A couple of weeks ago, I challenged you to guess some famous characters by their physical descriptions. Well, we’re back with a similar challenge. This time, though, it’s guess the setting. I’ll give you a description of a place from a novel, and you try to guess it. Ready? (Link to answers at the end….) Here [...]
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Blume has “zero -interest” in penning more YA—a genre that didn’t exist when she was writing it. “I don’t consider myself a young-adult writer,” she says firmly. Is it just me or is that sort of a sick burn by Judy Blume? ____________________________ And I have a real problem with this idea that only [...]
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Rosenblum: “My niece, upon seeing the first Harry Potter movie asked why Harry and Hermione and Ron always went to the ‘library’ at Hogwarts to look stuff up. ‘Why don’t they just google it?’ A reasonable question.” Besides the ridiculousness of this statement (I mean, why would secret material about the Dark Arts even BE on [...]
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I thought I’d take a look at the SAT Subject Test in literature as a mini case study. I chose the Literature test because it’s a subject I’m supposed to know something about. After all, I have a B.A. and a PhD in English. I have spent the last 25 years thinking about, writing about, [...]
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The Book Riot Podcast, Episode #2: Pillow Talk with Robert Langdon Jeff and Rebecca talk about The Great Gatsby movie reactions and box office, along with discussions on the new Dan Brown novel, ebook market share, a tool to randomly browse the Amazon bookstore, the trailer for James Franco’s As I Lay Dying, and Judy Blume’s disavowal [...]
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After my post Genre Kryptonite: African Literature, I was floored with feedback and wanted to follow up with a few authors based on suggestions from our rockin’ readers. Two new African literature books appeared on my doorstep (magic, I tell you!) and I wasted no time getting to them. Both books had a profound effect [...]
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Look, I know it’s the cool thing to scoff at Dan Brown and lament the fact that the “good” books and the popular books don’t overlap more. But that conversation is a snoozefest, and any author who can sell millions of books and help keep a publishing house in business is good news for readers. So I think it’s [...]
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People think I’m ridiculous when I tell them I have certain relationships with books, and that those relationships dictate how I read those books. Why don’t you just finish one book before you pick up another? That book was terrible, how could you finish that one and not this one? And how could you LIKE [...]
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It’s been my mission these last few years to expand my readerly horizons and try out genres I’ve never read before, usually because I had silly notions of what they were about and the kinds of people who read them. Admitting to myself that I was holding untested theories (okay, they were stereotypes) about what kinds [...]
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Our START HERE book project grew out of the recognition that every reader has one author–and in some cases, many authors–they haven’t read because they don’t know where to start. Some writers are so prolific, and the choices so overwhelming, that it can seem easier to not read them than to try to find a good [...]
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This week’s List List is sponsored by Biographile. Love true stories about fascinating people? So do the folks at Biographile, a website dedicated to helping readers discover a rich mix of real lives through author interviews, news updates, reviews, essays, contests, and more. One of their latest Q&As is an exclusive interview with the hilarious comedian and actor Jim [...]
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But the movie’s excess is okay. Think about how great it would be if there were a major new Walt Disney World ride dedicated to jazz age underground New York City, and then think about the fact that Baz Lurhmann’s The Great Gatsby really is a long and excellent Walt Disney World ride through jazz-age underground New York [...]
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An old flame of mine (and by that I mean the relationship went down in flames, nahmsayin’?) told me a while back (when I was trying to remain friendly with him, how cute was I?) that he was working on a new book. This was my outward reaction: But this was how I felt inside: [...]
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Welcome to another installment of Boy vs. Girl, in which we (Casey Peterson and Marisa Atkinson) read and debate new books at least one of us is really excited about. This week we discuss A Questionable Shape by Bennett Sims. — Marisa: A Questionable Shape was more a philosophical treatise on the ethics of living [...]
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Lolita is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read, and it made the list of Book Riot Readers’ Top 50 Favorite Novels, so I know that a lot of people agree with me about that. But it’s also one of the most disturbing, and not just for its subject matter, but because the [...]
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Lately, it seems like we’re seeing one hell of a resurgence in tabletop card games. It feels like every other week I’m going to a party where someone is playing Cards Against Humanity, and those game nights always spiral out of control. In a good way, of course. After the massive success of Cards Against Humanity post-Kickstarter [...]
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The World’s Strongest Librarian by Josh Hanagarne Josh Hanagarne is a librarian and a lapsed Mormon, which made me feel like we were destined to be spirit-animals right off the bat. But the similarities dwindle from there. Josh suffers from Tourette Syndrome so severe that, in its darkest moments, has caused him to punch himself [...]
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It’s been a wild few days in the librariosphere. (What? That’s what I’ve decided to call it. Shut up.). Last week, journalist Michael Rosenblum took to the Huffington Post to explain that, while he hasn’t been in a library in years, he’s sure they’re entirely unnecessary. What with the Google and all. I read it, [...]
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Jane Austen Metal Bangle: To paraphrase Mrs. Bennett, if you like it, put a ring on it, with this Austen bangle. Beluga Bookends: That prized collection of Moby-Dick editions getting a bit too unwieldy? Straighten and decorate with a smiling set of bookends. Bookish Font: A page-turning design for getting your point across, designed by Byggstudio. Reader Mud [...]
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