The always-great Angelica Jade Bastien reviews the new The Little Mermaid.

At the close of the inaugural #EndOTWRacism campaign (but hopefully there are many more iterations to come!), Stitch reflects on what fandom needs.

“The music of a bygone time, a simpler, better era, when cars weren’t sold by direct-to-consumer, the internet barely existed, and prices were negotiable and opaque.” Inside the National Automobile Dealers Association, a weirdly powerful force in the Republican party.

Maureen Ryan’s book Burn It Down promises to be a barn, um, burner. Vanity Fair excerpted a chapter about the racist, sexist, bullying culture on Lost.

Here is the update on Caroline Calloway, because you know we all needed that.

True crime got worse.

“The operative factor is the training to recycle their traumas through violence.” Why it’s not surprising that the man who killed Jordan Neely was a marine.

“Dark romance novels don’t fear abusive men—if they did, the books would be wiped clean of their assault scenes. Their ultimate fear is of non-normative desire.”

Here is what is up with the embarrassing Hannah Gadsby exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.

The downfall of Tom Sandoval.

Why are there so many gd Persephone retellings!!

The ghost of carbon monoxide stories (a folklore perspective).

Writing for robots: The SEO arms race and all the garbage it’s left us with.

If you missed the recent Anne Carson discourse, please feel to treat yourself.

And a lovely piece on a poet shelved directly next to Anne Carson on my bookshelves: my beloved CP Cavafy!

Tressie McMillan Cottom perfectly explains why I dropped out of Ted Lasso, the first season of which I loved beyond reason.

“A deteriorating rest stop on the road to nowhere.” Last Angelica Jade Bastien link, I swear! This one’s a review of The Flash.

“And these efforts do not include plans for training or mentorship or support long-term career trajectory for up-and-coming BIPOC who may be thrown in the deep-end on the job, and be expected from the start to do it well.” Black women are being erased from book publishing.

“How I treasure any artwork that preserves a silence or recognizes a limit!” Zadie Smith reviews Tár.

The dueling realities of Caroline Calloway and Natalie Beach.

Leave the deep ocean alone. Leave it alone. Leave it alone.

What is a bottle episode? Kathryn VanArendonk is now the authority on all things bottle episode, and she has a handy guide to understanding what is and isn’t one.

A guide to the many queer bookshops of the UK. (This is not useful to me but I want UK readers to be happy too.)

Happy 75th birthday to “The Lottery,” a perfect jewel of a short story. Writers reflect on what the story has meant to them.

Every time I’ve heard someone wonder why all animated movies don’t look as good as Spiderverse, I have thought, there is a reason for this. And surprise, I was right.

Happy 4th to those who celebrate, by which I mean I hope everyone’s able to have a chill quiet weekend!

The post Links, links, links! A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

AT LAST it is Millions Book Preview O’Clock wooooo!

Brandon Taylor really really REALLY did not enjoy the new adaptation of Persuasion. I do not have a dog in this fight.

“One of [Elon Musk’s hobbies is that he sometimes likes to pretend that he will acquire public companies…. This is an expensive hobby!” Matt Levine explains what’s going on with Elon Musk and Twitter.

On Costco and the immigrant experience.

Ed Yong is, thank God, back once again to explain what we need to know about the BA.5 variant of horrible stupid COVID.

This article about the politics of English in India is fascinating and has definitely made me want to read the author’s whole book.

Thanks to Strange New Worlds, Star Trek feels like Star Trek again. This is not an argument I can personally weigh in on, as I am working my way through DS9 at the moment and have not yet gotten to the new shows. But it seems right.

“I don’t know how else to explain it, they just clean the way you clean in a kitchen.” The Bear gets Chicago wrong, but it gets restaurant kitchens so right.

This Vulture interview with the subtitlers for Stranger Things fails to capitalize d/Deaf appropriately, but it’s still a very interesting look behind the scenes at what goes into the art of subtitles.

