Seattle Arts & Lectures

  • Book Bingo NW 2025: Great Escapes

    Book Bingo NW 2025: Great Escapes

    Perhaps more than any other Book Bingo category this year, Great Escapes invites personal taste and creativity into the conversation. A guidebook to somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit? A portal to a world you wish you could escape to? A memoir of around-the-world travel? A gripping thriller or sigh-worthy romance that gives you an… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2022: Non-binary/genderqueer/two-spirit author or character

    Happy Pride and Summer Book Bingo, y’all! Gender can be messy and wonderful and specific and fluid; a source of anxiety for some and self-contentment for others. These authors and their characters, stories, and poems explore the infinite spectrum of human identities and experiences. Maia Kobabe’s cathartic graphic memoir Gender Queer follows eir exploration of… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2022: First book by an author, most recent book by same author

    This year’s adult book bingo issues one compound challenge, two squares that can be filled by reading the first book by an author, and then the most recent book by the same author. It’s a neat challenge – do you go with an author who has been writing for 40+ years? A newer author still… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2022: Read Outside!

    #BookBingoNW2022: Read Outside!

    Are you ready to get outside? We’re jumping into this Book Bingo square right away, because it is without doubt the easiest one there is. You can literally read anything you feel like, including whatever books you’ve already been planning to read: just read that book outside. Of course the trick around here is that… Continue reading

  • Adult Summer Reading Book Bingo NW 2022 Starts TODAY!

    Adult Summer Reading Book Bingo NW 2022 Starts TODAY!

    Today is the day–Wednesday, May 18th is the start of our 8th Year of Summer Book Bingo with our amazing partner Seattle Arts & Lectures! The bingo card artwork by local artist Jorge Villavicencio highlights the Library’s Year of Wonder theme with vibrant, whimsical balloons, kites, and reading aliens from outer space to help set… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2021: Mystery and Crime under 250 pages

    As Summer Book Bingo 2021 comes down to the wire (deadline: Sept. 7), you may be looking to maximize your remaining reading time. To that end, here are a selection of mysteries that clock in under 250 pages, for rapid reading. Feeling more leisurely? Check out our longer list of suggested mystery/crime novels. Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2021 BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color) Food Writing

    Need a suggestion for your BIPOC Food Writing Book Bingo square? Expand your reading (and eating) palette with these tasty, filling and thoroughly engrossing memoirs and cookbooks!* Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner Noted indie rock musician Zauner (Japanese Breakfast) has penned a heartfelt and captivating memoir about growing up Asian American in a predominantly… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2021 Cli-fi or Environmental Non-fiction

    The Cli-fi/Environmental Non-Fiction square offers lots of good reading options! From visions of how the world might look after a climate apocalypse, to intensely personal stories of connection with the land; from accounts of how we got to this point in time, to examinations of the intersection of capitalism and climate; and much more. Check… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2021 Black Joy

    A short list of good reads that can be applied to the Black Joy 2021 Book Bingo square. These are funny, romantic stories that follow Black characters whose best lives find them. Girl Gurl Grrrl: On womanhood and belonging in the age of Black girl magic by Kenya Hunt, deputy editor of the fashion magazine… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2021 Coming of Age

    Looking to fill your book bingo Coming of Age square? Check out one of these titles, in which characters confront confusing situations and pursue big dreams as they enter adulthood. White Ivy by Susie Yang As a teenager, Chinese-American Ivy is caught between the disapproval and harsh parenting style of her parents, and the love… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2021 Beach Read

    Fellow readers, let’s talk beach reads. Don’t be put off by the name – these can be read at the beach, sure, but also by a lake; in a park or on your lawn; on your couch – anywhere you’re taking some time for yourself. And any book can be a beach read*, so long… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2021 Small Press

    Those who follow the literary world know the agglomeration of mega-publishers that was once termed the “big six” long ago became the “big five,” and through yet another merger/acquisition will soon become the “big four.” It seems just a matter of time before we’re talking about the “big one.” Fortunately, there are many many small… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2021: Graphic Novel or Comic

    This is a short list of my favorite reads that can be applied to the graphic novel or comic 2021 Book Bingo square. These are thrilling, heart wrenching, thoughtful stories. Infinitum: An Afrofuturist Tale by Tim Fielder From the distant past through to the unforeseeable future, King Aja Oba lives many lives, made immortal by… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2021 Olympic Host City

    #BookBingoNW2021 Olympic Host City

    We love a good, challenging BookBingoNW2021  category! Case in point? Read a book – fiction or non-fiction – set in an Olympic Host City! Since the revival of the Modern Olympics in1896, the Games have been held in over forty different cities and towns around the world. Here are books featuring some of these far-flung… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2021 Asian American & Pacific Islander

    There are so many great options for your #BookBingoNW2021 AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) square! Here are a few to get you started, and you’ll find many more on our latest AAPI Fiction Booklist. The City of Good Death, by Priyanka Chapaneri. Banaras on the banks of the Ganges is esteemed a good place to truly… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2021 Romance

    Need a suggestion for your #BookBingoNW2021 Romance square? Look no further than the comforting, happily-ever-after recommendations listed below: The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai  Rhiannon and Samson are rival dating app creators with a complicated history. Forced to interact on a professional level, they both wonder if a second chance at love might be possible after… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2021 is ON!

    Bluer skies, longer days, fewer masks – it can only mean one thing. Once again, it’s time for Summer Book Bingo! This is our 7th year – YES, the 7th! Such a lucky number! – partnering with Seattle Arts & Lectures to bring you a free adult summer reading program with reading challenges and drawing… Continue reading

  • #BookBingoNW2020: Two Books by the Same Author

    Can’t believe this is our last Book Bingo square post! It’s definitely been an added challenge to stay focused. I’ve found with two books by the same author that you can go back to some of those authors you love. Re-read your favorite novel of theirs and grab one of theirs you haven’t read yet… Continue reading