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Books

Incredible Reading Rooms Around the World

By Alison Nastasi on

We love libraries, have a soft spot for bookmobiles, can’t get enough of bookstores, and we really enjoy bars we can read in. We’re always in search of cozy, beautiful places to curl up with a good book, so when we saw that New York’s modern furniture company Vitsoe was opening a pop-up reading room in their downtown store, we went searching for other unique reading rooms around the world. Comfort, intimacy, atmosphere, and a great view play a big part in the design of these bookish rooms. See more in our gallery. Tell us about your favorites, below. … Read More

Books

Flavorwire Exclusive: Norman Lock on His Favorite Short Story

By Emily Temple on

The short story can be a magical thing. It’s a breath, a moment, a captured mood — or an entire teeming world packed into a few pages. Maybe, if it’s really great, it’s both. The only trouble with short stories is that not enough people read them. So, in a series to celebrate Short Story Month (and help you add to your reading list), Flavorwire is asking some contemporary masters of the form to talk about the short stories they love. In this installment, virtuosic fabulist Norman Lock, whose newest collection Love Among the Particles hit shelves this month, tells us about his literary love of the moment. … Read More

Books

10 of the Greatest Cold War Spy Novels

By Emily Temple on

Before his death, legendary crime writer Mickey Spillane entrusted the completion of his unfinished work to his longtime friend, Max Allan Collins — a top-notch writer in his own right. This month, Collins has completed and released Complex 90, Spillane’s unfinished sequel to The Girl Hunters. To celebrate its publication, Flavorwire asked Collins to sound off on a few of his favorite Cold War thrillers. Bone up on your spy skills with his picks, and be sure to add any favorites that Collins missed to the list in the comments. … Read More

Books

Last Day to Enter Flavorwire’s First Short Fiction Contest

By Judy Berman on

Writers, take note: today is the last day to enter Flavorwire’s first-ever short fiction contest. In honor of May’s National Short Story Month, we’re offering a prize of $500 for one outstanding short story. To enter, simply send a story of 5,000 words or less — in the body of a message, not as an attachment — along with a brief author bio and all relevant contact information to flavorwirefiction@gmail.com before midnight tonight. Flavorwire Literary Editor Emily Temple will judge all entries and announce the results on the 24th. We’ll publish the winning story, along with a handful of honorable mentions, on Flavorwire throughout the final week of May. … Read More

Books

Flavorwire Exclusive: Lindsay Hunter on Her Favorite Short Story

By Emily Temple on

The short story can be a magical thing. It’s a breath, a moment, a captured mood — or an entire teeming world packed into a few pages. Maybe, if it’s really great, it’s both. The only trouble with short stories is that not enough people read them. So, in a series to celebrate Short Story Month (and help you add to your reading list), Flavorwire is asking some contemporary masters of the form to talk about the short stories they love. In this installment, Lindsay Hunter, whose electrifying second collection Don’t Kiss Me is forthcoming in July, recommends one that she can’t just get out of her head. … Read More

Books

15 Books You Should Definitely Not Read in Your 20s

By Emily Temple on

The Internet (this site not the least bit exempt) is fond of telling you which books you should read. Particularly, it seems, when you’re in your 20s. But now that you have enough of those lists to last you a lifetime, which books should you make sure to steer clear from in this most transitional and tender of decades? Well, here are a few to consider. Disclaimer: all of these (okay, most of these) are good books. They’re books you should read. Just not in your… Read More

Books

In Case You Hadn’t Noticed, Dan Brown Is Really Freaking Weird

By Emily Temple on

Dan Brown’s newest much snickered-at mega-blockbuster novel hit shelves this week, and all the ensuing publicity for the author should be reminding you of something: Dan Brown is a really, really weird dude. Sure, he’s a writer, and writers often have strange habits. But, as the evidence below proves, Brown is a head above the rest — whether that head is upside down or not. … Read More

Television

Flavorwire Exclusive: S.E. Hinton on Her Epic Love of ‘Supernatural’

By Emily Temple on

This week, while in a Twitter black hole of sorts, I made my way to the profile of legendary author S. E. Hinton (of The Outsiders and Rumble Fish fame). I was surprised to find that she described herself thusly: “writer for a long, long time Supernatural fan horsewoman wife mother friend.” Now, being a (semi-closeted) Supernatural fan myself, I was tickled to see that the writer loved the show enough to make it part of her online identity. With a bit more research, I discovered that she is a committed fan who has appeared on the show and has even been known to write Supernatural fanfiction. So, just in time for tonight’s Season 8 finale, I emailed Hinton to ask about her love for the show. And she wrote back! … Read More

Books

17 Things We Learned From Bret Easton Ellis’s Reddit AMA

By Emily Temple on

Yesterday afternoon, famed novelist, screenwriter, and Twitter terrorist Bret Easton Ellis graced Reddit with his presence for an AMA (that’s Ask Me Anything, for the uninitiated). Unsurprisingly, it was full of cheeky questions, blunt answers, and insights into the mind of Patrick Bateman. Surprisingly, there was not much in the way of ranting about GLAAD. Check out the most interesting tidbits after the jump, and sound off on them in the comments. … Read More

Books

The 20 Most Absurd Quotes From Guy Fieri’s New Book

By Sarah Fonder on

Today Guy Fieri released his new book Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives: The Funky Finds in Flavortown. This travel guide/recipe book is more or less what you’d expect from the human embodiment of an Ed Hardy shirt: it’s full of bad jokes and backhanded compliments (he calls a favorite milkshake in Chicago “[a] poor man’s milk shake”), and a major theme is the Food Network personality’s strange fixation on Kid Rock. Fieri’s usual flamboyance is a bit muted in this book, however, and there are a couple of occasions where it seems like he almost wants you to take him seriously. He frequently refers to his time studying in Chantilly, France, and reveals he “was raised in a really big art community” on the same page where he commissions the owner of a Kansas City pizza place to construct “a twenty-five-gallon margarita machine.” It’s clearly only a matter of time before Michelin takes notice, but until then, enjoy the rest of book’s most ridiculous passages. … Read More