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 CommentsReading the End Posts
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 CommentsIn a podcast first, Whiskey Jenny and Randon and I were all in the same room on a recording day! It was a very exciting time, and I think our deranged joy comes through pretty clearly in the podcast. We talk about gateway books for ushering people into the joys of new genres; we review Nick Harkaway’s Tigerman (affiliate links: Amazon, B&N, Book Depository); and we play a tricky game invented by Whiskey Jenny about pangrams. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode…
15 CommentsThe universe is more diverse! If you aren’t already participating in Aarti’s wonderful September event A More Diverse Universe, you definitely should. Check out her amazing recommendations here and here and here, visit her blog to check out what other people are reading, and follow the hashtag #Diversiverse on Twitter. My first read for this event is Dayo Olopade’s The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa, a book I’ve long had my eye on because of its brilliantly colored, eye-catching jacket design. It’s also a terrific book, an antidote to what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has called “the…
22 CommentsPersonal life update: I cut my hair this past summer! I cut it all off, shorter than it has ever been. My hair resembles (less now than when first cut, but still!) the hair of the girl on the cover of The Girls at the Kingfisher Club. This is the first time I have ever walked into a hair salon and asked them to cut off this much hair. Usually I am begging them to cut off less. Anyway, now I have a super cute flapper haircut, and when I put on my cloche hat I look hella jaunty. The…
22 CommentsI’d like to think I am pretty good at sorting out strategies to feel less sad on days when I am feeling sad. But sometimes my strategies bomb, and you are now reading a review of one of those times. I was feeling glum this one day, and I decided that to cheer myself up I was going to read a new book, and I picked The Descendants. Jeanne had said it was really good, and I knew vaguely from two-thirds-forgotten movie trailers that it was about a not-super-close family going on like — a road trip? Maybe? And it…
12 CommentsA 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…
20 CommentsIn celebration of Whiskey Jenny’s visit to Louisiana, we play a game of Louisiana trivia, composed by the brilliant and beautiful Whiskey Jenny! You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 27a 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). Credits Producer: Captain Hammer Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee Song is by Jeff MacDougall and comes from here.
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