iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It turns out that "hold back some of the water if you live in a humid place" is great advice @ryeisenberg.bsky.social! I missed it when I first tried the no-knead crusty bread recipe, and take #2 was much more successful with that tip!

A cute little round loaf of crusty bread with a big slash down the middle and lightly floured. The loaf sirs on crumpled parchment paper on a stovetop.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Saturday night adventure: attempt #1 at One Large Soft Pretzel from @ryeisenberg.bsky.social's Small-Batch Breads. Pretty sure I overproofed the dough, and it stuck to the parchment paper, but neither thing made it less delicious!

A large, mostly browned soft pretzel sits on a sheet tray lined with browned parchment paper. The pretzel's twist is not well-defined.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Made my first loaf of bread this morning! Perfect? No! Delicious? Yes! I feel very accomplished for how little effort that actually took Recipe: Overnight no-knead crusty bread from @ryeisenberg.bsky.social's Small-Batch Breads

Aerial view of a small, not-quite-circular loaf of bread that is lightly browned and has bits of flower on the top and sides. Bread and a long serrated knife sit on top of a small red plastic cutting board.

A right hand holds a small, cut loaf of bread over a red cutting board. The open end of the bread is angled up toward the camera, to show very big holes in the interior of the bread.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Got home from vacation to find my pre-order of @ryeisenberg.bsky.social's Small-Batch Breads had arrived! It's going to be a Bread Fall. I don't know what to make first, but I'm already so appreciative of how clear Rebecca's explanations are for a new bread maker!

A hardcover cookbook with all kinds of breads (including bagels, desserts, and flatbreads) encircling the title: "Small-Batch Breads: 50 Recipes for Loaves, Buns, and Flatbreads Made with 1 Cup of Flour"

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Getting back in the "I'm just going to bake a little something!" habit so that when @ryeisenberg.bsky.social's small-batch breads cookbook comes out next month, I'm motivated to jump right in!

Chocolate chip cookies of the small and slightly lumpy variety on a cookie sheet and a baking rack on a stove top.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie. Flew threw this in a day and loved it. Book 2 was a much easier read with the bulk of the world building done in Book 1. Leckie draws really fascinating characters and has also done a brilliant job structuring the series. Book 3 has been ordered!

The background is bright yellow. In the center is an oval in the vein of a running track with flat longer sides and shorter curved top and bottom; the bottom half of the oval is a scratched or marbled looking white. The top of the oval is thin, red, arched lines. Overlapping the top curve of the oval is a smaller circle in the same scratched/marbled white as the bottom of the oval. In the circle is a figure that appears to be a black cloak and hood with a cutout for a face. The cutout shows through to the white circle behind the cloak.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Body Weather: Notes on Chronic Illness in the Anthropocene by Lorraine Boissoneault. A mix of writing about climate change and ecology and memoir about the author's experience with her body as she developed multiple chronic illnesses. This felt like a conversation with a very thoughtful friend!

A multicolor border of muted colors contains the title and author's name and surrounds a drawn portrait of the author. The author sits on a couch or a bed with one knee up with her arms around it and one foot seemingly on the floor, though the image cuts off at the knee. She is a white appearing woman with light purple hair and wears jeans and a white button down. At the front neck of the button down, red flowers poke out. On her side and back, rock formations poke through the white shirt.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. Loved this, and ran out to buy the next book immediately. The world and main character are fascinating, even if I found some of the mechanics hard to grasp. Really looking forward to the rest of the series. @justinlawguy.bsky.social thanks for the recommendation!

A bright red background, with a white, almost marbled arch taking up the middle two thirds of the cover. Inside that arch is a series of nested thin yellow arches with a black triangular figure above it. The figure appears to be a figure in a hooded cloak with a cutout for the face where the red background shows through. The word "Ancillary" is black and "Justice" is white. The author's name is at the bottom of the cover.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Issue 51. Trying to work my way through my stock of McSweeney's this year, since I never read them as fast as they arrive. A treat, as always!

On a black sky background with a crescent moon and lots of stars, the number 51 takes up nearly the whole cover. the numbers are made out of machinery in blue, white, and gray in a very sci-fi style. "McSweeney's" sits atop the 51 in the same spaceship style.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

The Fraud by Zadie Smith. For how focused on a sensational historical event this novel's plot is, this is really a character study. Had a great time with this one!

The background is a gradient form yellow at the top to bright green at the bottom. The title is at the top and author's name taking up the lower two thirds, in mismatched fonts that look possibly like someone took blocks from different printing press sets and combined them to form the words. On either side of the title is a lion-looking figure, both different. One holds a spoon, the other has a crown and holds a plant.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter. The main character has a lot of issues all running straight into one another at once as she carries a black hole around her life with her. Always fun to read a book a friend was involved in the publishing of!

