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7 Books You Should be Reading Right Now, According to TikTok

October 7th, 2022

If you’ve set foot in a bookstore in the last few years, you’ll have noticed the signs/labels saying: “TikTok Made Me Buy it.” No? Here’s an example from an online retailer — this is the kind of metadata some publishers are adding on UK Amazon. Mentioning TikTok in the book’s title helps authors appear in TikTok-related searches and gives their books a sense of  social validation:

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Do It Yourself Limited Edition Releases

October 6th, 2022

Normally, limited editions are handled through specialty publishers. These publishers often approach authors directly about particular titles. The size of the print run depends on the publisher’s estimation of the title's sales potential and the popularity of the author in question. But as with everything else in publishing, a lot more authors are now going their own way.

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Time's Chainsaw: Why You Should Set Your Horror In A Specific Time Period

October 5th, 2022

Urban Legend isn’t exactly in the pantheon of horror movies that embody the late 90s. It wasn’t as self-aware as Scream, wasn’t as intense as Final Destination, and it didn’t fly under the radar as hard as The Faculty. But the one thing Urban Legend does better than the rest: It screams, bleeds, and oozes 1998.

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Book vs. Film: My Best Friend's Exorcism

October 3rd, 2022

SPOILERS AHEAD The 2022 film My Best Friend’s Exorcism, adapted from the 2016 novel of the same name by Grady Hendrix, enters the much-bloated cinematic lexicon of demonic possession movies, but with much more humor and far less religious oppressiveness. (The subgenre’s progenitor The Exorcist is, first and foremost, a Catholic propaganda film that spawned countless imitators, all rife with the same black and white, good versus evil morality). 

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10 Translated Books to Read for International Translation Day

September 29th, 2022

I still remember the rush of possibility, years ago, when I realized I’d soon be able to read literature in English — I suddenly had so many books within my reach. Much later, when I set out to read more translated books, I felt the same exact emotion: a feeling of abundance, the joy of choice, of plenty, of access.

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A Fiction Roundup Both Painful and Poignant

September 27th, 2022

In July and August, I wanted to read a group nonfiction books that had found their way to my home and share my thoughts about them on LitReactor. Which I did. After I finished those books I wanted to read some of the fiction that had come my way, which I also did, and with LitReactor’s blessing I get to tell you about these books today. I plan to move onto poetry next and I look forward to telling you about those as well. Did you hear that LitReactor? Word.

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8 Killer True Crime Books for Fans of 'In Cold Blood'

September 26th, 2022

Truman Capote was born September 30, 1924, in New Orleans, Louisiana. His career as a writer was seemingly a thing of fate, as he infamously taught himself to read and write at a young age. He began writing short stories before moving into novels, plays, and screenplays. The last novel he wrote was arguably his most famous and didn’t originally publish as a book. 

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Dispatch From The Querying Trenches (Part III): Getting Ready

September 22nd, 2022

We, and by “we” I do mean simply “I,” are about to be back in the querying trenches.

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The Melting Point of Platinum: On Joyce Carol Oates' 'Blonde'

September 20th, 2022

On September 28th, Netflix will release Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, the film adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates epic novel from 2000 shadowing the birth, life, and death of Marilyn Monroe.

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Magic When It All Comes Together: How To Assemble a Not-Boring Book

September 19th, 2022

Original header image by KRIPPS_medien  I tend to be musically minded, often swapping in songs and lyrics in place of emotional revelation, and, even in music, it's important not just what you say, but how and when you say it. In High Fidelity (both the 1995 novel by Nick Hornby and the 2000 film starring John Cusack), main character, Rob, lays down a series of rules of how to make a great mixtape. Roughly paraphrased, they are:

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