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DIY Diction-Fairy and Beyond: Halloween Costumes You Can Make Out of Books

Of course it’s awesome to dress up as your favorite book character for Halloween, but why not take things a step further and use the pages themselves to craft up an outfit? Here are seven sorta-spooky DIYs for wearing your bookish heart on your sleeve this October 31.

Posted by Blair Thornburgh

How to Be Awesome at Decorating with Fan Art

 
Forget those generic-o prints of flowers from IKEA. Ditch your ripped-up Pulp Fiction poster from college. “Keep Calm and Carry On”? Over it. What your fortress of solitude needs are beautiful renderings of your favorite characters—and a printout collage won’t cut it. Here’s how to classily plaster your space with your OTP.
 

Posted by Blair Thornburgh

Eight Books for Fans of David Mitchell

(image via David Mitchell on Facebook)

David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas completely floored me: the step-pyramid narrative structure, the inventiveness of each of the interwoven worlds, the neologisms and peculiarly delightful turns of phrase are all nothing short of fantastic, in every sense of the world. And while I’m as jazzed as anyone to crack open his latest novel The Bone Clocks, I’m also already dreading the day when it’s over. Feel the same way? Here are eight picks for us Mitchell fans to read next.

Posted by Blair Thornburgh

Etsy Roundup: Amazing Book Safes to Stash Your Stuff

Books: they're bigger on the inside! Sometimes literally. Book safes are cool-looking and very handy for hiding away your ~secret things~, but they're a bit of a pain to make (all that cutting and gluing!) Fortunately, some clever Etsy crafters have you covered. Click for our favorite picks!

(Above: Hollow book safe, The Coming Fury, $60, Secret Safe Books)

Posted by Blair Thornburgh

Eight Fictional Inventions I Wish Were Real, But Only Because I Am Lazy

(image via MiraiSadame)

You know what’s the actual worst? Doing things. Making effort. Seeing an action through from beginning to…whatever.

But people in books have it so easy! They have all kinds of magical, mechanical, or otherwise fantastical gadgets to save them time and precious, precious seconds of exertion. They never get suckered into ponying up for Slap-Chops and E-Z-T-V trays because they have stuff that's actually useful. Here are eight things I wish I could use in my daily, lazy life.

Posted by Blair Thornburgh

What if Dogs Wrote Classic Novels?

The greatest things in the world are, in no particular order, dogs and books. Groucho Marx put it best: "outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

But what if you could multiply the best-frienditude and put adorable canines in literature?! Or, as Xzibit would say, "Yo dawg, we heard you like dogs, so we put dogs in your book so you can dog while you dog. Dogs!" Here are six brilliant reimaginings of pup-ular novels.

Posted by Blair Thornburgh