Pop culture is reevaluating Tracy Flick. Not me, though, I was always horrified that people acted like she was the villain of that movie. Like, wtf.

Ravynn Stringfield was not nourished by academia, but by the presence of Black women in the world of comics.

In case you’ve missed the wild and wacky world of Funny Girl‘s recasting, here is an explainer of what is going on.

In this thread, Alexis Hall answers every question Carrie Bradshaw asks in the original Sex and the City.

“People don’t die for no reason; Aquarians just occasionally get reckless on the freeway. Simple.” A story about doing astrology.

Here are some extra-good books by indigenous authors this year.

The head of the New York Antiquities Theft Task Force has some surprisingly insightful things to say about how to be a good person. Also lots of good, juicy art theft details.

Speaking of Interesting Jobs, I’m obsessed with movie sound design, and this article on Foley artists FED MY SOUL.

David Treuer’s Austrian father viewed America as a land of rescue and safety; for his Ojibwe mother, it was a land of injustice.

Rolling Stone reported on bot activity in favor of the Snyder cut (and what Zack Snyder had to do with it). Gita Jackson responds, noting that despite higher-than-usual bot activity, fandom is QUITE capable of being terrible organically (and, in this case, they were).

When your coauthor is an AI.

Happy Friday, friends! In case you didn’t click that last link, I will leave you with a piece of AI-generated writing; may it blossom weirdly in your souls. “The moon was truly mother-of-pearl, the white of the sea, rubbed smooth by the groins of drowned brides.”

The post Really the Millions Book Preview This Time: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Anyway, here are the Depp/Heard links: Gita Jackson on the trial and Moira Donegan on the trial and that’s all the links and the other links are about other topics.

I would like to report that I love nominative determinism. Thank you for your time.

The new film Men, whose trailer I watched twice without realizing all the men are played by the same actor, doesn’t go far enough.

Ten years on, does Gone Girl hold up?

Any time a structure operates without accountability to protect itself rather than the people who comprise it, there will be sexual abuse. A massive new report details how the Southern Baptist Convention silenced survivors and protected perpetrators.

The state of today’s social media encourages plagiarism. Here’s how.

Here’s what’s going on with Seven Seas and its employees’ attempt to unionize.

I’m trying to get more into reading mysteries, so I really appreciated this rec list of historical mysteries that grapple with the violence of empire.

I have seen Double Indemnity despite never seeing movies, and therefore this introduction to it for the Criterion Collection pleased me mightily.

BRING BACK THE AIM AWAY MESSAGE.

Here’s how teens (and everyone!) can identify and avoid conspiracy theories online.

Valerie Complex speaks out about racism at the Cannes film festival.

How to end a story.

And that’s how to end a links round-up!

The post Unfortunately Some Links on the Depp/Heard Trial: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

….Please read these links so I can stop babbling.

This one’s for my Mumsy! The Kew Botanical Gardens guy talks trees.

Imani Perry considers how the global use of the word “auntie” is colliding with the term’s complicated history in Black America.

How has spoiler/anti-spoiler culture affected the way we engage with art? I cannot answer this question because I have never once felt that I understood exactly what constitutes a spoiler to other people.

The new anti-trans executive order in Texas is leading to a mass exodus of child protection workers.

The literature of billionaires (both fiction and nonfiction) is, at its heart, deeply sinister.

Killing Eve chose cruelty in its finale.

Inside the contentious world of font sizes on music festival posters.

My favorite thing about this piece by a scream artist for the movies is her description of how the world of scream acting has changed in response to the explosion of different kinds of roles (and therefore different kinds of screams) for women.

On triplethood and its difference from twinness.

“I can’t shake a sense of foreboding when I consider a Zuckerbergian pornverse.” A visit to the Erotic Heritage Museum for a talk on digisexuality.

White supremacist groups, including domestic terrorist groups, actively prey on and recruit white boys through social media. Teaching kids the truth about our history can protect them.

