Quentin Roberts doesn’t have to speed-read through books with his 8-year-old son anymore. Yeyco Avila can spend more time with his favorite films. And Faduma Mohamed says she can now rest easy, knowing she doesn’t have to worry about late fees. The St. Paul Public Library system eliminated fines for overdue books and forgave more than $2.5 million in accumulated fees on Jan. 1, after the City Council approved the policy change in December as part of the 2019 budget.

The New York Times weighs in on an Authors Guild survey that shows a "drastic 42% decline in authors' earnings over the past decade. John Scalzi offers some important perspective.

Starting at midnight on January 1, tens of thousands of books (as well as movies, songs, and cartoons) entered the public domain, meaning that people can download, share, or repurpose these works for free and without retribution under US copyright law. Per the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, “corporate” creations (like Mickey Mouse) can be restricted under copyright law for 120 years. But per an amendment to the act, works published between 1923 and 1977 can enter the public domain 95 years after their creation. This means that this is the first year since 1998 that a large number of works have entered the public domain.

Jack Silva didn't know anything about how children learn to read. What he did know is that a lot of students in his district were struggling. Silva is the chief academic officer for Bethlehem, Pa., public schools. In 2015, only 56 percent of third-graders were scoring proficient on the state reading test. That year, he set out to do something about that.

As we begin another year of Bible reading, Pastor John takes us back to the basics: feed your motivation, grow in skill, and pray for illumination.

Reading a great book (specifically nonfiction) is to acquire, within a matter of hours, the insights and knowledge that the author spent months, years, and sometimes decades developing. Books are therefore knowledge multipliers, shortcuts to years of research and thinking, and the more books you read, the more hard-won knowledge you accumulate in a fraction of the time.

Shadowlands Book I: Rhia Harlyn is a noble in Shen, one of the dozens of shadowlands which separate the bright, alien skyland. She has a missing brother, an unwanted marriage proposal and an interest in science considered unbecoming in her gender. A delightful new science fiction book.

An overstuffed bookcase (or e-reader) says good things about your mind.

This brilliant retelling of Homer’s epic poem focuses on the cost of war to women through the story of Briseis, Achilles’ concubine

'Now we've come to a point in a country where it's actually offensive to talk about the incarnation and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ'

A few years ago, when people heard I was a reading researcher, they might ask about their child’s dyslexia or how to get their teenager to read more. But today the question I get most often is, “Is it cheating if I listen to an audiobook for my book club?” Audiobook sales have doubled in the last five years while print and e-book sales are flat. These trends might lead us to fear that audiobooks will do to reading what keyboarding has done to handwriting...

Today I’m glad to share an article by Paul Carter, a friend who has contributed to my site a couple of times in the past. He is passionate about reading and teaching God’s Word and I’m glad to have him lay down the challenge to read the Bible fast and slow in 2019. ***** One of the most transformative things I ever did was read through the entire Book of Genesis – slowly – with the help of several commentaries …

The book artist Edward Gorey, when asked about his tastes in literature, would sometimes mention his mixed feelings about Thomas Mann: “I dutifully read ‘The Magic Mountain’ and felt as if I had t.b. for a year afterward.” As for Henry James: “Those endless sentences. I always pick up Henry James and I think, Oooh! This is wonderful! And then I will hear a little sound.

In general, I will say that blurbs are a blight on the publishing industry, both for people seeking blurbs and the writers asked to blurb.

It’s been a wild year for science fiction enthusiasts, as real life continues looking more like something out of an Arthur C. Clarke novel. Case in point: we just sent a robot to Mars and received a photo from it 8 minutes later. Here are our 10 favorite sci-fi books of 2018, from small-press debuts to Big Five bestsellers.

In 'The Last Unicorn,' there are no maps, invented languages, or epic battles. But the 1968 tale has a timely message about the importance of reality over magic.

"It made me love learning, which is the greatest gift I possibly could have received."

Why am I here? How can I live a good life? What does it mean to have a mind and be a person? Since the days of antiquity, philosophers have puzzled over fundamental questions like these that sit at the very heart of our lived experience and interactions with the world. Solving these problems is not merely about increasing our knowledge of the world, to fill up academic textbooks and sit on library shelves, but to impart wisdom to aid us as we navigate through life's uncertainties and its profoundest mysteries.

This year’s Booker-winner Milkman has been criticised for being challenging. But are we confusing readability with literary value?

True crime is a non-fiction literary and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people.