I’ve been thinking lately about the role of book reviews and book reviewers, and happily for me, some smart people have been saying smart things on this topic. Charlie Jane Anders wrote a blog post entitled “What Are Book Critics For?”, considering the tension between critic as flaw-finder and critic as cheerleader. My pal Renay considered the incentives, and more often the disincentives, to reviewing books in an era where the boundaries between reader, reviewer, and author are porous to nonexistent. Renay writes: To have a deeper discourse, we also need to talk to and with each other, not simply…
Leave a CommentReading the End Posts
Here are some things I have been reading; perhaps you, too, will enjoy them! Colonial Williamsburg has become a space for truly complex, careful conversations about American history. In America, the arts depend on charitable giving; that’s not ideal. “The Death of the Fuck”: on puritanism and sex scenes in books. I found this article fascinating — it’s about how the modern world assumes we want everything to be speedier and more efficient, but that’s not actually what we want all the time! God, I miss Blockbuster. Meredith Shiner reflects on the high holy days, Palestinian lives, and that one…
Leave a CommentI thought I’d try it again. See where that gets us! Up top I’m linking two recent posts I wrote for Reactor (formerly Tor.com), one a review of Yoon Ha Lee’s new YA novel, the other an introduction to Aliette de Bodard. I stay writing things! Writing things is fun! A researcher decided to do neurofeedback experiments on indigenous children. Like, recently. We never learn anything, I s2g. Should rich people be allowed to do science? PERHAPS NOT. How classics fans (may) get funneled into alt-right content on the platform previously known as Twitter. Andrea Long Chu on Rachel Cusk.…
Leave a CommentAfter noping out of one episode of The Golden Bachelor because I could not bear to see elderly people crying, I switched over to trying out the new Fall of the House of Usher series on Netflix, because it turns out I can very much bear watching a bunch of rich shitheels coming to unpleasant ends. The premise of the show is that there is this rich, awful family whose company created a drug called Ligodone, which fueled the opioid epidemic. There is an awful patriarch and an awful matriarch (his sister), and six awful children (two legitimate, four illegitimate)…
Leave a CommentRemember when there were links, and I rounded them up? Well, friendos, I have recently given myself a new and exciting tool (I love new tools!) to try and keep track of the various outlets that I try to read regularly. It is called Inoreader, and so far so good, I think? It’s hard to know. I have only been using it for like a week. Certainly I am finding it very pleasing for keeping track of which Ask a Manager letters I have read yet and which ones I have not. Here are some links! The Britney Spears truthers…
Leave a CommentHappy Tuesday, friends! I have kept meaning to post this dumb thing on a Friday, then forgetting about it, then getting distracted, then feeling too guilty about not having done it to do it, and then pushing the whole thing off to next week. No more! I’m just posting it on a Tuesday, a perfectly cromulent day to read links. ENJOY. Uh-oh. The Millions and Lithub both have their big second-half-of-the-year book previews. RIP me and my admirable resolution to read my own damn books rather than constantly checking out huge stacks of 15 books at a time from the…
Leave a CommentTap tap, this thing on? I thought I’d actually share some links, for a change! I hope everyone reading this is staying safe at this absolutely idiotic moment in our climate emergency. I guess like, stay cool, get air filters, and call your elected representatives to demand that they take action to fix the goddamn planet. The always-great Angelica Jade Bastien reviews the new The Little Mermaid. At the close of the inaugural #EndOTWRacism campaign (but hopefully there are many more iterations to come!), Stitch reflects on what fandom needs. “The music of a bygone time, a simpler, better era,…
Leave a CommentThese are some links! Have an amazing weekend! Soleil Ho weighs in on Beef, Asian American representation, and the really awful things David Choe said he did but now says he didn’t do. “It dies with us.” Linda Condega on keeping the memories, but not the nostalgia. Wesley Lowery still wants the journalism industry to be better. Here’s what to expect from TV shows if the writers’ strike continues. Stand with the WGA! Support labor! The studios are greedy jerks who don’t care about making good art! The research is in (again): Knowing the end doesn’t stop you from enjoying…
Leave a CommentNothing but Blackened Teeth Surprising nobody, this is my favorite Cassandra Khaw book. I love haunted house stories, and I love it when a bunch of people are stuck in an enclosed space together and all the tensions among them rise to the fore. It’s even better if they then maybe kill each other. Lol! Friendship! The house is haunted by the ghost of a bride whose husband died on the way to the wedding. She asked the guests to bury her alive in the foundation of the house, and ever since then they buried a new girl in the…
Leave a Comment