Books & Movies

Help Us Librarians, You're Our Only Hope

Help Us Librarians, You’re Our Only Hope

by guest blogger Renee James, humorist and blogger I have hope. An article I read last week gave me hope for our future. And just in time, too, given the fact that we have another full year of election coverage to go before we elect a new president and every single one of us could […]

Read More
No-Bake Pumpkin Chiffon Pie

No-Bake Pumpkin Chiffon Pie

by guest blogger Adrianna Adarme recipe developer,  blogger, and author of  The Year of Cozy An ideal cozy day to me looks like this: I have on fluffy socks, chill (maybe slightly emo) music is playing, the weather is brisk, and leaves are falling on the trees outside my windows. My oven is preheated to […]

Read More
The Already-Colored-In Coloring Book

The Already-Colored-In Coloring Book

by guest blogger Jacob Lief, cofounder and CEO of Ubuntu Education Fund and author of I Am Because You Are: How the Spirit of Ubuntu Inspired an Unlikely Friendship and Transformed a Community (cowritten with Andrea Thompson; Rodale Books), from which the essay below is adapted In late 2001, my organization, Ubuntu Education Fund—a nonprofit […]

Read More
Agricultural Nirvana

Agricultural Nirvana

photo and text by guest blogger Matthew Benson, photographer, organic farmer, and author of Growing Beautiful Food “Out of such chaos comes the dancing star,” once said my favorite dystopian curmudgeon, Nietzsche, who may have come from farming blood, for all I know. Nietzsche’s obsessions with hardship and trial as paths to enlightenment, just like […]

Read More
Defining Popular—Not What You Think It Means

Defining Popular—Not What You Think It Means

by guest blogger Renee James, humorist and blogger Today’s vocab words: popular as in “popular” author: untalented as in “popular” fiction: talentless as in “pop” icon: super talented! and literary as in “literary” author: brilliant as in “literary” fiction: brilliantly crafted storytelling. Stepping away from my typical brooding and introspection—such as it is—about my own […]

Read More
Romance Novels 101: The Infamous Book List That Changed My Life

Romance Novels 101: The Infamous Book List That Changed My Life

by guest blogger Maya Rodale, author of smart and sassy romance novels When my mother insisted that I, the snobby academic, read romance novels, I demanded a syllabus to get me started (after I laughed at the ridiculous notion). If I was going to study the genre, I was going to do it properly. Of […]

Read More
The Most Powerful Word in the English Language: Hope

The Most Powerful Word in the English Language: Hope

by guest blogger Jennifer Probst, author of sexy and erotic contemporary romance I remember I was hanging with my family one afternoon, and we were going around the table asking about our favorite (and least favorite) words. Of course, every time my family gets together there’s a lot of food, there’s wine, there are laughs, […]

Read More
10 Things I Learned from Reading Romance Novels

10 Things I Learned from Reading Romance Novels

From the very first lines of the very first romance novel I ever read in 1977 (Shanna, by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss), I was hooked: “Night gripped the city with cold, misty darkness… The miserable night masked the passage of a carriage that careened through the narrow streets as if it fled from some terrible disaster.” […]

Read More