Gathered by Mandi Casolo

Hang on to your hats:  After cryptically tip-toeing around with Gathering Blue and The Messenger, Lois Lowry has at last written a sequel to The Giver, the dystopian young adult novel that first captured our hearts for euthanasia and terror regimes in sixth grade.

Behold Son.

There are so many avenues now for which to find a good read: the bargain bin, the used bookstore, the leave-one-take-one at your local coffee haunt, the “shady seller on Amazon.” While all of these are adventures at the end of which you never know what you’re going to get, buying your book shiny and new, and maybe even (gasp) in hardcover, can be exhilarating too. Especially when you know you’ve helped pay a writer’s rent.

The five stages of grief can be applied to so many life experiences. The five stages of grading, the five stages of college applications, the five stages of marriage, and the “Five Stages of Grief Following the Publication of One’s First Book.”

Why would you hang a poster for a rock band that’s going to sell out in a year when you can plaster your walls with classic novels that will never go out of style? Belgium design firm Beshart commissioned 100 artists to redesign the covers of 100 classic novels in poster format. A $30 rock concert poster goes into the pockets of the vendor but five euro of every novel poster purchase goes to UNESCO to fund projects in Africa and help fight illiteracy.