It’s June and I have been reading some YA and I will be so honest with you: A lot of it has let me down a little bit. I’m going to start with the one that I thought unequivocally was terrific, and then I’ll work forward and we will get through this together. Genesis Begins Again was an impulse grab at the library, and I’m so glad I picked it up. It’s a YA book that feels written for young teenagers, and specifically for black girls. Debut author Alicia D. Williams is dealing with difficult topics, and she never talks down…
Leave a CommentAuthor: Jenny Hamilton
Friends, it has been another Week, and we have gotten through it. Buy yourself some ice cream this weekend; you deserve it. (Or whatever dessert treat is special for you.) And then eat it while you’re enjoying this superb collection of links. “Just as more women earned degrees, the jobs that require those degrees started paying disproportionately more to people with round-the-clock availability.” Oh shit. The problem with Black Widow. Also, how the straight agenda ruined Avengers: Endgame. Spoilers at both of these links. Why are we so addicted to conspiracy theories? Here’s what happened to Heather Armstrong of Dooce.com.…
Leave a CommentLet me subtweet Game of Thrones for a moment here by talking about the version of it that’s better and more subversive and takes place at sea and the theme song has a hurdy-gurdy. For all its faults,1 Black Sails is a master class in depicting shifting allegiances in a way that actually makes some goddamn sense. The reason is that Black Sails, unlike some, has a very clear idea of what its characters want, and is (mostly) very good at aligning their actions and choices with those wants. I’m going to take Max as an example, partly because I…
Leave a CommentI hope all you Game of Thrones fans are doing okay! Based on brief glances at Twitter last night, things were not looking too good vis-a-vis y’all enjoying the end of y’all’s show. I peaced out of a while ago and have just been consuming it via recaps to check that the Stark women were hanging in there. Let’s distract ourselves by talking about what we’ve been reading! “It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?” is hosted by Kathryn from Book Date. What I Read Last Week: A bunch of stuff! Several of my books were threatening to fall due at…
Leave a CommentHi friends! If you’ve been worrying about what you’re going to watch when Game of Thrones comes to an end, I hope that I have already told you to watch Black Sails. But in case you’re on the fence, I am recapping it with Jodie of Lady Business, and our latest post is live now! Come sail the high squees with us! I’m also at Lady Business to share (belatedly) some YA unreliable narrators for the April edition of the YA Agenda. In podcast crossovering, me and Whiskey Jenny are over at the Spectology podcast to talk about Ann Leckie,…
Leave a CommentKJ Charles is a favorite romance author of mine, so the occasion of her releasing a new book is always cause for celebration. But the very early standalone Think of England has always been a particular favorite, so I was thrilled to learn that KJ Charles had plans for a prequel novel, an f/f murder mystery set at a shooting party at an English manor house in the Edwardian era. Proper English follows the talented shooter Pat Merton, who is competent and sensible and has never had much time for romance — until she meets her dear friend’s new fiancee,…
Leave a CommentHappy Wednesday, friends! It’s a Reading the End / Spectology crossover event, so we’re talking about crossover books: the books that straddle the boundary between speculative and literary fiction. We welcome Spectology’s Adrian Ryan to chat about our genre-crossing faves, then review Karen Lord’s The Best of All Possible Worlds. You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go! Episode 117 Here are the time signatures if you want to skip around. 1:18 – What we’re reading 6:33 – What we’re playing 11:14 – SEA OR…
Leave a CommentFantastic news, months have returned! I read a finite, yet manageable, number of short stories in April, and I am here to tell you about the best of them. Because I am predictable, each story is about some combination of the following themes: the nature of truth flora and fauna living and dying fraught familial relationships Aliette de Bodard’s “The Dragon that Flew Out of the Sun” (3780 words, Uncanny) is one of the first short stories I read in the month of April, and it reminded me of all the reasons I love short fiction. We begin with a…
Leave a CommentTired: Making fun of Franzen Wired: Making fun of Bret Easton Ellis Just kidding! Those things are both incredible! So I’m kicking off this links round-up with Isaac Chotiner’s very magical interview with Bret Easton Ellis, as well as a review of the “old man yells at cloud” book Ellis has, apparently, written. Be blessed. “It felt hidden, like I said a magic word and there was Prague.” An interview with Helen Oyeyemi. The rise of publicly thirsty women. Some thoughts on cultural appropriation, rules, and self-censorship, from Jeannette Ng. An extremely normal and fine profile of Carmen Maria Machado.…
Leave a CommentThis podcast is a sad news / glad news situation, because Whiskey Jenny couldn’t make it to recording this time, BUT we have a special guest, the marvelous Renay! We’re chatting about backlist books that we’re excited for, then reading one of the remaining books from Renay’s SF starter pack, Lauren Beukes’s Zoo City. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below, or download it directly to take with you on the go! Episode 117 Here are the time signatures if you want to skip around. 3:56 – What we’re reading 9:03 – What we’re listening to…
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