“they killed someone” like what are you protestant

JK Rowling was not included on a list of 70 great British books. This is not censorship or being silenced.

Amy’s Kitchen assures consumers that it’s a positive brand making positive impacts. OR IS IT? (It is not; brands are terrible; have faith in nobody except for Tony of Tony’s Chocolonely; and not even him; but oh God if it turns out he’s bad I will be crushed.) Anyway, Jaya Saxena is terrific.

Somehow, there was a time before the internet. At least that is what Hari Kunzru claims.

A McSweeney’s quiz about having a toddler in this stage of the pandemic.

Emily St. James considers the parental apology fantasy.

Twitter has been a crucial lifeline for trans people. Will that disappear now that Elon Musk runs it?

With Pamela Paul’s departure as editor of the New York Times Book Review, the renowned book review venue is at a tipping point.

“Feminism, much like BDSM, doesn’t figure into the text of the Fifty Shades trilogy itself, nor does politics more broadly.” Happy tenth birthday, I guess, to Fifty Shades of Gray.

What’s going on at Netflix?

“Am I a book stylist? I am not. Or maybe I am, I don’t know. Would it be the worst thing in the world if I were?”

I’m obsessed with this story of a Grey’s Anatomy writer who just! made up all sorts of tragedies about herself! part one (cw made-up cancer) and part two (cw made-up abuse but also a bunch of real abuse)

Democrats keep getting it wrong on abortion.

Kim Cattrall is happy with her decision to never return to Sex and the City.

This is what a black hole sounds like.

These have been: LINKS.

The post LINKS: Some Links appeared first on Reading the End.

YES THAT IS RIGHT IT IS THE BOOK PREVIEWWWWWWWW. (link) I haven’t read it yet because I discovered it’s there approximately thirty seconds before writing these very words. I am saving it as a treat for the end of the work week. Yay. Yay. Yay. I love this book preview. I thank The Millions so much for doing it. I know it is a lot of work.

Okay! On to the rest of the links! A lot of them are about television! Watch Leverage: Redemption on IMDBtv!

LET LEVAR BURTON HOST JEOPARDY (link)

Jeannette Ng unpacks some of the history and political assumptions of the wuxia genre. (link)

Molly Ostertag considers queer readings of Lord of the Rings, and what Tolkien might have meant. Including: a surprise guest appearance by Mary Renault! (link)

“Sex/Life is the most boring and meager of sexual fantasies for straight women stuck in mundane marriages who wish they had something better to cling to.” I love a good pan, and Scaachi Koul’s of this Netflix show I’ve never heard of is excellent. (link)

“I do not want to win someone else’s game.” Nikole Hannah-Jones’s statement on why she is walking away from UNC is excellent, and heartbreaking. (link)

Products that go viral on TikTok are typically a flash in the pan. (link)

NEW LEVERAGE IS HEEEEEEEEEEERE so please enjoy this interview with the cast. Then go watch New Leverage. It’s exactly what I wanted it to be. Except for in my vision there would be more Hardison, but I understand Aldis Hodge is a fancypants movie star with a fancypants movie star schedule, sob. (link)

So-called “pot-hunters” regularly loot Native American graves, removing not just funerary artifacts but even human remains. When will it end? (link)

Surprise! People actually enjoy commutes. I can confirm this: Adding a small commute to my day (like 15 minutes) gives me time to decompress before and after work, and get some dedicated reading time. (link)

The life of an assistant in Hollywood has worsened drastically with the fall of network TV. (link)

Not prosecuting people for low-level misdemeanors turns out to reduce crime all around! Hooray! Let’s all just do that, then! (link)

This joint interview with Juno Temple and Hannah Waddingham, of Ted Lasso, will make your heart sing. What a lovely pair of women. Also you should watch Ted Lasso. It is not a perfect show but it is really great in many ways. (link)

I am crushed to learn that despite the incredible cast, Gunpowder Milkshake is boring and bad. CRUSHED. (link)

In closing, please watch New Leverage. If you don’t know what New Leverage is, I highly recommend repairing to IMDBtv (it’s free!) or Amazon Prime and watching the pilot of Leverage. It is very close to being a perfect pilot. Every time I think about the pilot of Leverage, I want to watch the pilot of Leverage. I want to watch it right now, typing this. It slaps. Thank you for your time.

