Columns

LitReactor Staff Picks: The Best Books of 2013 (Part 1)

December 17th, 2013

Another year has come and gone. [Insert trite analogy about fluttering book pages HERE.] You know what that means, don't you? Time for a bunch of strangers to tell you what was good! And why should you care what the LitReactor writers think are the best books of the year? Trick question! You shouldn't. But what they have to say might interest you nonetheless, because they are handsome and knowledgeable and they read like the wind. So for those who care, we submit for your approval/derision some of LitReactor's favorite reads of 2013.

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The Ten Bookshots Reviews that Forced Me Yet Again into the Eager Tentacles of Amazon

December 16th, 2013

Book reviews are for me what shoe shops are to a foot fetishist: a source of terrible, yet wonderful temptation. I don’t lick the windows, but sometimes, I come close. When I set up Bookshots, I knew that posting all those reviews was only going to make that temptation stronger, but what I hadn’t counted on was just how seductively those reviews would read.

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Speak Up: On The Importance Of Reading Out Loud

December 16th, 2013

Reading out loud will make you a better writer. You probably know this already, but I just had to say it. It’s certainly an attention grabbing first sentence, isn’t it? Or, it would have been, had the 'importance of reading out loud' not been smack dab in the middle of our little headline up there. But it is. And so it is. So should you read the following out loud? There’s nothing and no one stopping you, so give it a spin. I can promise that it’ll sound okay at best and will probably act as a rather fine lesson on how not to ramble.

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10 Great Geek Gift Ideas for the Holidays

December 13th, 2013

Know some geeks? Sure you do! Here’s what to get them this year for the holidays. I even managed to include a few books!

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Culling The Classics: The Hobbit

December 13th, 2013

And what is a hobbit? Hobbits are little people, smaller than dwarfs. They love peace and quiet and good tilled earth. They dislike machines, but they are handy with tools. They are nimble but don't like to hurry. They have sharp ears and eyes. They are inclined to be fat. They wear bright colors but seldom wear shoes. They like to laugh and eat (six meals a day) and drink. They like parties and they like to give and receive presents. They inhabit a land they call The Shire, a place between the River Brandywine and the Far Downs.

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Magical Thinking and Santa Claus: How Holidays Help Create Writers

December 13th, 2013

Holiday memories are often tinged with a sense of the surreal, due in part to the strange cast of mythological figures we have come to associate them with. Rational, mentally fit adults will insist that on Christmas Eve of 1987, they really did see Santa’s boots under the crack of a bedroom door. And how can that one Easter be explained, when there were muddy rabbit prints all over the front steps?

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Storyville: My Ten Favorite Short Stories of 2013

December 12th, 2013

Before people get their noses all bent out of shape, here are the parameters for my selections. These are not the best stories of 2013, because I obviously cannot read every story written, every literary journal, every genre anthology. These are merely my ten FAVORITE stories of 2013. For the most part, these were released in 2013, a few from late in 2012, but they are all stories that I read for the first time this year. So, some of these stories may have originally been published a few years ago, but I tried to make this as current as possible.

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Dystropia: The Christmas Edition!

December 12th, 2013

Somewhere situated between Easter Island and Papua New Guinea, perfectly pinned on a straight line between the Great Pyramid and the Nazca Lines lies the Isle of Dystropia, the place where every cliché and worn-out convention sticks out like rubble in the sand. Pawing through the debris, you'll find the trope that may just make or break your story. Each installment, we'll explore a different literary platitude, examining it for its various strengths and weaknesses. Set sail for Dystropia, where you might just learn something about your writing and yourself.

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It's Made Of SCIENCE: Evolution

December 11th, 2013

No, I did not intentionally do this close to Christmas to make a point. Pinky promise.

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10 Reasons Why the Grinch Is Better than Santa Claus

December 11th, 2013

The Grinch is such a minor holiday character. He's less than a demigod in a Christmas pantheon filled with Santa, a secret brotherhood of reindeer, a talking snowman, and who knows how many elves. It’s time to give the Grinch his due. In fact, it’s time to face the truth that Dr. Seuss created a Christmas character superior to old St. Nick. What the Grinch lacks in history, he makes up for in many other ways. Here are the reasons why the Grinch is better than Santa Claus.

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