Dashboard? More Like Bookshelf: Your Guide to Literary Tumblrs

Lists Notable Articles
February 3, 2012 | 1 book mentioned 100 4 min read

Related Books:

[Ed Note: Don’t miss Part Two and Part Three!]

About two months ago, The Millions joined the Tumblr community. So far, the going has been great. The platform is perfectly suited for dynamic storytelling, and as a direct result, it is home to some of the friendliest book lovers around. However, the site’s SEO (or lack thereof) is regrettably unkind to Tumblr outsiders, and this leads to two things. On the one hand, the insularity stokes the kind of kinship that makes its community so tightknit. On the other, the lack of easy searching reduces each blog’s chance of attracting new (or outside) viewers. I’d like to change that. By creating this list of my favorite “literary Tumblrs,” I hope to turn you on to some of the sites that make The Millions’ dashboard that much brighter.

For convenience, I’ve broken this list up among several categories, but I haven’t put these in any preferential order. “Single-Servings” are the most quintessentially Tumblr-like Tumblrs: blogs that fill one particular, ultra-specific niche. “Reviewers,” “Publishers,” “Magazines,” and “Booksellers/Libraries/Foundations” are exactly what they sound like. Sites classified as “Marginalia” are streams of miscellaneous book factoids, images, and, well, marginalia. I’ve tried to avoid listing personal Tumblrs except for a few here and there. Finally, I’ve included a “Wish List” of entities I’d like to see enter the world of likes and reblogs.

1.      Single-Servings

2.     Reviewers

3.     Booksellers/Libraries/Foundations

4.     Marginalia

5.     Publishers (Big Six) — Bear in mind: most of these lean pretty heavily
towards being just marketing tools.

6.     Publishers (Littler Guys)

7.     Magazines

8.    Wish List

This list, of course, is by nature incomplete. I am sure I’ve missed a ton of standouts. Please feel free to let me know which ones I’ve overlooked in the comments!

[Ed Note: Don’t miss Part Two and Part Three!]

works on special projects for The Millions. He lives in Baltimore and he frequents dive bars. His interests can be followed on his Tumblr, Nick Recommends and Twitter, @nemoran3.

Lists

The 2016 Millions Gift Guide for Readers and Writers

Lists
November 28, 2016 | 1 book mentioned 4 min read

The shopping season, er, holiday season is upon us! The Millions is here for you, once again, with a gift guide catered to the readers, writers, and literary folks in your life. Enjoy!

Book Perfume

This “fresh, woodsy scent”, actually called “Book”, is for both men and women. According to its perfumer, Book is meant “to recapture the experience of yesterday; turning the pages and breathing in the smell of dry paper mingling in with the open fresh air.” (There are also perfumes inspired by Whiskey, Gin, and Tea, some other things popular with writers.) If perfume is too risky, another option is this “Book” candle, inspired by the “mellow, comforting fragrance of aged paper, ink and leather.”

A Literary Map of the United States

This clever map places authors in the regions they write from, and will undoubtedly inspire you to check out some new writers. Discerning readers may quibble with the placement of writers, but that’s part of the fun of it.

A Postcard From a Favorite Author

The literary magazine The Common is hosting their annual author postcard auction, where you can bid for a chance to win a postcard from a favorite author, handwritten to a person of your choice. This year’s authors include Millions favorites Samantha Hunt, Lauren Groff, Alexander Chee, Roxane Gay, Ann Patchett, and George Saunders, among many others. Please note, the auction closes Dec. 9, so you have to act fast for this one.

Writers Tears Whiskey

This is the booze to have on hand when you’re watching the inauguration, weeping over the cruel irony of having one of our country’s most literary presidents followed by a president who has, at best, “an unusually light appetite for reading.” Politics aside, this Irish whiskey, “gently spiced with a burst of ginger and butterscotch,” is perfect for those dark nights of the soul, when the words won’t come, or the rejection notes just won’t stop coming.

Laptop “Skin”

Decorative laptop covers and decals remind me of the beginning-of-the-school-year ritual of covering your textbooks. (Do the kids still do that?) Like bumper stickers or temporary tattoos, they are a low-risk decoration, and an easy way to rejuvenate an old laptop or personalize a new one.

Ear Muffs

Millions staffer Claire Cameron sent this gift idea to me with the wise observation, “I’ve come to believe that ear muffs are the greatest gift for writers and anyone who values sanity.” They’re also good gifts for friends who work from home and live in neighborhoods that are besieged by noisy construction projects, not that I’m speaking from personal experience.