The post I Love Television: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Barry Jenkins worked hard to avoid sensationalizing and exploiting Black trauma in his adaptation of The Underground Railroad, but the material was difficult nonetheless. A therapist was on set at all times to protect and help the cast and crew. (link)

Always read an Alex Brown review! They’re at Tor this week reviewing Barry Jenkins’s new TV adaptation of The Underground Railroad, which handles Black trauma with care and thoughtfulness. (link)

And (last The Underground Railroad thing!) Angelica Jade Bastién reviewed the show with her customary eloquence. (link)

I was completely unaware of the slander websites economy, but the New York Times did a deep dive to find out who runs these sites, and who runs the sites you can pay to clean up your online presence. (link)

“Ideas don’t disappear when they’re banned.” Carmen Maria Machado responds to attempts to ban students from reading her book In the Dream House. (link)

“A woman once stopped my mother in a supermarket and told her that she had abilities to speak to the dead. “It’s a power I can develop if I want to,” my mother bragged. But she didn’t want to.” On Korean history, trauma, and ghosts. (link)

Access to affirming, culturally competent mental health care is a community and social justice issue. (link)

David Treuer makes the (excellent) case for giving national parks back to Native nations. (link)

Without any of us noticing, online shopping has undergone a sea change. We are buffeted by the uncaring waves of social media marketing. (link)

How Netflix frames the stories of people like Joe Exotic and Colton Underwood, at the expense of the people they’ve harmed. (link)

Interracial relationships have begun to appear far more frequently in movies, TV, and commercials. But do these depictions grapple with the realities of interracial dating? (link)

“Just write the parts that are exciting to you, and figure out later how you’re going to connect it.” Brit Bennett on discovering joy in her writing. (link)

What does a guilty pleasure mean? (link)

A deep dive into how Martin Bashir used dishonest tactics to get That Interview. (link)

The authors of two new books I’m very excited for discuss their inspirations: Dawnie Walton on The Final Revival of Opal and Nev (link) and Zakiya Dalila Harris on The Other Black Girl (link).

Here’s a question for the group, before we go: If you could talk to ghosts, would you?

The post An Underground Railroad–Forward Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Emma Southon is so great, and she has a new book out about murder in ancient Rome! Here is an excerpt! (link)

Social-emotional learning can help kids relate to each other better, without taking away from their academic competencies. (link)

What went wrong at Gimlet? (link)

Story karma! A lovely, useful concept from Emily VanDerWerff. (link)

Brandon Taylor considers whether we will ever, ever feel comfortable going to the movies again. (We will, I think.) (link)

“There is something backhanded about using authors’ personal statements as a Captcha tool for verifying the emotional resonance of their work.” Not all fiction is autofiction! It is rude to assume! (link)

In case you missed the Amanda Gorman translation controversy, here’s a round-up of responses and reactions to it! (link)

Philip Roth sounds like a real treat to be around. I am consumed with regret that I long ago decided never ever to read one of his books. (link)

Ignoring anti-Asian racism for the last 150 years has brought us to this place. (link)

All Arthuriana is fanfic. (link)

“The psychologist and tech commentator Sherry Turkle has observed that technological solutions often start out being regarded as ‘better than nothing’ only to supplant the alternatives and come to be treated as better than anything.'” On all those therapy apps. (link)

Was Naomi Wolf always terrible? Kinda! (link)

Lyz Lenz and Talia Levin discuss sustained internet harassment and how they have each learned to deal with it. (link)

Generational stereotypes are whitewashed and do not assist us in breaking down unjust systems. So let’s just not. (link)

Here’s how to make small talk, for those of us who have been quarantined so long we don’t remember how to interact with others. (link)

