Month: September 2022

libraryleopard:

The other day one of my friends was like “Where on earth do you hear about all the books you read?” and I’m honestly trying to think about that because I don’t really pay attention to Booktube, Booktok, Book Twitter, or Bookstagram, only occasionally dip back into book blogging, and mostly use Goodreads as a place to track books I want to read or have read rather than searching for recommendations, so I’m trying to make a list of the places I hear about books from besides a few trusted social media mutuals.

• Tor.com is one major place I hear about science fiction and fantasy books–they do deal announcements, cover reveals, lists of new releases, and reviews, as well as columns reviewing backlist work. I really like “The Book Queered Me,” for instance, which is people looking back on books that were important to their understand of identity. 
• The Book Smugglers isn’t really that active anymore, but they reviewed science fiction and fantasy media, as well as publishing essays and short fiction and I read them religiously for a long time.
• Book Riot I read occasionally and they publish bookish news and essays. I forgot I was subscribed to their LGBTQ+ book newsletter for a while and went through the emails I’d been sent earlier this week and that particular newsletter is nice because it highlights a couple books and does a round-up of recent news about queer books.
• Austraddle’s book section, especially the Rainbow Reading column, does reviews, interviews, and news related to queer books, mostly queer women. It’s helpful for non-SFF stuff because I’m usually very up-to-date on news in the science fiction and fantasy world but they cover poetry, nonfiction, romance, etc.
• We Need Diverse Books is a great resources, of course, and I really like the interviews they do with authors of recent releases.
• LGBTQ Reads is an invaluable resource for queer literature–new release highlights, author interviews, lists of books by representation or age/genre if you’re looking for something specific.
• Electric Literature is where I hear about more adult lit fic/nonfiction stuff, they also have a column called Novel Gazing in which people write about books that have impacted them and I find that really interesting. They also publish poetry and short fiction but I haven’t read much of that.
• The Lesbrary does reviews of books about lesbian and bisexual women, as well as round-ups of new releases. Good resource for keeping up with sapphic books.
• Rich in Color reads and reviews diverse YA books and is a good place to keep up with books by authors of color.