Justine Uhlenbrock

Every December, I file away the list of books I read over the year and look forward to sharing favorite books with friends in order to clear the cache for a new year. As we head into the final days of 2015, our staff share some of their current picks to kick off a new year of reading.

Our staff help readers prepare for the post-Thanksgiving, leftover-laden weekend with a great selection of books. Add your current favorites to our stack!

Where our grand ideas and reality collide, we find struggles but also authenticity. This month’s prompt from Literary Reflections encourages us to consider a time reality didn’t match expectations.

For each issue of Literary Mama, Literary Reflections shares a writing prompt inviting our readers to respond. Our editors provide feedback on these responses, and we post our favorites on the blog. This month’s writing prompt is inspired by Natalie Singer-Velush’s essay, “Bernadette and Me,” and Cheryl Anne Latuner’s essay, “Baby at My Breast—The Path to a Book.”

As we head into cooler months, I’ve got my eye on my rocker, where I long to curl up in a with a blanket, a cat, and a book. This month our staff give us plenty of varied options, from a fiction anthology to nonfiction and memoir.

Everyone left the Decatur Book Festival talking about Jong v. Gay, but Literary Reflections Editor Justine Uhlenbrock was still pondering a hug.

At the Decatur Book Festival, the largest independent book festival in the US, I snapped up a stack of classics from a used book tent. Find out more about these selections and other staff and contributor picks.

For each issue of Literary Mama, Literary Reflections shares a writing prompt inviting our readers to respond. Our editors provide feedback on these responses, and we post our favorites on the blog. This month’s writing prompt is inspired by Jennie Robertson’s essay, “She Writes,” and Miriam Mandel Levi’s essay, “Raising Readers: A Mother’s Tale From The Trenches.”

As summer comes to a close, must our reading passion also wane with the season? I am happy to report the opposite to be true this month for me. The kids are back in school but not yet inundated with projects; thus, my mounting stack of books topples over with new selections now more than ever. Check out our recent favorites, some of which are hot off the presses.

We’re now a month past the solstice, and summer is in full swing. If you’re reaching the end of a book or bottom of your stack, our writers and editors offer you some smart and award-worthy titles to round out and refresh your summer reading selections.

In June, we Literary Mamas read on, certain that reading will carry us forward with the reminder that there is more out there in the world than our own hustling hive.