Blog Profile / Huffington Post: Books Blog

Jeff Klima: 12 Evil Ways to Make Your Book More Marketable

Look, we've all seen the same lists preaching better methods of how to sell books -- this isn't exactly that kind of list. This list focuses more on desperation and depravity, the Double D's.

Angela Onwuachi-Willig: What Would Mildred Loving Think About the Use of Images of Multiracial Families for Anti-LGBT Family Messages?

I am discouraged by the fact that this children's book uses the image of one civil rights victory -- multiracial families like mine and Mildred Loving's that are headed by heterosexual couples -- to tear down families that are perceived as being wrong: families headed by same-sex couples.

VisualNews.com: Sci-Fi Characters Who Survived Their Planet's Destruction

The destruction of your home world is one of the worst things that could ever happen to a science fiction character. It's also a popular theme laced throughout science fiction movies and television shows: characters who survive the loss and utter destruction of their home worlds.

Fred Nadis: The Most Divisive Figure In The History Of Science Fiction

Ray Palmer was an American original. Born in Milwaukee in 1910, he was struck by a milk truck at age seven, shattering his back and forcing him to be bedridden for much of his childhood and crippled for life (he remained a hunchback...

Andrew Sharpless: The Case For Eating More Seafood

When people ask us which seafood is sustainable, it's hard to give such a pithy response. But if you really pressed us for it, this is what we might say: "Eat wild seafood. Not too much of the big fish. Mostly local."

Jeff Danziger: Orwell 2013

Jeanette Solomon: Confessions Of A Former Book Snob

I have a shameful secret: I used to be really snotty about books.

Steve Mariotti: My Visit to the Ayn Rand Institute

I saw the table where she wrote Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead. I recognized and remembered the markings on it. I stepped closer and ran my hand along the indentations where she had written her precious books.

Gary Jansen: 9 Reasons Why Dan Brown Is An Important Author

When an author sells as many copies of his novels as Brown does, it is safe to say that his writings have an influence on society at large.

Lily Koppel: Ever Wish for an Out-of-this World Romance? America's Astro Wives Had It, and It Wasn't All Moonbeams

In writing my new book, The Astronaut Wives Club, I learned that many of the astronauts who walked on the Moon had marriages that fell apart after they came back to Earth. I wondered: how is this possible?

Jaimie Etkin: They're Back, Bitches

The fact that this episode included so many callbacks to Season 1 -- the exterior church funeral shots, the "I know you want to kiss me," etc. -- felt more Sisyphean than Easter egg-y. I'm really getting tired of going in circles he...

Katie Scarlett Brandt: The Culture Within: The Day I Met Delores Takes War Bonnet

Before Ray died of a heart attack at age 57, he told his wife, "You have a book in you. You need to get it out." Delores, 58, is the reason I look at Ray's photo everyday. In April, I made the 14-hour drive from Chicago to Delores' home on Pine Ridge.

Lauren Cahn: 9 Kids' Books With Powerfully Useful Life-Lessons

When children's literature is done right, it connects with us on some visceral, primal level -- somewhere beyond conscious thought -- delivering foundational life lessons that shape us into the people we become and remain imprinted on us throughout our lives.

Christian Caryl: When Afghanistan Was Just a Stop on the 'Hippie Trail'

We tend to think of Afghanistan as a place cursed by eternal warfare, an endlessly bleeding wound in the global body politic. Not long ago, self-designated "world travelers" piled into used Volkswagen vans and embarked on a path of self-discovery, starting in Herat.

Jen Sincero: Beam Me Up, Scotty (EXCERPT)

Do not deny yourself the life you want to live because you're worried you're not good enough or that you'll be judged or that it's too risky, because who does that benefit? No one, that's who.

April Brucker: Singing My Own Tune

I am a singing telegram delivery girl. When I tell people about my occupation I get one of two questions. The first is, "Do they still have those?" The answer is yes.

Jordan B. Nielsen: New Chapter Books for Their Summer Reading List

Check out this list for some fresher titles that are as absorbing and fun as they are smart and substantial, sure to make both kids and their teachers (and thereby, you!) happy.

Wild River Review: The Euphoria of Ignorance: Being Jewish, Becoming Jewish, The Paradox of Being Carlo Ginzburg (Live From the NYPL)

One of the pleasures and intellectual challenges of attending the LIVE from the New York Public Library (NYPL) interview series, created and hosted by Paul Holdengräber, is that like the best literary mystery series Holdengräber's questions spark epiphanies in his subjects, surprising them and us with unexpected leaps and connections.

Lewis DeSimone: Join the (Book) Club

I have become an outlier in my own book club. It's an occupational hazard, I suppose, just the lot of the novelist. While the rest of the club read for entertainment and enlightenment, I'm always teasing out plot inconsistencies and dangling modifiers.

Fabio Parasecoli: Weighing In: Assessing the Heaviness of Obesity

Julie Guthman's position is clear: She does not deny that many American citizens are getting bigger, but wants to tease out the factors behind obesity that for political, economic and cultural reasons are often underestimated or outright ignored.