Reading Glasses

When you get to a certain age, you need reading glasses. Around that same age, you start forgetting where you put everything. So really, you need three pairs of reading glasses: the pair you wear, the pair you keep on hand for when you can’t find the pair you wear, and the pair to keep on hand for when you can’t remember where you put the back-up pair.

Short Story Advent Calendar

We’re big fans of literary subscriptions here at The Millions, and in the past we’ve recommended e-book-of-the-month services like Emily Books, and the perennially useful Journal of the Month, which sends its subscribers a different literary magazine each month. Like those services, The Short Story Advent Calendar provides a curated reading experience: one short story every day until Christmas. Each day’s story is a surprise, and is printed in a sealed chapbook. This year’s contributors include Sheila Heti and Katie Coyle, to name just a few.

Christmas-Themed Books

For those who like the idea of an advent calendar, but want stories that are explicitly about Christmas, look no further than A Very Russian Christmas, which collects the Christmas stories of classic Russian writers like Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, as well as lesser-known authors whose works are translated into English for the first time. There’s also Jeanette Winterson’s Christmas Tales: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days, a brand new collection of stories, inspired by Winterson’s annual tradition of writing a new story every Christmas for friends and family. This book includes her 12 favorites, as well as a personal essay about her own Christmas memories.

Babysitting

I’ve recommended this in past, but since affordable childcare remains a pie-in-the-sky feminist dream (at least in America), I’ll say once more that a few hours of childcare is a dream for working writers. You can’t read Marcel Proust with a four-year-old in the vicinity (unless you turn on Octonauts) and you definitely can’t write essays, even silly listicles like this one. So this year, instead of getting your writer/critic/bookish parent-friend a gift certificate for a massage, offer to pick up her kid after school, or take the kids to a park on a weekend afternoon. You can also purchase gift certificates from websites like urbansitter.com and care.com.

A Home Printer

It’s hard to edit without printing a hard copy and yet many writers go without home printers, either making do with public printers or by simply not printing very often. A quality printer is a great, practical gift, especially for a student.

Subscription to an Audiobooks Service

Even the most devoted reader has trouble finding time to read. Audiobooks are a simple way to incorporate a little more reading into your life. You can listen while you commute to work, when you’re folding laundry, or when you’re just too tired to focus on a page. There are a variety of competing subscription services, among them audible.com, audiobooks.com, Downpour, and Simply Audiobooks.

An Open-ended Plane Ticket

Take it from one of the greatest travelers of all time, Ibn Battuta: “Traveling — it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” If you have deep pockets, this would be an amazing gift. For those who fear flying, try an open-ended Amtrak ticket.

Bibliotherapy

There’s nothing like reading the right book at the right time — it’s the drug that all devoted readers seek as they scan library and bookstore shelves, hoping to intuit what book will speak directly to their current state of mind. Bibliotherapy aims to provide readers with the most personalized of book lists, and to connect readers with the books that will speak to their particular situation. Most therapists specialize in fiction, but will also recommend poetry, philosophy, and creative nonfiction to inspire and enrich. You can buy gift vouchers for a session with a Bibliotherapist from The School of Life. (Need a little more info on Bibliotherapy? Check out our recent essay HERE.)

A Donation to a Public Library

Public libraries are under threat and needed more than ever before — more than 30 percent of percent of American households don’t have Internet access at home, and use library computers to apply for jobs and educational opportunities, print documents, and prepare taxes. Many libraries also provide free after-school programs, story hours, and research help. Make a donation in your friend’s name to their local library. Please also consider donating to prison libraries, which are always in need of fresh reading material. Try charities like Books Through Bars, NYC Books Through Bars, and the Prison Book Program.

Image Credit: Flickr/JD Hancock.

Lists
| 1 book mentioned 4 min read
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Lists

The Best of The Millions: 2016

Lists
December 30, 2016 | 1 book mentioned 1 5 min read

As the year winds down, it’s a great opportunity for readers to catch up on some of the most-read pieces from The Millions during the year. We’ll divide the most popular posts on The Millions into two categories, beginning with the 20 most popular pieces published on the site in 2016.

1. Our pair of Most Anticipated posts were popular among readers looking for something new to read. We also ran not one but two non-fiction previews. Our 2017 book preview is coming soon.

