I don’t know what to say about the hate crime against queer people of color in Orlando this past weekend. I won’t say the killer’s name because we know that intense coverage of these guys inspires copycats do to the same. Instead I want to link to NPR’s article about the people who were murdered. Here also is a round-up from NPR’s Code Switch of responses from queer Latinx folks. The element of the fantastical in The Boxcar Children is their coherence to a Protestant work ethic. I am THE MOST susceptible to this kind of sadness. Just read enough…
8 CommentsReading the End Posts
Happy Wednesday, friends! Or more likely, sad Wednesday, because I have to report that there will be no podcast today. Whiskey Jenny and I had an amazing one planned, where we talked about Captain America: Civil War with a fabulous guest star — but life intervened. We are still hoping to talk about Captain America and review Simon van Booy’s Father’s Day and many other awesome things, but it will just have to wait until life is happening slightly less aggressively. Look for us in August! (Everything’s fine! Just a busier summer than either of us anticipated!)
1 CommentTry not to collapse from shock, but here is one more person assuring you that Louise Erdrich’s latest book, LaRose, is really quite good. It begins with a tragedy: Landreaux Iron goes hunting a deer and shoots a child instead, the five-year-old son of his best friend Peter Ravich. As the Ravich family begins to crumble, Landreaux and his wife decide to give their own five-year-old boy, LaRose, to the Raviches in restitution. The story unspools from there, telling the story of LaRose’s Ojibwe family and the many LaRoses who have come before him, as well as the stories of…
27 CommentsThe marvelous Sharlene at Olduvai Reads tagged me for the Diverse Books Tag. The Diverse Books Tag is a bit like a scavenger hunt. I will task you to find a book that fits a specific criteria and you will have to show us a book you have read or want to read. If you can’t think of a book that fits the specific category, then I encourage you to go look for one. A quick Google search will provide you with many books that will fit the bill. (Also, Goodreads lists are your friends.) Find one you are genuinely interested in reading and move on…
14 CommentsOr, that time I read a book about male violence right after a rapist in Stanford got a six-month jail sentence because a longer sentence would negatively impact his life and prospects. I felt intense frustration with The Association of Small Bombs, for reasons that are probably more to do with reading it in proximity to other infuriating things than the book’s actual merits. So let me say up front that I read this book when I was already angry, and that I had the specific expectation that it would be about the aftermath of violence for the people affected…
23 CommentsEvery month, Shannon of River City Reading hosts a public shaming group enjoyment of books we have out from the library in reasonable amounts. As usual, I have been doing a preposterous amount of library reading, because I go to the library every two weeks without fail, and it is my most favorite ritual in all the world. Here’s how it all went down in the month of May! Library Books Read Guapa, Saleem Haddad The Hero’s Walk, Anita Rau Badami The Drowning Eyes, Emily Browning The Lost White Tribe: Explorers, Scientists, and the Theory that Changed a Continent, Michael…
33 CommentsHappy Friday, team! The best news from this week is that the NPR Code Switch podcast has finally dropped. You can read an interview with pilot hosts Gene Demby and Shereen Marisol Meraji about their Process here. Why your brain is not a computer, and calling it one is messing up brain science. Women in sci-fi are reaching new heights (including some discussion of the Hugos and that whole mess). Including a mango (or not) in a novel about Pakistan. In defense of YA love triangles, which represent possible identity choices for the (mostly) heroines. Plus some bonus nose-wrinkling at…
8 CommentsIt’s baseball season! And we’re celebrating by welcoming our friend Ben Lindbergh to the podcast to talk about his new book (coauthored with Sam Miller), The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go! Episode 62 Listen to Ben and Sam’s interview with Stompers alum Santos Saldovar on their podcast Effectively Wild. This is Lil Sebastian West. I’m calling him that because he lives in the western part of…
3 CommentsBefore I get into Bellweather Rhapsody, let’s conduct a quick poll amongst the viewing audience. Hands up everyone here who loves The Westing Game. Okay, yes, that is what I assumed. Well, your luck’s in because Bellweather Rhapsody is pretty much The Westing Game for grown-ups, except instead of a murder, they’re trying to solve a suicide; and instead of a block of rental flats, it’s a hotel people are staying at during a statewide musical convention for musically talented youths; and instead of an inheritance they’re all competing for, it’s the potential for a full and happy life. Twenty…
25 CommentsI read Pandemic author Sonia Shah’s book The Body Hunter a few years back and was not satisfied with the quality of her citations. While I totally stand by that (the endnotes in that book were a mess), and I was all set to think ill of Pandemic also, actually the endnotes in this one were way much better sorted out. I conclude that she had better copyeditors this time around. This book’s about the spread of infectious diseases, and Sonia Shah herself admits that she’s not sure how to tell the story she wants to tell. Much of her…
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