Souad Mekhennet is one of many women journalists who have entered dangerous situations to try to inform the world about conditions in a war zone. A few of the most influential and best-known, now deceased, are listed below.

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As we settle into 2018, here are six of the best debut novels to read and discuss during the year.

If you love books about place and community, Golden Hill, The Dry and If the Creek Don't Rise all transport readers to the streets of small towns and big cities and into the hearts of the people who struggle to make their lives there. Secrets are held – and readers' attentions are held too! – in both The Second Mrs. Hockaday and The Mothers. And, finally, readers can't help but root for quirky, clever teenager Ginny Moon even as she resists the loving family that finally wants to bring her home. All of these debuts are sure to spark emotion and conversation and are great bets for your book club!

Read on for information on each book including reviews, articles, excepts and reading guides.

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There's nothing quite like that feeling of getting a brand-new book from the bookstore, taking it home and spending hours absorbed in its pages.

People used to talk about the imminent death of reading. The internet, it was thought, would kill the book industry. But old habits die hard, and the trusty American novel continues to give readers many hours of escapism. In fact, according to Global English Editing's infographic on American reading habits published below, we're reading almost as much as we ever have.

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Today, we look back on the incredible selection of books our members have reviewed for First Impressions during the year - 45 titles in total.

Reader reviews abound on the web these days but it's difficult to know which to trust, especially when there are businesses who will arrange for glowing "reader reviews" to be posted and other reviews may be written by well-meaning family and friends.

BookBrowse's First Impressions program offers you a source of trustworthy reader reviews because only BookBrowse members can post reviews. Members indicate which books they're interested in but cannot prioritize, and copies are assigned by BookBrowse's algorithms. So, while it's conceivable that somebody connected to the book might be assigned a copy, the chances of there being enough people to influence the overall consensus is effectively non-existent.

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What better way to be sure a book is going to be right for your book club than being a fly on the wall at a real discussion - such as for the fifteen books we discussed in BookBrowse's Book Club during 2017 (with more than 3500 comments posted), or any of the approximate one hundred books that we've discussed over the past few years!

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Dear BookBrowsers,

BookBrowse's annual Best of the Year awards are an excellent barometer of great reading. The awards are particularly noteworthy because voting is only open to BookBrowse subscribers - so no vote stuffing by rabid fan bases; and instead of just voting for a book (which favors the most widely read books) subscribers rate each book they've read that is on the shortlist, and the winners are the books with the highest overall rating. Such considered selection results in truly outstanding books being feted every year. 2017 is no different in that regard. Over 7,000 votes were cast on 67 books (12 nonfiction, 51 fiction and 4 YA).

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