“What I know is that being Bich, and growing up as Bich in a mostly white town in the eighties, has felt like a test that I was constantly failing.” A heartbreaking, complicated essay about Beth Nguyen’s choice to change her name. (link)

Nobody’s doing well; everyone’s doing badly. (link)

Reading in the morning is Good. I can personally attest to this. I used to read every day on my commute, and if I missed it I became very cranky indeed. (link)

Disney keeps making movies where the Black characters spend most of the movie not being Black characters. W h y. (tw for a really heartbreaking set of anecdotes about the author’s son trying to find TV that represents him) (link)

Two of my favorite critics, Alex Brown and Angelica Jade Bastien, discuss why Them‘s overuse on brutality makes the show, overall, an artistic failure.

GOOD TALK, NOW HAVE A WEEKEND.

The post Everyone’s Doing Badly: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

First and most importantly: The Millions Book Preview! (link)

Serial killers are in decline, hooray! (link)

“Despite the joys of his irreverence, however, it is all too easy to sink in the morass of sexism, if not outright misogyny, muddying the plots of Vonnegut’s novels.” On the writers adored by men of Tinder. (link)

The surreal, chaotic, extremely online culture of quarantine. (link)

Here’s what we lose as publishers combine into a giant scary publishing conglomerate (of evil). (link)

Finding friendship through fandom, a very relevant story in These Times. (link)

“No one gets into anime for clout.” Stitch on the backlash to Megan Thee Stallion enjoying anime. (link)

Schitt’s Creek is a wonderful warm glorious show and this is a good appreciation of its central relationship. (link)

Wonder Woman Number Two is not good. (link)

Disney won’t stop changing protagonists of color into animals. Can we not? (link)

Native Twitter loves Baby Yoda and here’s why. (link)

Want your book published? It helps to be white — just like 85% of acquiring editors. (link)

“Every day, I thank God that Tolkien did not live long enough to share his opinions on Twitter, unlike, say, other wildly popular and previously beloved fantasy authors of our era.” On rewatching Lord of the Rings at Christmas. (link)

Alyssa Cole won’t apologize for putting politics in her romance novels (& she shouldn’t because they’re amazing). (link)

An interview with the intimacy coordinator for Bridgerton. (link)

Remember American Dirt? A controversy that happened in 2020 and people were like “oh no cancel culture”? Well, it remained a bestseller even after All That Mess, but here’s a postmortem on why it all went down that way. (link)

Don’t forget about progressives in red states. (link)

TV characters aren’t wearing masks consistently. It is not the best. (link)

Also not the best: the ongoing romanticization of the British monarchy. We hate monarchies! Remember? We hates it! Strange women lying about in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! (link)

There’s still an age gap problem in roles for actresses, and we are beyond tired of talking about it. (link)

“He promised that he would be with them. But, like a lazy coward, Trump went home to watch the show on TV.” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor goes deep on the convergence between white supremacists and the Republican party. (link)

The Color Purple is a masterpiece, not least for the way it gives a voice to survivors of trauma. (link)

“It has always sucked to compare yourself to the prettiest girl in school, but it sucks a lot more to feel like everybody else in the entire world is the prettiest girl in school.” On the faux-body positivity of Instagram. (link)

Wesley Morris is predictably fabulous writing about The Great Gatsby. (link)

I am very excited to read Aya de Leon’s sex worker heist novels. I have the first one checked out right now. Here’s how she became a writer. (link)

These have been SOME LINKS. I hope you enjoyed them! I hope that your workplace has given you the federal holiday of Martin Luther King Day off. Please have a very blessed weekend in which you get lots and lots of rest. I’m sorry we all have lived to see such times.

The post MILLIONS BOOK PREVIEW: A very belated links round-up appeared first on Reading the End.

