Skip to content

Reading the End Posts

Review: Long Division, Kiese Laymon

Now this would have been a good read for A More Diverse Universe, if I had but read it in time. I’m going to cunningly add a link to this post to the More Diverse Universe links page, and by the time Aarti notices it will be too late to do anything about my illicit post-linking. Mwahahahaha, I am the most cunning blogger in all the land. Long DivisionĀ is about a boy named City (short for Citoyen) in 2013 who checks out a book called Long Division about a boy named City in 1985 who time-travels forward to 2013 to…

18 Comments

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…

5 Comments

A book I hurled across the room (plus some cheap shots at The Machinist)

Ugh, y’all, I was going to read Laura Kasischke’s A Mind of Winter for RIP IX, but it made me too angry. I did read it, and I can’t deny that, but I hereby did not read it for RIP IX. I just read it. RIP IX may or may not have been happening at the same time. Two caveats before I begin my complaining: My opinion about The Mind of Winter arises from a personal preference that I have about the outcome of ghost stories. I have complained about this on the blog before, so it may come as…

27 Comments

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…

10 Comments

Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.29 – National Book Awards and Bite-Sized Discussions

We go insane in this podcast and have a discussion topic for each essay in Michelle Orange’s This Is Running for Your Life. This time, we recorded without Randon on the line, and he reports that this episode had more “Sorry Randons!” per minute than any previous episode. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 29 Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).…

Leave a Comment

The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters

Note: A copy of The Paying Guests was made available to me by the publisher for review consideration. YOU GUYS. The Paying Guests is so great! Sarah Waters hasn’t released a new book since 2009, andĀ The Paying Guests was worth every day of the wait. It is about an upper-class woman called Frances who is living in reduced circumstances in interwar London. To keep themselves afloat, Frances and her mother have decided to take in lodgers (paying guests): A married couple, Len and Lilian Barber, who belong to “the clerk class”. Events unfold from there. Frances is such a good…

13 Comments

Review: Real World, Natsuo Kirino

Important update: Based on the two samples of this genre that I have read so far (this and The Thief, both by widely acclaimed Japanese authors), I have concluded that Japanese thriller mystery type books are not for me. I am not sure why I ever thought they were, given that I struggle with books in translation and I do not like thriller mystery type books above half. Natsuo Kirino has been on several of the lists for A More Diverse Universe, with specific praise for her ability to write about the disaffection of teenagers in the modern world. (Red…

4 Comments

Review: Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng

Here comes my second read for the A More Diverse Universe blogging event, hosted by the wonderful Aarti! Visit the event’s links page to find out what other folks are reading, and keep an eye on the hashtag #diversiverse. With the caveat that I stupid-loved my first read for A More Diverse Universe, I have to say that this, my second, was a bit of a disappointment. In a way it’s my own fault: Everything I Never Told You is about a family struggling to deal with the unexpected and mysterious death of the eldest daughter, a teenager called Lydia;…

7 Comments

Review: We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

As you would expect, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is wonderful when she talks about feminism. And why not? She’s wonderful when she talks about everything else. In this essay, an adaptation of the TED talk sampled by Beyonce in “Flawless,” she argues that the necessity for feminism is in everything we do, in the air we breathe. To be a feminist doesn’t mean to hate men, or society — it means to hope for better from men and from women and from society, and to act in ways that promote that ideal of being better. Many of the anecdotes Adichie tells…

25 Comments

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…

18 Comments