2. An Invitation to Hesitate: John Hersey’s ‘Hiroshima’ at 70: Christian Kriticos brought our attention to the 70th anniversary of a watershed moment in 20th-century journalism, the New Yorker’s devotion of an entire issue to John Hersey’s powerful recounting of what happened in Hiroshima on the day the bomb fell. “In our current age, in which every refresh of the Web browser brings a new story of tragedy, to be forgotten as quickly as it appeared, it seems that ‘Hiroshima’ is as relevant as ever.”

3. Dear Any Soldier: Vonnegut during Wartime: Odie Lindsey penned a powerful reflection on discovering fiction — becoming a reader in a war zone — through a box of Kurt Vonnegut novels shipped in an “Any Soldier” care package to Operation Desert Storm, 1991.

4. Are you a planner or a pantser? Akilesh Ayyar broke down the two ways to write a novel: plot it all out meticulously or fly by the seat of your pants. Virginia Woolf? Planner. Mark Twain? Pantser. Vladimir Nabokov? Planner. James Joyce? Pantser of course.

5. In July, the literary set was buzzing about (and rolling their eyes over) The New York Times T Magazine’s publication of a series of emails between Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer. Our own Jacob Lambert then uncovered Portman’s correspondence with none other than Cormac McCarthy.

6. Somehow, your typical summer escapist reading didn’t feel right for 2016. Our own Claire Cameron took stock of things – and some great new books on offer – and crafted A Summer Reading List for Wretched Assholes Who Prefer to Wallow in Someone Else’s Misery. (Spoiler alert: this list works any time of year, as it turns out.)

7. Attention all poetry haters: Our own Nick Ripatrazone made this list just for you.

8. Ernest Hemingway: Middlebrow Revolutionary: Our own Michael Bourne penned a compelling and provocative reconsideration of Papa Hemingway that feels even more relevant today. “Like many men who pride themselves on their toughness and self-reliance, Hemingway was almost comically insecure and prone to betray anyone who had the effrontery to do him a favor.”

9. Infinite Jest in the Age of Addiction: We continue to plumb the depths of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. In July, Mike Broida wrote about Wallace’s masterpiece as a “grand overture on humans and addiction.”

10. The Private Library: What Books Reveal About Their Readers: As Millions readers surely know, there is little more illuminating about a person than that person’s library. With that in mind, Andrew Pippos looked for treasures in the libraries of history’s greatest literary minds, from Gustave Flaubert to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Flannery O’Connor.

11. Only partway done as I compile this list, our star-studded Year in Reading has been a big hit across the internet.

12. In February, Gerald Howard, vice president and executive editor of Doubleday, took us into the halls and history of New York publishing. In this clubby world, much has changed since Alfred Knopf published Thomas Mann. But there are constants: ego, insecurity, irrational exuberance…

13. An Essential Human Respect: Reading Walt Whitman During Troubled Times: E. Thomas Finan’s piece is one I have returned to more than once since we published it in September. “Rather than succumbing to self-righteous demonization, Whitman illustrated the power of a human empathy that transcends ideological bellicosity.”

14. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Amateur Auction Theorist: In this curious bit of history, Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan relate how Goethe invented a new kind of auction to avoid being swindled by his publisher. Alas, Goethe’s agent had other plans.

15. You can call yourself a planner or a pantser (see above), but the fact remains that there is no handbook for being a writer. In June, Marcia DeSanctis tried to make sense of the unbounded but messy life of the writer.

16. Books Should Send Us Into Therapy: On The Paradox of Bibliotherapy: Books are often recommended for therapeutic purposes: Read this book and it will help you solve this problem. In November, James McWilliams argued that instead, “We should allow books to cause more trouble in our lives.”

17. Do you notice what characters are wearing in novels? Do you notice how often authors get this wrong? Rosa Lyster does.

18. Look, it probably wasn’t you who wiped boogers on Jacob Lambert’s library book, but we can’t be sure, right? Just read this.

19. “Literature about sex, no matter who has written it, is almost always terrible, and everybody knows it,” writes Drew Nellins Smith. And yet authors keep churning out sex scenes.

20. I’ll be de’ed. In What the Deuce: The Curse Words of Charles Dickens, Brian Kozlowski instructs on how the giant of the Victorian era was able to channel his more impolitic urges with a clever — and uniquely Dickensian — array of invented epithets.

Next we’ll look at a number of older pieces that Millions readers return to again and again. This list of top “evergreens” comprises pieces that went up before 2016 but continued to find new readers.

