A PEN Out Loud Booklist — In anticipation of February’s PEN Out Loud event for Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s satirical short story collection Friday Black, here is a list of works that foreground those who have been deliberately placed in socio-economic and historical peripheries. …

‘Cause it’s about time. — by Janna Jesson For some, it can be easy to see racism as random, individual, and uncommon acts against people of color. But ask any person of color, and they’ll have a different perspective based on their lived experiences. White privilege can act as a sort of blinder that way…

Black female author-activists of the past and present — by Janna Jesson In the fight for equality, whether gender or racial equality, Black women have always been at the forefront. However, Black women rarely if ever receive credit or advancement in society regardless of their hard work to push others forward. “Black women have had to develop a larger…

by Janna Jesson Trans and Nonbinary authors are creating compelling and beautiful works every day of the year, but sometimes you may feel like you are just hearing from the same few representative authors over and over again. We’ve gathered some names you may not know yet, along with a…

But just 5 because we don’t want your life to be cluttered — by Andrea Klinker ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨ At first, we were skeptical about Marie Kondō’s philosophy of decluttering because of this scary sentence from her Netflix show, Tidying Up: Ideally, you should have less than 30 books. We were in deep, deep, book-loving denial about this concept until we realized that she was trying…

10 remarkable works by Native American women — Most people are gearing up for the Women’s March on Washington this coming weekend (Strand even has a DIY sign making event!), but this weekend is also an important one for Indigenous people across the world. Scheduled just a day before the Women’s March is the Indigenous Peoples March on…

Our most anticipated books of 2019 — Every year, we ask our expert book buyers what titles they are looking forward to in the new year. This year, our buyers chose 5–7 exceptional upcoming books they’ve read and loved from different genres, for you to be ready to snatch up at your local indie when the pub…

12 Tips on How to Maximize Your Reading This Year — by Janna Jesson At the end of every year, we tell ourselves we’re going to do better in the coming year and read even more than we have in the past. While this is an excellent goal to have, it can be difficult to figure out where to begin. And…

25 ideas to make this your best-read year — A new year means a chance to explore new things, even read some books you haven’t considered reading before. This year, we want to encourage you to expand your bookish horizons as we challenge you to pick up 25 different types of books in the next 365 days. So what…