I read bell hooks’s work in a gender studies my senior year of college, and I have desperately admired her ever since. I’m heartbroken about her death this week. Here’s a round-up of social media tributes to her. (link)

SHARKS. (link)

The new documentary about the Janet Jackson / Justin Timberlake thing will infuriate you. Relatedly, between this and the Brittany Spears thing, do we feel that the New York Times Presents team has a grudge against Justin Timberlake and are now hunting him most-dangerous-game style? Love that journey for him. (link)

You don’t have to finish books you’re not enjoying (but you can if you want). (link)

Everybody alllllllways stays saying they’re right about to find proof of the grandeur of King Solomon’s kingdom, and they never, ever are about to find it. But still this archaeology is cool. But omg, everyone calm down about Solomon. (link)

“The last essay I’ll need to write about David Foster Wallace.” (link)

IT’S NOT JUST YOU: Movie dialogue has been getting less comprehensible, and it’s due to a lot of factors relating to sound design, and also it is not the fault of the sound design people. (link)

Funny cat pictures as trojan horses for misinformation campaigns. Whew. (link)

THEY’RE ALL MORMON. All of them. Every single one. (link)

The American prison system is cracking down on books, because honestly why not. Why not make everyone’s lives as fully bad as possible? (I hate it here.) (link)

Ijeoma Oluo offers some guidelines for thinking about when a story you want to tell belongs to you. (link)

The Netflix Christmas movie cinematic universe is an absolutely wild place to be. (link)

“Professors on campus learned the university could cite no research to support its arguments that Munger Hall’s windowless bedrooms are more than glorified torture chambers.” I love the Dormzilla story so much; it’s so fucking deranged. (link)

Why are university press books so expensive? Hint: It’s not because academic publishers have a boner for keeping costs high. (link)

“What happened next felt like a windfall, an affirmation of my work.” Research makes your fiction richer and better, period. (link)

This piece about Latasha Harlins, the Black child whose murder sparked the 1992 riots in L.A., made me cry. (link)

“I implore you to remember that they are people, not mysteries for you to solve.” Couch Guy on virality and the sleuths of TikTok. (link)

“There’s an entire talk about this wave of Shrek culture at the symposium by a baffled Englishman who has carefully documented the fan fiction of extreme sexual violence, erotic fiction, and in my case, selling nudes covered in green body paint at the tail end of 2015.” The incomparable Jamie Loftus discusses the fan cultures of Shrek online. (link)

This woman went to a restaurant that appears never to have heard of dinner. The chef responded with a three-page declaration that’s somehow even better than you hoped it would be. (link)

Stephen King really REALLY hates fat people. (link)

The discipline of philosophy hates fat people too, but noted feminist philosopher Kate Manne is trying to divest from her internalized anti-fatness. (link)

“The terms for what becomes a culture war story are not decided by the public. Instead, they are decided in newsrooms that don’t mirror reality but certainly help shape it.” (link)

Why is there a typeface called Jim Crow? (link)

“A curious side effect of eliding the explicit queer romance in both the donghua and the live action is that rather than straight-washing the story, it just makes every character and every relationship read as approximately 400% more gay. Why is that? I do not know. Research is ongoing.” This is a post about storytelling in The Untamed, a show that I adore. (link)

Some anticipated books lists for you to enjoy while we all twiddle our thumbs waiting for The Millions to do its thing: The Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of 2022 (link). Queer Adult SFF Books of 2022 (link to Twitter thread). Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2022 (link). The Year of YA Authors Publishing Adult Fiction (link to Twitter thread).

Please feel free to link me to other Anticipated Books of 2022 lists, for I cannot get enough of them! I am sorry because I know there are too many lists possibly but omg I love lists.

The post Didn’t Post Any Links in December: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Suzanne Walker considers the disability narrative (such as it is) in the otherwise really fun show The Witcher.

No one knows anything, and everyone’s mad. Anne Helen Peterson continuing to bring truly excellent reporting on the human elements of the pandemic.

Ancient monks struggled with isolation, too.

Naomi Kritzer wrote the pandemic story five years ago, so now it’s a weird time for her.

Woody Allen’s memoir is in many ways exactly what you would expect. In other ways, Mark Harris is shocked at how incurious a worldview it espouses. I, a stone cold bitch who never liked Annie Hall in the first place, am not (but this is still an interesting read).

Please watch Run on HBO so you can talk to me about how great Merrit Wever is. She is so great. She is so so great. But read the link first, because the show does some morality stuff that not everyone would enjoy. I am kind of surprised I’m able to enjoy it! Such is the power of Merritt Wever.

Here’s why you’re having super vivid dreams lately, according to National Geographic.

Electric Literature talks to the anonymous folks behind the new Publishers Weakly Twitter account.

Last but not least, here are 30 queer YA books coming out this season, so you can place orders for them at Bookshop.org or with your library!

That’s not very many links, I know, but I admit I have been a scootch too dispirited to go on my accustomed vigorous link hunts. I reiterate my hope that you, my internet friends, are safe and well, and with that I will whisk myself off into the weekend where I hope to enjoy both cheese fries and books.

The post No One Knows Anything and Everyone’s Mad: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

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 fantastic.

Also, here’s Rebecca Traister again and the equally fantastic Rembert Browne talking about moving forward with anger and/or optimism in the age of Trump.

What books were some of this year’s most awesomest writers thankful for? Buzzfeed has your list.

The state of Harry Potter fandom in the conflicted age of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

And speaking of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw has some thoughts about queer subtext in that movie and queer-coded villains.

The Merriam-Webster social media team speaks out about their on-point Twitter game.

Long story short, I always thought that Gilmore Girls was problematic and that the Gilmore girls were assholes (but I also love it!), so I’m really enjoying all the thinkpieces that have come out lately reading the revival for filth on those very points.

Also Maddie Myers is one of my fave critics these days, and she has good things to say about the Stars Hollow musical and what a jerk Lorelai is about it. (Lorelai Gilmore is a jerk, pass it on.)

On myths of racial determinism and books like Hillbilly Elegy.

Look up, please: Y’all, this is what I’m talking about. If you witness something like this happening, tell the person to stop. It will suck, but nobody else will do it if you don’t. Be that person.

A history of the concept of political correctness.

On the dearth of famous black writers in sci-fi.

The Atlantic has been doing Trump Time Capsules, but stopped when the election was over. Here’s what they have to say on the future of time capsules.

The post Fantastic Girls and Gilmore Beasts: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.