The background is a close up on the seeds and veins of a pomegranate, with the title and author's name in white overlaid on top.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. This took me forever to read, but connected a lot of pieces of history that I had no idea were so related. Naomi Klein's writing is also just fantastic

Against a gray background, "The Shock Doctrine" in big black letters is in the center of the cover, with a bullet hole through the "O" of "Shock." "The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" is below in white and red. Naomi Klein's name is at the bottom in the same block letters as the title, just smaller.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow. I read this before seeing the Broadway show. I almost stopped after Part I, bc the writing was unfinished & he can't seem to write women characters w/out being weird. Parts II and III were much better! The show, though, is far superior to the book

The bottom quarter of the cover is a blue block with the author's name and "Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award." Above that block, there is a red vertical stripe on both sides of the remaining section. Between the stripes is a view of Ellis Island and the Eiffle Tower through clouds, surrounded by ships with a variety of flags.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Swordheart by T. Kingfisher. This was just an absolute delight. I love a book with great banter, and this one has a whole cast of banter-y characters. The characters are very well defined and the romance is fun!

A very colorful cover, with blues, greens, reds, and oranges. A blue sword with a red wrap on the handle runs down the center of the cover, behind the title and author's name. A bird sits on either side of the sword's pommel, each facing each other as mirror images. Each corner of the cover has a tower in it, and there are orange birds and green flora all over the cover.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Another Kate Milford, this time The Boneshakers. This takes on the snake oil traveling salesmen of American history and has a connecting character from The Broken Lands. I love the way Kate Milford writes characters!

The foregrounded image is of the upper three quarters of a man's face: he has red, highly arched eyebrowns and a red beard, with a furrowed brow and those little round spectacles that sit on the edge of someone's nose in historical media. His hair erupts upward as flames, taking up the entire center of the cover. Inside the flames is a series of circus tents. On either side of the man's face is a cast of townspeople in very muted colors. Around the edges of his hair, odd-looking folks who seem to belong to the circus peak out. Above his hair is a girl riding a bicycle furiously away from the viewer, hunched over the handle bars and going down a curved road with an abandoned town on either side of it.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

The Broken Lands by Kate Milford. I always enjoy her writing and creativity! I didn't realize this book was for an older audience than the other books of hers I've read, but enjoyed it nonetheless!

The background of the cover is a view of the top of the Brooklyn Bridge with a person running across part of it toward the center. The bottom foreground is the top halves of two human-looking faces with red flames for hair that connects between them as flames coming out of the pages of an open book. The person running toward the bridge is running out of the flames. Above the center image of the bridge is the title, surrounded by playing cards that rain down. A wide expanse of the Brooklyn Bridge side view runs along the top edge of the cover, with fireworks.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

The Containment by Michelle Adams. This is one of the best books I've read this year and last. It's the story of the fight to desegregate northern school districts, focused on the Milliken v. Bradley case from Detroit and the consequences of that opinion. Highly recommend.

The cover of a book broken up into orange and gray shapes, which, given the subject matter of the book, are likely divided on school district or city lines, or possibly city streets. The title is at the top: "The Containment." The subtitle, "Detroit, The Supreme Court, and The Battle for Racial Justice in the North" is broken up and placed around the orange sections, as is the author's name, Michelle Adams.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker. Finished this book a few weeks ago, but I don't have a ton to say about it. Ultimately, not one for me, I think.

The background has lots of fantasy/fairy tale elements: a woman's finger reaching in with a spark coming out of it, the front of a puffy dress just making it onto the page; a woodland, an owl, red roses and other yellow flowers, a dragon's claw reaching in from a corner. Over all this and taking up most of the cover is corkscrew-ing yellow ribbon with the title, "The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic," on it and the author's name, "Emily Croy Barker" below it in white text.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

The West Passage by Jared Pechaček, read at the fantastic (long ago) recommendation of @cmbombadillo.bsky.social What a weird, wonderful book. It has beautiful chapter illustrations, incredible chapter titles, & expansive world building without spending tons of time on description. Delightful!

A multi-covered cover layered with images of five figures that appear to be royalty with strange heads, all arranged around a central, dark, circular motif. Starting at the bottom of the circle of figures and going clockwise: a light gray figure in a robe, with a hood and no face, who is holding four masks in green, blue, yellow, and red; A figure in yellow with a yellow-white ruff and a bird's head; a glowing blue-black figure in armor with flames coming out of the pile of stones/bricks where a head would be and a black, five-towered castle in front of it; A blue figure in a princess-like dress, she has three arms and a castle for a head, and stands behind a glowing blue tower; A red lady with a dress that looks partially like armor and partially like lava, with a human-looking lower face and an upper face of spinning gears, who holds a shape like a red crescent moon that is erupting in flames. The title and author sit on top of all of this in off-white. The endorsement on the cover from Travis Baldree, New York Times bestselling author, reads: "A dangerous book of secrets."

