I wholeheartedly agree with all of your recommendations, and suggest the following instead of italics:

(1) Put the title in quotation marks (which we hate because those are properly used for articles, not books); (2) Put the title in all caps (which is technically correct for citation but which we interpret as shouting and so steer away from); or (3) since the rest of your post is all lower case, just initial capitalization on the titles would make them stand out.

Also: Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist. He has a new one that will be published next month. But don't miss The Intuitionist. In-fucking-credible.

Peace.

I slept and dreamt that life was joy,
I awoke and saw that life was service,
I acted and, behold, service was joy.

-- Rabindranath Tagaore