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Reading the End Posts

Fantastic Girls and Gilmore Beasts: A Links Round-Up

Happy Friday, team! It is a grumpy Friday for me because I have to work tomorrow, but I struggle on in spite of everything. Stay brave, friends, and have a wonderful weekend. It’s not too late to ask me and Whiskey Jenny to pick out books for you to buy your loved ones this holiday season! Fill out our holiday gift guide form and you’ll received personalized gift recommendations on our December 14th podcast. Rebecca Traister is a writer I’ve come to really respect, and her piece on blaming Trump on the people who fought the hardest against him is…

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Review: The Wangs vs. the World, Jade Chang

One of the side effects of this election is that I’ve become very clingy and emotional. I burst into tears over design specs at work yesterday, and it’s not because design specs are inherently moving. It’s a reminder from my dumb, finicky heart, I guess, that love is what we have when the world is dark. So The Wangs vs. the World fit nicely with my current mood — a book about how a family holds tightly to each other at a time when they have lost everything. Charles Wang came to the United States to make his fortune, and…

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Frightening, Destabilizing Shit that Trump Has Done

Welp, I think we’re all going to have a bitch of a time remembering all the fucking awful things Trump has done, because he keeps piling them on. So I am constructing the ultimate Your Fave Is Problematic post starting today (29 November). My policy is going to be that I’ll only include stories and links to things that Trump and his hires have said; i.e., Trump’s friends and supporters may say and do things that won’t make the list. I’m trying to stick to just the things that are official words and deeds coming out of the Trump administration.…

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Nonfiction November: New to My TBR

Well, Americans, how were your Thanksgivings? I hope you sternly noped any racisms you encountered from your relatives and ate plenty of delicious turkey. We are reaching the end of a wonderful Nonfiction November, hosted this week by the fab Lory from the Emerald City Book Review. It’s been a month full of amazing nonfiction books! Which ones have made it onto your TBR? Be sure to link back to the original blogger who posted about that book! I may as well confess now that I have not been as riotously active a participant in Nonfiction November as I intended.…

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Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.71: What We’re Thankful For, and Brit Bennett’s The Mothers

Happy Wednesday, team, and happy early Thanksgiving to all the Americans! This is our sad and subdued post-election podcast in which we nevertheless try to find things to be thankful for. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go! Episode 71 Ask us for our gift book recommendations over at the Holiday Gift Guide! We’ll be giving out recs on the podcast that airs on December 14th, so hurry and get your requests in! Here’s my tweetstorm about how to be a good ally. What…

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Review: Multiple Choice, Alejandro Zambra

I didn’t do this on purpose, although I would have if I’d thought of it: The book I read immediately after the election turned out to be a work of experimental fiction that explores how life and education in a dictatorship narrows the range of thoughts that it is possible to think. Alejandro Zambra’s Multiple Choice, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell, is a spoof on the Academic Aptitude Exam, required for all college-bound Chilean students, which Zambra took in 1993, when Chile was in transition to democracy following years of dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet. In an interview with The…

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Post-Election Links Round-Up

Manuel Gonzales NK Jemisin Nicole Chung Mira Jacob Masha Gessen Vann R. Newkirk II Rebecca Traister Rembert Browne Nikole Hannah-Jones Wesley Morris and Jenna Wortham A whole bunch of writers of many genres Stay safe, guys.

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Nonfiction November: Book Pairing

Nonfiction November continues, hosted this week by Sarah at Sarah’s Book Shelves. This week we’re talking book pairings! This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. It can be a “If you loved this book, read this!” or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history by reading a nonfiction version of the story. Mm, yes, I love a good game of Read This Then That. Nonfiction November has pegged me accurately in this regard. Let’s start with a creepy debut novel…

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Review: Committed, Dinah Miller and Annette Hanson

Note: I received a copy of Committed from the publisher for review consideration. I maintain a master list of Claims that Require Heightened Scrutiny, and the number one item on my list — indeed the reason I started to maintain the list — is this: Any claim that a complicated problem has a simple solution. Nothing infuriates me more1 than people insisting that a complicated thing is actually very simple if people would just look at it in a new way. No! Systems are complicated! Even when there is a simple solution (e.g., we have a vaccine that prevents polio),…

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Reading the End Bookcast, Ep. 70: Funny Books and Dirk Gently

It’s super weird listening to this podcast (that’s why I’m posting it late) because Whiskey Jenny and I were so young and innocent when we recorded this. Now we are old and sad. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go! Episode 70 Ask us for our gift book recommendations over at the Holiday Gift Guide! Fill out the form by November 30th, and we’ll be giving out recs on the podcast that airs on December 14th. What We’re Reading Do You Want to Start…

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