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

8. The Payback by Kashana Cauley This one was so, so fun, and very cathartic. It's a heist novel, but instead of stealing jewels or art, the characters are trying to erase student loan debt

A close up of a Black woman's face takes up the entirety of the cover, overlaid with a yellow and red filter. She looks very cool, and is wearing sunglasses, which are filled in with green overlapped instances of the image of Benjamin Franklin from the American $100 bill. The title and author overlay the woman's face in white. An endorsement from Danzy Senna, author of Colored Television, sits in the upper right corner and reads: "Wickedly fun."

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

7. The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow I'm not generally a romantasy reader (I prefer my romance and fantasy separate) but this one worked for me! Unsurprising, given I've really enjoyed all of Harrow's other books. The characters were great, the structure was interesting, and the villain was stellar

A layered cover with a teal to black background, three half circles stacked on top of one another that are teal on the flat bottom edge transitioning to pinkish red at the top curve. Then there are flowers with gold stems and leaves, on top of which is a gold sword with the partial reflection of a women visible in the blade, one of her eyes at the cross between the blade and the part of the handle that crosses it. The title and author are in white, with flowers twined around them. The tag line at the top of the cover, in white, reads "A legend. A lie. A love story."

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

6. Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant A history of the Luddite movement, including the connections of famous politicians and authors (Lord Byron, Mary Shelley) to the movement. Really liked this one, although the modern connection at the end could have been more developed

The background is a beige that looks like parchment, with a smear of red ink or maybe blood on the upper left corner. In the center is an illustration of an industrial machine being smashed by two workers, one of whom holds a hammer over his head. That image has a big red X through it, around which the title is placed in the same red. The subtitle: "The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech" is in black all caps font along the bottom. The authors name is at the top, above which is an endorsement from Farhad Manjoo that reads "Rich and absorbing...a revelation."

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Bear by Julia Phillips I loved Phillips' Disappearing Earth years ago, and was excited to read her latest. The atmosphere in this book is great, and the tension she builds between the sisters is fascinating. For some reason, though, this was a like and not a love. Can't put my finger on why

White text stands out on a multicolored, almost fever dream-esque illustration of a forest. The foreground is full of flowers on a blueish bed of grass, and the background is tree trunks tinted red. The title and author's name are both in white text.

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

3. Katabasis by R.F. Kuang This was immersive & cerebral in the vein of Babel, without as much of the pseudo-academic structure. The main character was frustrating, but in a way that mostly made sense. I had fun hanging out with Alice and Peter in Hell. It isn't my favorite Kuang, but still good.

On a dark green background, a structure that looks like a building on the outside and a staircase on the inside stands out. The bottom of the structure is brown and narrows to a point, widening at the top where it becomes all light green staircase. Two students are running on various parts of the staircase illusion, and pages that start in a stack on the top of the structure are flying away into the air. "#1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Babel" and "R.F. Kuang" are above the structure. "Katabasis" is at the bottom, overlapping the structure

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

2. Chronicles of Whetherwhy: The Age of Enchantment by Anna James. First middle grade of the year, and this was a treat. A cute magic system, interesting sibling dynamics, and interesting lessons about "fairness" that are important in the times we live in.

A scene of a dark, cobblestone street lit by lanterns hanging above the shop doors on either side of two 13-year-old children in the center of the cover. The girl holds her arm out for a bird to land on, the boy holds a book. In the background is a shoreline, and a full moon partially covered by clouds and in the center of which is the silhouette of a dragon. The title, "Chronicles of Whetherwhy: The Age of Enchantment" is below the children in gold letters that seem to stand off the page and also to shine. Two endorsements are on either side of the children. Katie Tsang, author of Dragon Mountain, says "Magical." Pari Thomson, author of Greenwild, says "An enthralling adventure."

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Riley @rileydotdee.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

1. Quickly, While They Still Have Horses Jan Carson writes a fantastic short story. Favorite in the collection was Caravan, but so many of them are sticking with me two months later.

A book cover with a background of several shades of green. On the lower left, angled to the middle, is the head of a white carousel horse with a gold mane and a multi-colored (but mostly blue) bridle. The title, "Quickly, While They Still Have Horses," is in all caps and a neon yellow-green. In the same font and color below that in a smaller size is "Stories." Below that, in the same font and size as the title, is the author's name, "Jan Carson." In small type near the horses nose is "Winner of the EU Prize for Literature."

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