“Watching the series, I was unable to ignore one central question: Why should we give a damn about the emotional life of a racist, sexist white woman?” Angelica Jade Bastien is typically brilliant on Mrs. America. (link)

Judith Butler is not having it. (link)

Maisy Card considers her memory of Nanny, leader of the Jamaica Maroons. (link)

Code Switch tries to figure out what kind of books we should be reading during quarantine, with the help of Farah Jasmine Griffin. (link)

A wonderful profile of romance and thriller novelist Alyssa Cole! (link)

Here is an oral history of Wishbone. I love Wishbone! (link)

How do people understand each other? Linguist David Adger discusses how language works. (link)

The James Beard Awards got canceled this year, and it’s all a big mess. Here’s your guide to what’s going on. (link)

“It’s a system that can construct a fiction with facts.” ZZ Packer discusses the facts that were raised by Kentucky’s attorney general in the Breonna Taylor case, and the facts that were obscured. (link)

Aisha Harris has created a pretty incredible taxonomy of modern American blackface. (link)

An open letter from the UK & Irish publishing community, in solidarity with trans and nonbinary people. (link)

“I’ve spent the past four months watching sex scenes to determine which seeming sex symbols actually, you know, have sex in movies.” (link)

Can we rethink how YA frames coming out? (link)

“To answer a glaring question: No, collab houses don’t really make any money. It is not a wise business decision, per se, for a management company to spend lavishly on rent solely because fans like seeing their favorite TikTokers hanging out together.” This is fascinating. (link)

Rejoice! Despite the meaninglessness of all time, it is nevertheless the weekend! Eat, drink, and be merry! As for me and my house, we are in intensive quarantine and shall have no pancakes this Sunday, but we will struggle to get by all the same.

The post Multiple Calebs: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

I never liked ironic detachment. Emily VanDer Werff goes in on why it fucking sucks and we should care about stuff. (link)

“You are not permitted to watch a police precinct erupt into flames under a canopy of fireworks and whisper to yourself, “good.”‘ Tochi Onyebuchi on the responsibility of Black writers in America. (link)

Michael Arceneaux makes the case against forgiveness. (link)

In order to fix our country, white women need to face a clear-eyed reckoning about the role we have historically played and continue to play in upholding white supremacy. (link)

Dear Holmes looks so fucking fun and I don’t even like Sherlock Holmes. (link)

Quarantine is a terrific time to rediscover The Westing Game, which is as cynical about capitalism as you are right now. (link)

“Someone at some point has to get down to the business of reading.” Lauren Michele Jackson on anti-racist reading lists. (link)

Angelica Jade Bastien is typically eloquent and brilliant on Michaela Coel’s new show, I May Destroy You. cw for sexual assault. (link)

What does K-pop owe to the Black Lives Matter movement? (link)

Here is a story about racism in NOW. (link)

White writers of crime fiction are complicit in the valorization of police in American culture. They can change how they write. (link)

Lauren Francis-Sharma hoped that quarantine would let her protect her children from American racism. It did not. (link)

A Letter From a Black Woman in Publishing on the Industry’s Cruel, Hypocritical Insistence That Words Matter, by Mariah Stovall (link)

Why we all turned on Glee. (link)

As we all wait breathlessly for the Millions second half of 2020 book preview, Lithub has used math to compile a list of the mathematically most anticipated books of summer. (link)

And now, the JK Rowling sucks links. Kacen Callender talks about staying alive for the Harry Potter books — and why JK Rowling’s transphobia is so deeply harmful. (link) Gabrielle Bellot writes about how JK Rowling betrayed the world and the readers she made. (link) Mallory Yu on why this is so personal. (link) Aja Romano on finding their nonbinary identity through Harry Potter, and realizing that had nothing to do with JK Rowling. (link) Emmet Asher-Perrin on saying goodbye. (link)

Do you think there’s any chance that JK Rowling being an asshole will save us from further Fantastic Beasts movies? The first one was Not good, and I heard the second one was even Not gooder. But maybe that will be the only two we have to suffer through.

The post Down with Forgiveness and Also Ironic Detachment: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.