Well that was a long and frustrating book. The New York Times review of Justine van der Leun’s We Are Not Such Things promised that the book would “overturn” the traditional narrative of Amy Biehl’s death, and in the process expose the weaknesses of the famed and beloved South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In case you aren’t familiar with Amy Biehl’s story (I wasn’t), she was an activist and Fulbright scholar who was attacked and murdered in the South African township of Gugulethu in 1993, on the eve of apartheid’s demise. Four men were convicted of her murder, then…
32 CommentsAuthor: Jenny Hamilton
Happy Wednesday and please enjoy this very special edition of the Reading the End Bookcast, in which Whiskey Jenny and I were in THE SAME ROOM AT THE SAME TIME. You can pretty much hear the giddiness in our voices. Podcasting with Whiskey Jenny is always great, but it is double great when we’re in the same place. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go! Episode 66 What We’re Reading One Plus One, Jojo Moyes Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Maggie Stiefvater City on Fire,…
3 CommentsOkay, blogosphere, it’s your time to be excellent! As many of y’all already know, our own wonderful Kim, who blogs at Sophisticated Dorkiness and co-hosts Nonfiction November, recently lost her partner of eight years. I know many of us have been sending thoughts and prayers to our dear friend in this difficult time, and she’s recently let me know that there’s something we can do to help out. Kim recently started a new! awesome! job where I know she’s absolutely crushing it, but which necessitates a looooooooong commute. Like all of us with long commutes, Kim wants to spend these…
10 CommentsMorgan Jenkins is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers on the intersection of politics and pop culture, and this article about whiteness in Emma Cline’s The Girls is fire. Pixar has a list of storytelling rules of which one, I believe, is that you can use a coincidence to get a character into, but not out of, trouble. Here’s Alice Mattison on how to write coincidence well. Sexual harassment in the SF world. Did I tell you I’m fascinated with the stories of people who are in (or who leave) fundamentalist religions? So this Gothamist article about a meet-up…
29 CommentsHappy Wednesday, all! If your question was “will Gin Jenny find a way to scream about Star Wars Rebels on podcast even though it’s not a TV-show-related podcast?” the answer is (of course) yes. Watch Star Wars Rebels! You will definitely not regret it! You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go! Episode 65 What We’re Reading To the Secretary: Leaked Embassy Cables and America’s Foreign Policy Disconnect, Mary Thompson-Jones Star Wars Rebels (okay this I am watching BUT IT IS REALLY GOOD) Brooklyn, Colm…
Continue readingReading the End Bookcast, Ep.65: Best Eras in History and Charles Burns’s Black Hole
2 Comments Okay, I know we have The Ringer now, and The Ringer has brought us Actual National Treasure Sam Donsky. Is it wrong that I still miss Grantland, though? They had an incredible stable of writers with a particular gift for writing about important things through the lens of seemingly unimportant things. Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me (affiliate link: Book Depository), from Grantland alum and UpRoxx writer Steven Hyden, reminded me of what was so special about Grantland’s glory days. And yes, okay, the subtitle is a little grandiose. The meaning of life isn’t on offer here, but Hyden gets…
28 CommentsOkay, Elizabeth Nunez got me good about two-thirds of the way through her latest book, Even in Paradise (affiliate links: Book Depository, Amazon). As a writer from my homeland put it in her fictionalized version of a romance between Miranda and an educated Caliban: Pass [the Miranda test] and I believe you. Fail it and all you say about the races being equal, that character, not color, is what matters, becomes theoretical. I was like, Oo, a romance between Miranda and an educated Caliban? SOUNDS GREAT, and I googled it thinking probably Cesaire, and while Cesaire did in fact write…
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