Most Recent Posts

Posted by
Rebecca Joines Schinsky
May 7, 2012
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Okay, you’ve got a couple hours of Monday under your belt. What’s on your mind today?

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Posted by
Rachel
May 7, 2012
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We’re just about 12 weeks away from the start of the London 2012 Olympics and I’ve managed, so far, to keep my squealing excitement under wraps. But just barely. Personally, I’ve always been more of a Summer Games girl than Winter, and I’ve usually got a schedule of my favorite events mapped out and DVR’d [...]

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Posted by
Cassandra Neace
May 7, 2012
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I’ve been on a quest to discover my inner geek lately. I thought my love of books fully qualified me as geek, but I have discovered that there is so much more to it than that. I have Ernie Cline, Lev Grossman, Wil Wheaton, and Felicia Day to blame…or to thank. What am I talking [...]

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Posted by
Rebecca Joines Schinsky
May 7, 2012
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This installment of Riot Recommendation is sponsored by All Woman and Springtime by Brandon W. Jones. Before she met Il-sun in an orphanage, Gi was a hollow husk of a girl, broken from growing up in one of North Korea’s forced-labor camps. A mathematical genius, she has learned to cope with pain by retreating into [...]

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Posted by
Rebecca Joines Schinsky
May 7, 2012
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It’s almost here! Toni Morrison’s tenth novel, Home, is coming out tomorrow, and we’re making a holiday of it. To celebrate, we’re giving away one signed first edition of the book to a lucky Riot reader (thank you, Random House!). Pop over to our Facebook page to post a photo of your Toni Morrison collection [...]

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Posted by
Jeff
May 7, 2012
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It’s the time of year for academic send-offs, graduation gifts, and general future-gazing. Understandably, college and universities like to send their graduates out on a high note, so the tenor of commencement speeches is hopeful and inspiring. Thing is, post-graduation life is considerably more complicated than “be the change you want to see in the [...]

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Posted by
Wallace Yovetich
May 7, 2012
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I can’t quite decide what I think about paid book subscriptions. What I mean by paid book subscriptions are the groups that you join for which you pay (or donate) a fixed amount and they send you a book of their choice each month (or every other month). I’ve done two of them, both of [...]

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Posted by
Jeff
May 7, 2012
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As publishers hunger for popular content while cutting promotional budgets, such ready-formed, literate and ebook-reading groups are likely to become the engine rooms of fiction. I have no doubt that quality fan fiction would sell. But aren’t there insane copyright issues? I mean, I can’t just write a Harry Potter prequel and sell it, no? [...]

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Posted by
Victor Wishna
May 6, 2012
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One of the most important reasons to care about language and to always be delving deeper into its origins and usage, aside from the occasional opportunity to stand in self-righteous judgment over others, is that language can be fun!* *And judging others is way fun! Duh! The fun language phenomenon I’ve discovered today—and many of [...]

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Posted by
Jeff
May 6, 2012
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Alright, so I’m on a literary schadenfreude kick. I was kinda stacking the deck with the last two: Henry James’ writing was itself a reaction to the Dickensian tradition and Emerson’s self-reliance a response to the very kind of social cages that Austen explored. In short, those particular literary barbs aren’t surprising. Time to get [...]

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Posted by
Jeff
May 6, 2012
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Book publishers should make reading books as addictive and habit-forming as playing Angry Birds, said Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit” How about just writing good books? If people don’t want to read good books, then it doesn’t really matter how addictive they are. They will be bad, addictive books. And that’s not a win. [...]

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Posted by
Jeff
May 5, 2012
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Here are the book trailers that were most popular this week on BookRiot.tv. Click the cover to watch.

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Posted by
Jeff
May 5, 2012
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The most popular posts from the week that was… I look at the people who write in their books with the same kind of awed reverence that Sal Mineo applied to James Dean. Which likely says something about my conception of rebellion. No lie, I even used a separate sheet of loose leaf for my [...]

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Posted by
Jeff
May 5, 2012
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Book publishers should make reading books as addictive and habit-forming as playing Angry Birds, said Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit” How about just writing good books? If people don’t want to read good books, then it doesn’t really matter how addictive they are. They will be bad, addictive books. And that’s not a [...]

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Posted by
Scott Beauchamp
May 4, 2012
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Sometimes it’s difficult to read about subjects that you’ve lived. I’m reminded of my dad, an aerospace engineer, critiquing the types of planes used in action movies. It was a point of pride, but also kind of annoying, to have him constantly picking out flaws in every scene. I don’t know how many times I’ve [...]

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Posted by
Rebecca Joines Schinsky
May 4, 2012
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Friday, and it’s been an interesting week. What’s on your mind today?

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Posted by
Bethanne Patrick
May 4, 2012
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Since Boston’s Grub Street writers’ collective is holding its annual Muse conference this weekend, it seems only fitting for us to recognize a site we like very, very much indeed that was founded by some Grub Street members. Beyond the Margins is a collective blog or, as they founders say in their About Us intro, [...]

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Posted by
Rebecca Joines Schinsky
May 4, 2012
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Boy does the internet like a list. And boy, does the bookish internet love a book list. Here’s a round-up of recent bookish lists that caught our attention. See previous installments here.  ____________________________ At Abe Books, 27 Surprisingly Bizarre Objects Used as Bookmarks At Flavorwire, The Most Cryptic Titles in Literature (And What They Mean) At [...]

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Posted by
dr b
May 4, 2012
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Presented without comment.

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Posted by
Jeff
May 4, 2012
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I was all set to offer some recommendations for books to give for Mother’s Day, but this, it turns out, is pretty damn hard, since the only stable quality of mothers, it would seem, is that they have had, at some point, one or more children. This seems to us insufficient data for recommending much [...]

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