Your Guide to Literary Tumblrs

From The Millions

1.      Single-Servings

• Awesome People Reading: Where to see what famous people read.
• Cover Spy: Where to see what MTA passengers read.
• Lisa Simpson Book Club: Where to see what Lisa Simpson reads.
• Bookshelf Porn: The SFW (despite its title) spot to ogle bookshelves.
• Slaughterhouse 90210: The middle of the television/literature Venn diagram.
• The Art of Google Books: Who’s scanning those books? Whose hand is that?
• The Final Sentence: An effort to spoil every book’s ending.
• Better Book Titles: Where spoilers and humor coexist.
• n+personals: As Malcolm Harris put it, the apex of The New Sincerity.
• Ransom Book Quotes: Title supposedly wasn’t meant to be “random.” Sure.
• Writers No One Reads: Neglected authors and philosophers.
• (un)justly (un)read: Same as above, but perhaps even more obscure.
• 50 Watts: Book design from around the world and across the ages.
• The Books They Gave Me: The intimate details of books gifted by exes.
• The Collected Blurbs of Gary Shteyngart: The man gets around, doesn’t he?
• Poor Yorick Entertainment: Now-defunct, but a must-see for all fantods.
• Lady Journos!: Highlights the best female journalists and their work.

2.     Reviewers

• The Los Angeles Review of Books: Rapidly increasing L.A.’s literary cachet.
• The New Inquiry: The Times can look down its nose all it wants. Who cares?
• The Boston Review: Loose updates from the Boston non-profit.

3.     Booksellers/Libraries/Foundations

• Housing Works Bookstore Café: Dispatches from a great cause.
• New York Public Library: The epicenter of literary Manhattan. (& its events)
• McNally Jackson: One of New York City’s favorite bookshops.
• WORD Brooklyn: One of New York City’s favorite bookshops across the river.
• 57th Street Books: One of Chicago’s favorite bookshops.
• Tattered Cover: One of Denver’s favorite bookshops.
• Powell’s: One of Portland’s favorite bookshops.
• PEN American Center: Great quotations from the PEN folks.
• 92nd Street Y: One of New York’s best curators of cultural entertainment.

4.     Marginalia

• Proustitute: A highbrow, poetry-heavy mental treat.
• Dostoesvky: All things Fyodor.
• Russkaya Literatura: All things Fyodor, Lev, Anton, Mikhail, etc…
• F*ck Yeah Manuscripts: Like LettersOfNote, but exclusively authors.
• John Jeremiah Sullivan: Dispatches from the essayist’s book tour.

5.     Publishers (Big Six) — Bear in mind: most of these lean pretty heavily
towards being just marketing tools.

• A. A. Knopf: The intersection of books and borzoi.
• Harper Perennial: The most exciting Big Six imprint in the game right now.
• Farrar, Straus & Giroux: Welcome aboard, newcomers! Way to get off on the right foot.
• Scribner: Bookish miscellany from the Simon & Schuster imprint.
• Doubleday: One of the more stereotypically Tumblr-like publishing Tumblrs.
• Vintage & Anchor: Great stuff from Random House’s paperback wizards.
• Pantheon Books: Image-heavy in a great way.
• Classic Penguin: It’s about time the Penguin folks joined the Tumblr crowd.
• Viking Penguin: Updates from the Viking & Penguin publicity team.
• Riverhead Books: Penguin’s got the most imprints on Tumblr, bar-none.

6.     Publishers (Littler Guys)

• W. W. Norton & Co.: Plus ten points for their GZA post.
• NYRB Classics: The inimitable publisher of overlooked classics.
• Fantagraphics: The premier publishers of alternative comics in the U.S.
• New Directions: Come back, guys! You were great while you lasted.
• OR Books: Small, politically-minded indie publisher.
• Ugly Duckling Presse: Photos from one of the best book designers in the U.S.
• Bloomsbury Publishing: The U.S. office of London’s reputable house.
• Verso Books: Very #OWS-heavy of late.
• Nouvella Books: The most Downton Abbey-obsessed publishers around.

7.     Magazines

• Longreads: Looking for something to read? Not anymore.
• Hobart Pulp: They came here to drink bourbon and publish stories.
• BOMB Magazine: The best of the BOMBsite.
• The Missouri Review: Multimedia posts from the underrated journal.
• Lapham’s Quarterly: Witty and smart, and with a great design to boot.
• The Atlantic: A steady stream of interesting links.
• Utne Reader: Good stuff from the Minneapolis (and soon Topeka) institution.
• The Believer: Special features from the monthly magazine.
• Specter: Not to be confused with the James Bond villains.
• The Atavist: More people should know about these folks!

8.    Wish List

• The Paris Review: They’re on Tumblr, but they never post Tumblr-specific content. Dive all the way in, Parisians. You can do better.
• More authors!: With so many on Twitter, it’s only a matter of time.
• Books & Books: South Florida’s best indie deserves more attention.
• The Oxford American: The South is underrepresented on the platform.
• Poetry Magazine: Poems just beg for reblogs.
• Book Soup: The L.A. shop would be a nice complement to NYC’s dominance.
• Vroman’s: They’re there, but they haven’t updated since 2010.
• The Strand: The New York City icon is sorely missed on Tumblr.
• Picador: Perhaps the Flatiron folks are on their way soon.

This list, of course, is by nature incomplete. I am sure I’ve missed a ton of standouts. Please feel free to let me know which ones I’ve overlooked in the comments!