In Norse mythology, Huginn and Muninn are a pair of ravens that fly all over the world, Midgard, and bring information to the god Odin. Huginn and Muninn are attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources: the Prose Edda and Heimskringla; in the Third Grammatical Treatise, compiled in the 13th century by Óláfr Þórðarson; and in the poetry of skalds. The names of the ravens are sometimes anglicized as Hugin and Munin, the same spelling as used in modern Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.
The common raven is a large all-black passerine bird. It is the most widely distributed of all corvids, found across the Northern Hemisphere. It is a raven known by many names at the subspecies level; there are at least eight subspecies with little variation in appearance, although recent research has demonstrated significant genetic differences among populations from various regions. It is one of the two largest corvids, alongside the thick-billed raven, and is possibly the heaviest passerine bird; at maturity, the common raven averages 63 centimetres in length and 1.47 kilograms in mass. Although their typical lifespan is considerably shorter, common ravens can live more than 23 years in the wild. Young birds may travel in flocks but later mate for life, with each mated pair defending a territory.
Elaine Cunningham is an American fantasy and science fiction author, especially known for her contributions to the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game campaign setting of Forgotten Realms.
Kirkus Reviews is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. Kirkus Reviews confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers' literature.
Diane Ackerman is an American poet, essayist, and naturalist known for her wide-ranging curiosity and poetic explorations of the natural world.
An Unkindness of Ravens is a murder mystery by British crime-writer Ruth Rendell. First published in 1985, it is the 13th in her series featuring Inspector Wexford.
The Tower and the Hive is a 1999 science fiction novel by American writer Anne McCaffrey, the concluding volume of a five-book series also referred to as "The Tower and Hive" series.
Roland Smith is an American author of young adult fiction as well as nonfiction books for children.
The Macavity Awards, established in 1987, are a literary award for mystery writers. Nominated and voted upon annually by the members of the Mystery Readers International, the award is named for the "mystery cat" of T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. The award is given in four categories—best novel, best first novel, best nonfiction, and best short story. The Sue Feder Historical Mystery has been given in conjunction with the Macavity Awards.
Vampire Kisses is a series of books written by Ellen Schreiber. Vampire Kisses is about a 16-year-old girl named Raven Madison who is a goth misfit in her polo-wearing, ordinary, town. When an old abandoned mansion finally gets new residents, the rumors start to spread. Everyone in the small town, which Raven refers to as “Dullsville”, believes that the new neighbors are actually secret bloodthirsty vampires. Even Raven, who has always loved vampires since she was little, believes the rumors. But one day, she encounters the attractive yet mysterious Alexander Sterling that lives in the mansion and feels like he is the only person that actually understands her. The two very quickly fall in love, but still, the question remains; are the Sterlings really vampires?
The New Meditation Handbook: Meditations to Make Our Life Happy and Meaningful is a guide to Buddhist philosophy and meditation techniques. It is a compilation of twenty-one concise meditations on Lamrim, or the stages of the path to enlightenment, by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, a Buddhist teacher and author in the West.
Donna Levin is a San Francisco-based author, editor and writing teacher. She has published the novels Extraordinary Means, California Street, There’s More Than One Way Home and He Could Be Another Bill Gates.
Jackdaw Summer is a 2008 book by David Almond. It is about two boys, Liam and Max, who, on following a jackdaw, find an abandoned baby.
Drylongso is a 1992 children's book by Virginia Hamilton and illustrator Jerry Pinkney. It is about a farming family who is experiencing a drought and takes in a stranger.
Back Home is a 1992 children's picture book by Gloria Jean Pinkney and illustrator Jerry Pinkney. Published in 1992 by Dial Press, it is about a young girl, Ernestine, who, with her family, visits the place she was born.
Saul Kussiel Padover was a historian and political scientist at the New School for Social Research in New York City who wrote biographies of philosophers and politicians such as Karl Marx and Thomas Jefferson.
Raven Leilani Baptiste is an American writer who publishes under the name Raven Leilani. Her debut novel Luster was released in 2020 to critical acclaim.
Luster is a 2020 debut novel by Raven Leilani. It follows a young Black woman who gets involved with a middle-aged white man in an open marriage. Luster was released on August 4, 2020 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It received mainly positive critical reception and won the 2020 Kirkus Prize for fiction. In December 2020, the novel was found in Literary Hub to have made 16 lists of the year's best books.
Queen of the Conquered is a 2019 fantasy novel by Kacen Callender. Callender's adult debut, published by Orbit in 2019, the book was the 2020 winner of the World Fantasy Award. In October 2020, a Time panel rated the book one of the top 100 fantasy novels of all-time.
The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer is a collection of short fiction by Janelle Monáe, written in collaboration with Yohanca Delgado, Eve L. Ewing, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Danny Lore, and Sheree Renée Thomas. The collection, which has been described as Afrofuturist and cyberpunk, is Monáe's debut literary work. It is based on the world of her 2018 album Dirty Computer, as well as the accompanying short film of the same name. The book has received critical acclaim.
