But the only lasting solution is for readers to take possession of the process. The internet belongs to us all. Your honest and heartfelt reviews, good or bad, enthusiastic or disapproving, can drown out the phoney voices, and the underhanded tactics will be marginalized to the point of irrelevance. No single author, however devious, can [...]
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Labor Day weekend is something of a turning point in the long haul of the year. We’ve traversed two-thirds of the calendar, and summer’s unofficially over. (Sad face.) With so many great books coming out this fall (Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon, Margaret Atwood, Tom Wolfe, etc., etc.) let’s take a quick moment to reflect on [...]
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Our full-text RSS feed this week is sponsored by The Bloodletter’s Daughter by Linda Lafferty. Click here to subscribe to Book Riot via RSS and to be notified of new posts and stay up-to-date on all the latest.* Within the glittering Hapsburg court in Prague lurks a darkness that no one dares mention… In 1606, [...]
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If after five years, you don’t sell enough books to pay yourself–let alone an employee–and you have to get a teaching job for the benefits (as Ms. Welch did), you aren’t a bookseller, you are a hobbyist. The same logic could be applied to self-published authors, no? Or heck, how many traditionally published authors earn [...]
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Tomorrow, of course, is Labor Day, a tribute to the social and economic achievements of our nation’s workers, which Americans have celebrated for more than a century with parades, picnics, and last-minute preparations for their fantasy-football drafts. A creation of the labor movement, Labor Day often conjures sentimental images of hard-working, blue-collar, Rosie-the-Riveter types—factory, construction, [...]
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It is said that book reviewing is too nice these days, but there are still some daggers from time to time. Here are few from this week’s NYTBR, but softened by being read by baby animals. From Judith Martin’s review of The Age of Desire by Jennie Fields ____________________________ From Juliet Lapodis’ review of In [...]
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Here are the most read stories from the last week in Critical Linking… Ben Franklin would recognize this era. From the 16th to the 19th century, pamphleteering allowed unpublished hacks like Thomas Paine to espouse their views and argue their points cheaply and individually. Pamphleteers were accused of vanity, incompetence and even sedition. But [...]
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Here are the most popular book trailers from the last week on BookRiot.tv. Click the cover to watch!
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Our most popular posts from the week that was… Move over, Carly Rae! You can call me any time as long as you call me from the whale phone on this Moby Dick-inspired shirt from Threadless. from 13 Terrific Bookish T-Shirts by Rebecca Joines Schinsky _________________________ Bookworm cookies: These cookies featured on The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle are almost [...]
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Rebecca Harrington is a twenty-six-year-old writer living in New York City. She currently works at The Huffington Post and studied history and literature at Harvard and journalism at Columbia. Penelope is her first novel, currently out as a Vintage Original paperback. Book Riot: Which books most inspired Penelope, your tale of an incredibly [...]
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This installment of Riot Recommendation is sponsored by The Colonel’s Mistake by Dan Mayland. Mark Sava, former CIA station chief of Azerbaijan, lives a quiet life as a professor at Western University in the city of Baku. But his peace is shattered by both the assassination of a high-level American during an international oil conference and the arrest [...]
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It takes a special type of person to be thinking about gravestones and ghosts on a bright, sunny summer day. But after hearing what HG Wells wanted his epitaph to be (which he never got), it made me think about what I would want mine to be. Would it be something literary since I’m such [...]
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When Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl left me gasping for more earlier this summer, I plowed through her backlist over a single weekend and fell hard for the way she incorporates social commentary and cultural criticism into uber-compelling storylines. To wit, this consideration of gender roles, expectations, and contemporary womanhood from Gone Girl: Men always say [...]
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A colleague recently lamented in a Facebook post that another well-known literary site’s Big Books of Fall list was basically warmed-over marketing copy–the books mentioned were all the usual suspects (blah blah blah Tom Wolfe, yada yada Michael Chabon, and so on and so on RushdieSmithRusso until oh some book by some British woman who [...]
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Our weekly round-up of the best bookish lists floating around the internet. at Rolling Stone, Six Things You Didn’t Know About David Foster Wallace at The Huffington Post, 17 Ways to “Cheat” at Scrabble at Flavorwire, 10 Contemporary Politicians’ Favorite Books at Biographile, Top 5 Biographies and Memoirs to Inspire Young Writers at Salon, Books Bill Clinton Blurbed [...]
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We so often claim to be owners when we are in fact stewards. On letting go of books. ____________________________ But, for as many books as exist, there are also any number of different reading types a book lover (or even a book hater) might demonstrate. What kind of reader are you? If this interests you, [...]
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Dear Book Maven: My policy towards children’s gifts has always been bibliocentric. Not only do I love books, not only was I a bookish child, but I believe that having their own small libraries teaches small people a lot about information, education, and possession. This self-styled policy also allows me to simplify my shopping [...]
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This round of Name That Author! is sponsored by Flock by Wendy Delsol, available now in hardcover, audiobook, and ebook. After surviving her (shall we say) intense adventure in Iceland, Katla is psyched to be back for a blissfully uneventful senior year of homecoming and fashion explorations. But her hopes of dodging unfinished business are dashed [...]
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This is a guest post from Loyal Miles. Loyal is a writer living in Brooklyn. ____________________________ You’ve been there. A crowded train or airport gate, the corner Starbuck’s or a shaded park bench. Just going about your day, waiting for the next thing, living your life – when you see it. The hands of a [...]
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