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In Thor #207, Thor spends Halloween of ’72 beating the crud out of some demon dogs and doing his brother grievous bodily harm, all in the picturesque town of Rutland, Vermont. The location may seem a little random, but it is actually a critical part of the story, so much so that I had better tell you about it before we go any farther. Come and Listen to My Story ‘Bout a Man Named…Tom Okay, so Rutland has this famous Halloween parade, and back in the ’70s, it was run by a man named Tom Fagan....

You are what who you eat.Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food.Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of these book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories.But real life doesn’t like fairy tales, as she learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds....

“Simon Armitage pogos to neo-punk, Anne Enright craves for Cary Grant, The Seventh Seal cheers up Julian Barnes, Diana Evans works out to hip-hop and Jeanette Winterson talks to herself … writers reveal how they’re surviving the corona crisis.” Will this be the weekend I finally break down and watch Tiger King? “I’ve always relied on books to transport me to another world, one where my own problems don’t exist, so it’s especially heartbreaking that I haven’t found comfort in their pages now when I need it the most....

Eddie March grew up in either a Midwestern city called Bay City, a Californian city called Bay City, the Bronx, or some combination thereof: different issues give different information. What we do know is that he grew up in the slums and literally fought his way out, becoming a professional boxer. He acquired the nickname “Iron Man” due to both his toughness and the fact that he was an Iron Man fanboy....

So there’s nothing I love more than a place memoir. These books are not just about places — they are about grieving and falling in love, politics and language, family, money, art, and history. And because they’re memoirs, they’re focused, of course, on the lives of their authors. But they are also about the beating hearts of places. They’re about the messy intersections between people and place — how places affect human lives, and how humans change the places we inhabit....

Interestingly, I asked Book Rioters this question and got these responses back to back: Ashley Holstrom: “I read true crime but am not a big mystery fan! Not that I don’t like mysteries, but they’re not what I gravitate toward. I might be your outlier here.” CJ Connor: “I’m the other way around. Love mysteries but don’t like true crime. Again could be an outlier. (Incidentally, Connor’s cozy Board to Death comes out next year and I can’t wait!...

The best-selling author of How Children Succeed returns with a powerful, mind-changing inquiry into higher education in the United States “Gorgeously reported. Vividly written. Utterly lucid. Paul Tough jumps skillfully between deeply engaging personal narratives and the bigger truths of higher education.” —Ira Glass, host, This American Life I discovered audiobooks almost accidentally, as my love and curiosity for radio drama grew. Radio drama taught me to listen without being disturbed by outside distractions, so by the time I picked up audiobooks I was ready for them....

First, an overview: On average, a short story is around 5,000 words, but the range can be anything more than 1,000 words and anything less than 10,000 words. A very short story, or flash, is usually around 1,000 words or less. Under the umbrella of very short stories, there are also micro stories, which average around 300–400 words or less. Then there is the drabble: a story that contains exactly 100 words....

With a mix of imagery that include dystopian urban landscapes, verdant wilderness, and…Blade Runner, the Artemis Fowl teaser trailer sets itself apart visually from the settings many of us imagined while reading the original novel. The uproar on Twitter is deafening so far, with many posters decrying a complete abandonment of the source material. Personally? I’m seeing a mix of fey magic and sci-fi technology. I’m seeing Artemis taking aim and walking into the room like he’s the smartest, most capable one there....

Gear up and get ready to jump into Tech Week! And check back here for new content as it posts all week:

Fiction and Hybrid Chapbooks Rose Metal Press is an example of a press who champions short, hybrid works. I interned there for a short period a few years ago. There, I was able to see how a chapbook came together, and I saw the love its founders devoted toward this literary form. Kathleen Rooney and Abigail Beckel founded the press in 2006. Since then, they have published beautiful hybrid and experimental works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry....

That’s why we want to know: what are your favorite books with eccentric main characters? Come shout them at us on Facebook and Twitter–or hire a sky writer, or send pigeon post, or psychically communicate them to us, depending on your personal levels of eccentricity. Then we’ll round up your answers and be back next week to share the list with your fellow Riot readers!

A dark past. An impossible journey. The will to survive. For fans of Flight Behavior and Station Eleven, a novel set on the brink of catastrophe, as a young woman chases the world’s last birds―and her own final chance for redemption. Migrations has been named a “most anticipated” book by Entertainment Weekly, Vulture, Elle, and more. Emily St. John Mandel calls this powerful novel “extraordinary.” Start reading Migrations now. Consequently, poets have developed a new style to describe a world fraught with environmental change....

Even if you’re lucky enough to be in a universe like Twilight where benevolent vampires can be as good as—if not better than—humanity itself, these scenarios are, inevitably, fraught with life-threatening problems. The power dynamic would never be anywhere near balanced in such a relationship, to the degree that this alone could arguably make such a relationship borderline abusive from the start. Further, it seems much more likely that a vampire would be animalistic and dangerous, rather than good....

Airing on PBS from 1995 to 1997, Wishbone‘s basic premise was this: Wishbone, a highly literate Jack Russell terrier, lives in the town of Oakdale with his owner, a boy named Joe; Joe’s friends, Samantha and David; and various other colorful characters. (The kids’ English teacher is a secret Elvis impersonator.) As everyone goes about their daily lives, Wishbone frequently slips into book-based reveries, comparing the goings-on in Oakdale with the plots of famous books....

First, they canceled Batgirl, the $90 million movie starring Leslie Grace, their first headlining Latina superhero. This decision, spurred by their merger with Discovery+, appears to be part of a strategy to eliminate mid-budget projects in favor of big budget theatrical blockbusters and cheaper streaming projects. You might wonder what the point is in wasting the $90 million already spent, but don’t worry! They’re taking a tax write-down instead. I hated typing that sentence....

When I hear “I just hate reading,” my mind goes into many different places to try and figure out why, but most importantly to try and find a book that will change their mind. My first reaction, when on the spot, is to ask them about any films or TV shows that they enjoy. My goal is to figure out the genre that will hook them. It is guaranteed that they are unaware of at least some of the books in the library that exist within a genre that they are fascinated with in a different format....

Now, it’s worth noting that the Venn diagram between Studio Ghibli movies and Hayao Miyazaki movies is not a circle. Although Miyazaki wrote and directed four of the studio’s five highest-grossing pictures — Ponyo, Spirited Away, The Wind Rises, and Howl’s Moving Castle — a number of other directors have taken the helm over the years, most notably Isao Takahata and Miyazaki’s own son, Gorō. Hayao Miyazaki served as the writer, director, producer, and/or concept-creator on each of the films below....

The week after it came out, my friend Jera and I went to see Frozen II. We two 30-year-old ladies squealed with delight as we bought our tickets and nestled in excited for 90 minutes of beautifully rendered, computer-generated, Disneyfied escapism. As the lights went down and a castle set among brightly colored fjords, I got a short digital vacation. I also got a wish that many of my bookish, tree-hugging friends have been hoping for for decades: A film version of Edward Abbey’s classic novel The Monkey Wrench Gang....

It is a funny thing to know how senseless this sentence would have been just a few months ago, and how this shared pandemic experience has allowed us to easily decipher the message and laugh at the truth of it. — Emily Coleman (@editoremilye) January 14, 2022 I admit that at first I was reticent about Wordle. I too saw the colourful rectangles on twitter, but those tweets lacked information about the game, and while I was curious, I wasn’t curious enough to google what they meant or what Wordle was....