Interview: Eowyn Ivey

Eowyn Ivey's debut novel The Snow Child officially hit shelvesMore >

Valentine Desserts: Chocolate, Candy, and Cake Cookbooks

Looking to bake Valentine desserts, sweets for your sweetie? OrMore >

The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name: An Editor's Dilemma

Last week, I read a book from cover to coverMore >

An Easy Introduction to Nonfiction: The Essay

One of my reading goals for this year was toMore >

We start by giving you one clue, then one additional clue per hour through the afternoon. The first person to guess the author correctly wins a book of our choosing, and all other correct guessers will be entered into a drawing at the end of each month.

You can submit your guess using the form below after any clue, but if you’re wrong, you’re out for the week. So you’ve got to pick your spot. Too early and you might be wrong; wait until you’re sure, and you might get scooped.

Looking to bake Valentine desserts, sweets for your sweetie? Or to woo someone new? Are you single? Dylan’s Candy Bar Unwrap Your Sweet Life by Dylan Lauren says, “Moping and feeling sorry for yourself is not an option. Hosting a Chocolate Movie Marathon is.” The book is relentlessly upbeat, like candy conversation hearts.

The fist-bumping and date-going Obamas seem very much in love, and no doubt they are aided by Bill Yosses, executive pastry chef to the White House who has written a dessert cookbook called The Perfect Finish. “Weigh all the ingredients,” Yosses writes, which, in certain circles, is a very political statement. Also he says, “Along with Napoleons, eclairs, and macaroons, Sachertortes are among the most famous bakery desserts in the world.” Both Republicans and Democrats will meet in the middle, with their forks raised over this dense chocolate-almond cake filled with apricot preserves.

One of my reading goals for this year was to read an essay every single day. Reading essays — both online and in collections — has helped remind me about all the great, short nonfiction there is out there. And, I think we’re living in a particularly robust time for long-form writing, which makes it easy for readers that are tentative about trying nonfiction to find something to enjoy.

You’re thinking, MTV’s braindead duo in a post about books? Have you gone mad with low-brow-er?

Not a bit, bunghole. Here’s what’s up: In his book On Writing, Stephen King explains that he knows he has a novel when he dreams up a connection between two seemingly unrelated things. That actually works for Book Riot posts, too. And what two things are more unrelated than Beavis and Butt-head, and books? So let’s have some fun, and take a look at how the unique wisdom of Highland High’s finest can be related to the reading life. You with me? Let’s do this.

Eowyn Ivey’s debut novel The Snow Child officially hit shelves last week, though there were sightings of it in stores the week before. It is one that caught the eye of several Rioters early on, after watching the book trailer and seeing that it had received high praise in early reviews:

“If Willa Cather and Gabriel García Marquéz had collaborated on a book, The Snow Child would be it. It is a remarkable accomplishment—a combination of the most delicate, ethereal, fairytale magic and the harsh realities of homesteading in the Alaskan wilderness in 1918. Stunningly conceived, beautifully told…”
—Robert Goolrick, (A Reliable Wife)

“Flipping through these cumulative pages, a historian could assemble a pretty accurate picture of our life over the past 20 years. And not just the milestones, but the workaday realities of family life. The stained pages of our recipe books reflect our favourite meals. That dog-eared guide to childhood illnesses got us through many sleepless nights.”

These book things matter.

____________________________

“But nothing quite beats the experience of hovering, mothlike, around the literature section, picking up and glancing at pages randomly, deciding to try a book because you like its cover or its opening lines or what Wally Lamb had to say about it.”

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Publication Date: February 1, 2012

Genre: Literary Fiction

Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books

Publisher’s Synopsis:

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart–he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season’s first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone–but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees.