Reads Like Teen Spirit

Here is a set of Young Adult books, the very best ones (IMHO) about becoming an adult, for better or worse. They are all intense, but none feel like a 1980's After School Special. They cover love, death, boredom, religion, insanity, and hope....

(Go Ask Alice, 1973) Even now I'm not really sure which parts of myself are real and which parts are things I've gotten from books. - Beatrice Sparks, Go Ask Alice  Last week we talked about the topic of banned books, looking at...

Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. - John Green, The Fault in...

“He carried Hell with him, as we all did, like a little load on our backs that we hardly noticed most of the time, or like a huge great hump of suffering that bent us over with its weight.”  - John Marsden, Tomorrow,...

Illustration by Brett Helquist "All of the secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your own risk." - Lemony Snicket Today I'd like to talk about a series that has played a pivotal role in my own life as a...

Photo by Meredith Heuer Recently I was lucky enough to attend a secular sermon conducted by The School of Life Melbourne in which one of my favourite authors, Daniel Handler, spoke on childhood and the importance of literature. Handler may be better known to you...

"I don't know if I've come of age, but I'm certainly older now. I feel shrunken, as if there's a tiny ancient Oliver Tate inside me operating the levers of a life-size Oliver-shaped shell. A shell on which a decrepit picture show replays...