1. Dickens’s Best Novel? Six Experts Share Their Opinions: Our own Kevin Hartnett polled the experts to discover the best on offer from the prolific 19th century master.

2. The Starting Six: On the Remarkable Glory Days of Iowa Girls Basketball: Lawrence Tabak’s lovely longform on the basketball variant that was once an Iowa obsession.

3. Readers of Laurent Binet’s HHhH have been turning up to read the story of the section he excised from the novel as well as the missing pages themselves, which we published exclusively.

4. Tolstoy or Dostoevsky? 8 Experts on Who’s Greater: Readers also returned to Kevin Hartnett’s Russian lit throwdown, for which he asked eight scholars and avid lay readers to present their cases for Tolstoy or Dostoevsky as the king of Russian literature.

5. Shakespeare’s Greatest Play? 5 Experts Share Their Opinions: Yet another of Hartnett’s roundtables asked five experts to name the greatest of Shakespeare’s plays.

6. A Year in Reading 2015: 2015’s series stayed popular in 2016.

7. Pansexual Free-for-All: My Time As A Writer of Kindle Erotica: It’s a brave new world for writers on the make. Matthew Morgan tried his hand in the weird, wild world of self-published erotica and in the process introduced us to “shape-shifter sex creatures that could be anything from dolphins to bears to whales” and other oddities.

8. How To Introduce an Author: We’ve all seen them — awkward, long-winded, irrelevant. Bad author introductions mar readings every day in this great country of ours. For four years now, would be emcees have been turning to Janet Potter’s guide on how to not screw up the reading before it even starts.

9. We Cast The Goldfinch Movie so Hollywood Doesn’t Have To: Word of a film adaptation gave us all the excuse we needed to keep talking about Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. Our own Janet Potter and Edan Lepucki saved everyone a lot of trouble and went ahead and put together a cast for the movie.

10. Sam Anderson and David Rees decided, for science, to do a deep dive on Dan Brown’s thriller Inferno. The result was Dumbest Thing Ever: Scribbling in the Margins of Dan Brown’s Inferno and some of the funniest marginalia you’ll ever read.

Lists
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100 comments:

  2. Thank you for this. I only recenly discovered The Millions (two months ago) and am continually impressed by the writing, intelligence, book suggestions and general good-natured enthusiasm for literature, art, etc. It has quickly become one of the first sites I visit each morning. (I do plan to ‘support’ you guys, but being a state employee my pockets are quite thin at the moment). Thank you and all the other amazing writers at this site. Book lovers and struggling writers are not alone!

  3. Great list! On my literary journal I’m two away from having reviewed all of Shakespeare, and my next project is French lit. Essays, fiction, music, film :)

  4. Pingback: Color Disco » Blog Archive » Literary Tumblrs

  9. Give Me Something to Read (givemesomethingtoread.com) has been sharing long reads on Tumblr much longer than Longreads has.

  15. Thanks for all the submissions, everyone. I knew I was leaving some deserving accounts out, so I apologize for any oversight. Also, a scheduling note, the majority of this piece was assembled about a month ago, so anything we’ve only recently discovered was left off the cut — all told, perhaps a Part 2 is in order in the near future.

  20. Pingback: Book links roundup: a guide to literary Tumblrs, unemployment literature, and more | Quillblog | Quill & Quire

  23. Wishlist: Book Mooch and Good Reads, maybe e-reader sellers can tell me what’s cheaper than paperback or what out of print editions are available digitally and one day i’ll finally be convinced to buy one

    and something i started recently:

    http://www.pagetwentyseven.tumblr.com … eventually it’ll have the text from the 27th page of every book i own.

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  34. Pingback: Literary Tumblrs | Pop Loser

  36. It’s fantastic that Tumblr book blogs are getting some recognition! Although it’s a shame that you don’t consider any of the photography blogs (well, with the exception of one!) as “literary Tumblrs”. We do love to read and talk about books as well as post pretty photos of them ;)

  46. Pingback: Monday’s Link Roundup. | Dan Curtis ~ Professional Personal Historian
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  51. Thank you for the acknowledgement, Nick. We’re in the middle of redesigning our website. Once that’s finished (spring), we’ll have even more time to invest in the Tumblr.

    Best wishes,

    David
    Web editor
    Boston Review

  52. Great list! I’m off to follow most!

    I am an author using tumblr for two blogs, because I *love* tumblr. I do wish it were more google-friendly, but whatever.

