Tagged Romance
Dena's Favorite Books of 2023
It's the 12th annual list of my favorite books — the 2023 edition! This year was a good reading year; I read over 300 books for the first time since 2019 (although my TV watching decreased dramatically). There's…
Manga 101: Romance
Previous Manga 101 installments took a look at isekai and sports manga; this time, we’ll explore another popular genre of manga: romance . From poignant stories of high school love to doomed romances with supernatural…
Dena's Favorite Books of 2022
Welcome to Year 11 of my annual list of favorite books and the third year of pandemic reading! I've started getting my reading mojo back and have been spending a bit more time reading than watching tv this year—268 books read…
Dena's Favorite Books of 2021
It's that time of year again for my annual list of favorite books from the Philbrick Hall Fiction Department at Parkway Central Library ! Welcome to the tenth anniversary of this yearly list and the second year of pandemic reading!…
Summer Reading with Dena!
Yes, it’s that time of the year again, to head to the beach (or a heavily air conditioned reading nook) and dive into some fun reading! Here are some new and newish books that are perfect for giving yourself a mental vacation:…
Dena's Favorite Books of 2020
It's that time of year again for my annual list of favorite books from the Philbrick Hall Fiction Department at Parkway Central Library . It's been a hard year for a lot of people, and although I usually read around 350 books a…
Consent is Romantic!
Ah those intense feelings of first love and sexual awakening – how heady and confusing and exhilarating! In ye olde school times when I was growing up, any books (or movies or television shows) showing teens in love and having sex…
Dena's Favorite Books of 2019
It's that time of the year again! Working in the Fiction Department of the Parkway Central Library means that I am always surrounded by excellent books to read. I read over 330 this year, and in narrowing it down to my top 30…
Young Adult Romance Novels to Warm Cold Hearts
It's Valentine’s Day and I feel like this is the perfect time to indulge in a good imaginary romance. I don’t know about you but I love a good teen romance novel: I love the hijinks, I love angst of first love, I love…
What to Read if You Loved To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before
Are you as obsessed with Lara Jean as I am? Have you spent all week dreaming about Peter and finding all of those crushes and embarrassment so relatable? Join the club, friend! If you loved Jenny Han's To All the Boys I’ve…
The Indomitable Romance Fiction of Brenda Jackson
Brenda Jackson was the first African-American author to make the New York Times Best Seller list in the Romance series category. Publisher’s Weekly has called her "a master" and USA Today has described her as "the…
Dena's Favorite Books of 2017
Every year I read a lot of books. Out of the 339 that I read in 2017, I've picked out the 36 that I liked the best . 2017 was a hard year, and I found myself looking for books that were happy and not particularly difficult or…
5 African American Romance Authors to Keep Your Eye On
A few weeks ago The Ripped Bodice, a romance bookstore in Los Angeles, released the inaugural report on the State of Racial Diversity in Romance Publishing and it exposes some hard truths about the lack of diversity in traditionally…
Dive into Dena's Romance Picks for Valentine's Day!
Although I think that one never needs an excuse for wanting a good happily-ever-after, I’m happy to take any chance I get to recommend some great romance books. Personally, I find it comforting to know that however uncertain the…
Dena's Favorite Books of 2016
Every year I read a lot of books. This year I’m at 329 and counting (I still have a day left...). This isn’t a strange statement coming from a librarian since it’s pretty much part of the job…
#FLPNoShameNovember: Confessions Of A Children’s Librarian
I’m the children’s librarian who hosts weekly Storytime for babies. The librarian who voraciously reads early chapter books about aliens and graphic novels about unicorns and their humans. But I also devour romance novels,…
Getting Swept Away during #FLPNoShameNovember
When I was growing up you had to have a special sticker on your library card to be allowed to take out adult books. Eventually I convinced my parents that I had read every book in the kid’s section and I was ready to move up, even…
It's a Romance Video Podcast!
On Monday, February 10th, the Free Library broadcast its first ever Google+ Hangouts On Air with Dena, Camille, and Karin discussing romance books and what they love about the genre. Live streaming video was broadcast via our Google+…
Now Get Even More from Freading!
Many of our ebook readers have already discovered Freading. It's a great alternative to our Overdrive collection with a wide selection of titles from a growing list of publishers. Freading definitely has something for everyone, but…
Add a little romance to your life!
Romance Writers of America have just announced the winners of the 2008 RITA awards : RITA awards, named after RWA's first president, Rita Clay Estrada, are presented annually to the best published romance novels of the year. …
Film Screening: If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
Join us for a screening of Barry Jenkins' 2018 film, If Beale Street Could Talk , an adaptation James Baldwin's 1974 novel by the same name. Set in Harlem, the film follows Tish, a young, pregnant woman, as she…
Joseph “Rev Run” Simmons and Justine Simmons | Old School Love: And Why it Works
Walk this way for an evening with Joseph “Rev Run” Simmons, frontman for the mega-influential hip-hop trio Run-DMC. Regarded as the driving force behind ushering rap into the mainstream, the group was awarded a Grammy Lifetime…
Susan Choi | Trust Exercise: A Novel with Myla Goldberg | Feast Your Eyes
Excavating the hidden corners of the human heart and acclaimed for their “nuance, psychological acuity, and pitch-perfect writing” ( Los Angeles Times ), Susan Choi ’s novels include the Asian American Literary Award-winning The Foreign…
Beck Dorey-Stein | From the Corner of the Oval
In conversation with Tamala Edwards, anchor, 6ABC Action News morning edition A White House stenographer from 2012 to 2017, Beck Dorey-Stein was serving cocktails in the D.C. area when she answered an unlikely Craigslist post that…
Isabel Allende | In the Midst of Winter
Watch the video here . In conversation with Janet Benton, author of the debut novel Lilli de Jong . “Poignant, powerful” and “timeless” ( Boston Globe ), Isabel Allende’s acclaimed historical fiction weaves reality, memory, and…
Christina Baker Kline | A Piece of the World
Watch the video here . Christina Baker Kline is the author of The Orphan Train , the no. 1 New York Times bestseller and 2015 One Book, One Philadelphia selection. Her other novels include Bird in Hand, The Way Life Should Be , and…