authors to ones generically suited for the reading life. I hope you find one to add to your collection! May your cup be perfectly brewed.
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8 Great Queer YA Novels for 2025
2025 is shaping up to be a really great year for YA fiction, particularly queer fiction. In years past, finding queer YA was a challenge, but today queer YA dominates the bookshelves. It’s not just romance either. There’s queer mystery/thrillers, queer rom-coms, queer sci-fi, queer horror, queer fantasy—all under the YA umbrella. With so many topics and themes to cover, it’s no wonder that YA continues to be one of the fastest growing categories in literature! YA, particularly queer YA, is for everyone to read, of all ages and genders.
7 Books to Read for National Poetry Month and the Read Harder Challenge
April is National Poetry Month! It’s always a good time to pick up some poetry, but this month is the perfect opportunity to put them at the top of your TBR. Plus, is there anything more romantic than reading poetry in the springtime? Bring your poetry book to a park or garden to have a real main character moment.
Celebrating Our Planet: Children’s Books for Earth Day
Earth Day is April 22, and this year’s theme is “Our Power, Our Planet,” asking everyone to take action to protect our planet right now. The first Earth Day was on April 22, 1970, and now events are celebrated nationwide. These five children’s books celebrate nature and invite children to notice and fall in love with the planet and every living thing on it. They’re perfect reads for Earth Day and beyond.
