The dirty secret of some fiction is that it’s less, well, fictional than we imagine. Behind every soaring flight of fancy, you’ll find grueling research, direct experience, and, sometimes, real human beings who inspired our favorite characters. While discovering that your favorite author isn’t above nicking from real life might be deflating, the tradeoff is realizing some of the most […]
When teens want to read about life as it’s lived, or see their experiences and their concerns reflected beyond the pages of their favorite fiction, they can turn to great nonfiction reads. These books will inspire young readers, make them laugh, make them cry, and cast a light on the different ways they might live their own […]
The Opposite of Loneliness, by Marina Keegan, is a slim collection of insightful short stories and essays by a writer at the beginning of a promising career—one cut short by tragedy when the author died in a car crash a few days after she graduated from Yale. Similarly, This Star Won’t Go Out is a posthumous collection […]