    Mine are RedTash.com & LesleaTash.com. My husband’s tumblr is TimTash.com, and he writes fantasy. Long live tumblr!

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  62. I can tell this is a very helpful list, and for the first time I went to Tumbler, but…I can’t tell what it is (??) If I “sign up,” will they be sending me emails? Is there a place to post comments on what other people put up?

    Confused, so confused….

  63. Pingback: Newsday Tuesday « Books and Bowel Movements

  64. Great list… and funny timing.

    We actually just launched a Strand Tumblr a couple of weeks ago! (We were still in testing mode when you were compiling this list.)

    So check it out:
    http://www.strandbooks.tumblr.com

    We’ve got staff reads, general book-related musings, and fun scans of the random objects we find embedded in the pages of used books.

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  70. Pingback: Useful Links (Weekly) « Rhondda's Reflections – wandering around the Web

  71. Literary radio program and Web site. Accepts submissions for Poem of the Week. Interviews with poets and writers. Music and interviews from up-and-coming musicians. Other original content.

  72. Pingback: Tumblr for books? « threefortnights
  76. Pingback: Tumblr Tips for Writers - GalleyCat
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  79. Hi, my blog is also on literature (with film on the side!) Please follow it on tumblr! :D

    afilmandlitlover.tumblr.com

    Thanks!

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  84. As a tumblr lover-user, I appreciated this list and subscribed to all your recs–thank you–didn’t realize so much talent was at my fingertips and in my dash. May I also recommend WhiteElephantInTheRoom.tumblr.com?

    Not my site–have never even met the writer. Quite literary. Great voice.

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  86. Pingback: Links: EBM’s, philosophical novels, literary tumblrs, and more : Writing Tips and Publishing Advice from Chrysalis Editorial
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  99. Pingback: The Literary Lowdown: February 17, 2015Tales Between the Pages

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Essays Notable Articles

The Nail Polish Method

Essays Notable Articles
September 28, 2007 | 1 book mentioned 3 2 min read

When the Virginia Quarterly Review recently posted the ten most common story titles submitted to the magazine in the last year, I was relieved that none of my own titles stared back at me from the list. Then again, if I were to name a story “Butterfly” or “Revelation,” perhaps I shouldn’t be writing it to begin with.I’ve been thinking about titles a lot lately, probably because I can’t seem to find a good one for my latest story. In my search for the perfect title, I’ve begun to look to nail polish for inspiration. That’s right, nail polish. This summer I was into shades of red and pink, and at my local beauty salon, where they use the OPI brand, my two favorites were “Moscow Nights” and “I’m Not Really a Waitress,” both of which bring to my mind the sex trade. In a good way. Now, there are also some less successful titles, from the poorly punned, “Quarter of a Cent-Cherry,” to the mysteriously punned, “Chocolate Moose,” to the downright enigmatic “Redipus Oedipus.” (That last one, I must add, wasn’t OPI’s doing, and came in a scarily antiquated bottle.) But even these names caught my attention. What is the secret, I wondered?Judy Stonefield, the Senior Marketing Manager at OPI Products, was kind enough to help out a hapless fiction writer like myself. She explained that their collections are geographically themed, and that the people on their “Naming Committee” are chosen for their “creative, witty minds.” She goes on to say:When the collection theme is determined, we each begin brainstorming privately to come up with a list of ideas. We think of cities, towns, or other geographical names that are in the region of the theme — Midnight in Moscow, St. Petersburgundy. We also consider “icons” of the region or things that have to do with the culture as well — food, clothing, language, industry — and work them into a name that applies to color, nails, polish, etc.When it’s time to meet, we compile a master list and get together in a conference room. We decorate the room with images of the region, we serve food associated with region as well for inspiration — like cranberry juice spritzers when we named the shades for our New England collection, and biscotti and cappuccino for the Italian Collection. We read through the entire list aloud (and the list could have literally hundreds of names). We mark the ones that we like and then we see which names work best for the colors of the collection. It takes a couple of hours to do this, and is one of the highlights of year.I also asked Judy and her OPI Naming Committee to help me out with my current title conundrum. I told her the story include a dog kidnapped by a coyote, a dead boyfriend, and eyebrow waxing. Here were their suggestions:”A Doggone Tale””Wax On, Wax Off””If Not For Bad Luck…””The Bad Coyote””A Date With Fate””Dogless, Loveless, Browless””The Big Oww”I like the last one the best, I think.

Essays Notable Articles
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