Riot Headline The Best Books of 2024

David Abrams

David Abrams blogs about the literary life at The Quivering Pen. His novel Fobbit, a dark comedy about the Iraq War, is available from Grove/Atlantic.

Chocolate Wars, Mr. Pucker, and Being a Banned Books Test Subject

While we at the Riot take some time off to rest and catch up on our reading, we’re re-running some of ...

Chocolate Wars, Mr. Pucker, and Being a Banned Books Test Subject

I was a teenage guinea pig. Sometime around 1976, I was used by the Teton County School Board in what ...

The Great 2014 Short Fiction Round-Up

As lovers of short fiction already know, we’re nearly through National Short Story Month.  Those who were unaware of this calendar ...

Good Medicine: A Tribute to Elmore Leonard

Car bombs exploded in Baghdad neighborhoods that summer like synchronized cannons.  Bodies incinerated.  Engine parts whizzed through the air like ...

THE BOOK RIOT 50: #16 What Books Were People Reading on THE TITANIC?

To celebrate Book Riot’s  first birthday on Monday, we’re running our best 50 posts from our first year this week. ...

Words Obeyed Him: Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)

When I was in fifth grade, I entered a house, went to the nursery, and was eaten by a lion. ...

Satire and War

It’s true, war is hell. But in the right hands—holding the pen askew at just the right angle—war can also ...

20 for 2012: Short Story Collections

As lovers of short fiction already know, we’re smack-dab in the middle of National Short Story Month. Those who were ...

The Day the Laughter Died: An Appreciation of Lewis Nordan

For the better part of twenty years, I carried Lewis Nordan around with me like a beautiful, restless agony. Though ...

What Books Were People Reading on The Titanic?

As the RMS Titanic was sinking beneath surface of the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912 and survivors were ...