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Category: Misc.

Links round-up: The usual suspects

Lindy West recently departed Jezebel for GQ, a move about which I said, “Huh.” But it all seems to be gold so far; here she is on the “BASICALLY SEX CHRISTMAS” represented by the new standards for consent in California colleges. JK Rowling, presumably missing the days when she got to fuck with us regularly, took some time out of her busy schedule to fuck with us last week with the following confusing tweet: Cry, foe! Run amok! Fa awry! My wand won’t tolerate this nonsense. — J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 6, 2014 I let the internet get on with…

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Mary Renault at Shiny New Books

As you’ve probably heard, the third issue of the wonderful Shiny New Books came out earlier this week. I was lucky enough to get to write a post about one of my favorite-ever authors, Mary Renault, for this issue. You can read the post over in their neck of the woods, and feel free to complain to me in the comments about my obvious preference for Hephaestion over Bagoas. I know that’s a point of contention FOR SOME. While you’re over there, check out the whole issue! The editors and contributors have reminded me again how much I want to…

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Disney Halloween costumes & the NYC subway: A links round-up

Remember that New York Times profile of Shonda Rhimes that called her an angry black woman? Vulture is wonderfully furious about it. Melissa Harris-Perry contemplates a world in which we talked about angry white men in this same way. Y’all, it is legit confusing to me that white men aren’t the ones with the “angry” stereotype. It seems like they are the angriest. Netflix’s new Spoiler Roulette is excellent. I like how you can’t predict at all what the next thing is that’s going to get spoiled for you. Primal Fear? Orange Is the New Black? Could be anything. Here…

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Dystopias, the Diversiverse, and Death (a links round-up)

It’s the Friday after podcast day, which means another links round-up! Don’t forget that A More Diverse Universe is going on now! Head over to Aarti’s blog to see all the amazing POC authors people are discovering and rediscovering this month! More awesome discoveries by science: Scientists have found the most complete dinosaur skeleton yet, and they have named it THE DREADNOUGHT. I hope it’s not too late to incorporate it into Jurassic World. The tail alone is thirty feet long. This is awesome. Science is the best. The wonderful and brilliant Jenny Diski has inoperable cancer. Stupid universe. In…

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The most important link here is the last one.

A new book by an art director at Alfred Knopf explores cover art and the work done by book jackets. He has another book out at the same time about visualizing while we read, and they both look brilliant. Here he is at Slate.com talking about the former. I have the latter checked out of the library, and it is gorgeous and strange. I want to hug MTV for creating this resource “See This, Say That.” These aren’t necessarily the exact things I’d recommend saying in these situations, but I dig that MTV is making the effort here. One of…

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The story of the time I met Neil Gaiman and he said something extremely lovely to me

I have been reading to Social Sister for more than eighteen years now — off more than on, since we went to college, just as a function of our never being in the same place for very long, but still: Eighteen years. A whole person who can vote. She got brainwashed early into thinking this was a good form of entertainment, and I enjoy it because there is nothing quite like seeing someone else experience a book you love in real time. Anyway, we just finished reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which I was reading for…

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Slumped

What I thought was a reading slump has turned out to be a mania for rereading. I’ve reread Special Topics in Calamity Physics and am happily entrenched in HHhH. Wonderful rereading! It has been too long since I reread some of the excellent fiction on my shelves! Glorious!

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Links you should read from the past fortnight

First of all, this isn’t book-related, but I don’t know how I can lead with anything else because this is what I’ve mostly been thinking about all this week and last week: Following the police shooting of yet another unarmed black man (kid, actually), in Ferguson, everything is horrible. Here’s Brittany Cooper talking about how tired she is of these stories as they come one after another, seemingly forever. And here’s Greg Howard talking about the militarization of the police force and the criminalization of young black men, and here’s Jelani Cobb on anger and weariness. Y’all, this makes me…

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Things in my week that were awesome

First of all: The absurdly delayed results of my Alias Hook giveaway! Random.org picked a winner, and it is Jeanne! Of Necromancy Never Pays! Congrats, Jeanne, and I will ask the publisher to send a copy of the book your way. Secondly, I decided to do a links round-up post today, of bookish and nerdy and feminist stuff that interested me this week. I always love link round-ups, and this week I got jealous enough to make one of my own. In honor of the release of Marvel’s weirdest movie yet, Guardians of the Galaxy, I give you two conflicting…

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An ongoing argument

Superego: Return your library’s ebook copy of The Dream Thieves straight away. Id: No. I want it. Superego: Yes, I know. But remember? You own it now! In hardback. You impulse-bought it at the store. Id: Because I wanted it. Superego: Yes, because you wanted it, and you didn’t run that purchase order by me before making it, but that’s all water under the bridge. Now you have it! Hooray! You have it in hardback. Return the library ebook copy so somebody else can read it. Id: But I want it. Superego: YOU WILL STILL HAVE IT. Id: Might want…

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