Garbage in, garbage out: A really straightforward and helpful look at the ways algorithms become biased.

Jia Tolentino is one of my all-time faves, and this is a piece about The Westing Game, so I am about as happy as it is possible for a person to be.

Remember that thing where Sherrilyn Kenyon said her husband was poisoning her? Lila Shapiro has been reporting it ever since, and here, at last, is the story. IT IS SOMETHING.

Holidaygoers do not need to be protected from the violent history of empire in the places they visit.

Nothing on House Hunters is real (but we kinda already knew that, right?).

“Everyone, Jensen said, seemed to be constantly posting about how they were horny and how they wanted to die.” MORE JIA TOLENTINO, this time about the trend of demanding that celebrities kill us.

Here’s how to live in a country where 1/5 of its residents want you gone.

Never stop reading Angelica Jade Bastien’s appreciations of Keanu Reeves. Never do it.

“Very little, if anything, about the cruelty of the internet commentariat is specific to YA.” On diversity critiques on YA Twitter.

I’m sorry to have another article about how women’s rage and women’s suffering never ever ever starts to matter, but this is your article about the most recent in a string of rape accusations against the sitting president. https://www.damemagazine.com/2019/06/25/womens-anger-was-supposed-to-be-a-reckoning-why-isnt-it/

Emily Nussbaum has some great thoughts on what makes TV different than other art in terms of intimacy with the audience.

A terrific interview with Jackie Sibblies Drury, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author of Fairview. (Especially when she talks about how fucking weird Yale is.)

Julia Carpenter writes about the harassment romance novelists face online.

Happy weekend!

The post The Westing Game and Other Matters: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

A list of things I would actually like men to explain to me. LOLSOB TO ALL OF THIS.

Charlie Jane Anders urges writers to play to their weaknesses.

Should corporations have a universal, unfettered right to censor the content their subsidiaries produce?

Jenni Monet now publishes a separate version of her news articles online, specifically for a native audience, after many occasions on which she feels native content in her work has been stifled or eliminated by editors.

A lot of writers title their books Horse Latitudes. An intrepid book reviewer read and reviewed them all.

This profile of Marlon James by one of my favorite critics, Jia Tolentino, is superb but does make me want to stay ten miles away from Marlon James’s books because I can’t spend my life reading rape scenes men wrote.

Wesley Morris asks why the Oscars keep falling for fantasies of racial reconciliation.

Publishing has a diversity problem. What’s it like to be a woman of color in a racist industry?

We’re in the Instagram age of book design (and I personally love it, and I’m not even on Instagram).

Gary Younge is having none of Liam Neeson and NOR AM I.

Happy Friday!

The post I FORGOT HOW TO ROUND THINGS UP: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

A personal account from a former teaching assistant to Avital Ronell, the NYU professor accused of harassment.

The brilliant Carol Anderson recommends books about democracy and its challenges.

Okay, maybe — MAYBE — I will consume this Sherlock Holmes property. MAYBE.

Design a spaceship: Some instructions.

Over at the Book Smugglers, Foz Meadows reminds us to critique the critics when we’re talking about problematic elements in media.

Constance Grady goes in on redemption narratives for men in Hollywood, versus women. Guess who gets the benefit of the doubt.

I absolutely love this piece about the jokes comedians regret making. The people who aren’t white dudes generally have more interesting, thoughtful things to say.

Deadspin and Jezebel understand how hard this time is, and they have accordingly switched out their editors. Two Jezebel writers attend a football game, and a Deadspin writer covers a fashion show.

Why the Serena Williams thing was so viscerally upsetting for black women.

I don’t know what this partnership between Sony and the owners of The Ripped Bodice but I am ALL ABOUT IT.

I just adore this piece about how authors dress their characters — with accompanying fashion images!

Want to know how Crazy Rich Asians managed to look so, like, crazy rich? The Wrap has you covered!

How to fart when sharing a bed.

Here’s some measurements and statistics about how stupid and useless the pockets in women’s clothes are WHEN WE EVEN GET TO HAVE THEM.

Women retell myths from classical antiquity: a top ten list.

Is social psychology in a replication crisis? Professionals differ on the answer.

What women really want from Jian Ghomeshi. Also: a conversation with the editor who decided to run the Jian Ghomeshi piece, in which Isaac Chotiner gives no quarter to bullshit, and which I believe led to the editor being fired/resigning. Also: Rebecca Solnit on the tradition that men are objective and women are subjective. Also: Mo Ryan on abusive men rewriting their stories (badly). Megan Garber on the question of (vis-a-vis Kavanaugh) whether sexual assault is Just How Things Are. Jia Tolentino on dudes being not very sorry at all. Also Lili Loofbourow on Kavanaugh because Jesus Christ this fucking week.

Are we in a romcom renaissance? God I hope so.

Willa Paskin reviews (with spoilers) the show Forever, and gets into some of the reasons I find it frustrating when the whole marketing push for a thing is KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THIS THING GOING IN or it will be COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY RUINT.

Everything you know about obesity is wrong.

Have a great weekend! Cuddle up with blankets and gin and good friends, as I will be doing.

The post More Harassment Links than I Would Prefer: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

And now, on to the links.

Drop everything and read this profile of Jonathan Franzen. It brought such joy to my heart. It was everything I wanted it to be.

Heart of darkness: The grim, authoritarian soul of Thomas the Tank Engine. (This is not new but it is new to me and I need y’all to be aware of it.)

Which borough of New York City would win in a civil war?

Misogyny is boring as hell: A profile of writer Carmen Maria Machado.

That time England paid reparations for slavery — to slaveowners. (And other horrifying stories from the British history of slavery.)

“Alabama organizers have literally never stopped fighting.” Imani Perry on her home state.

Roxane Gay on why To Kill a Mockingbird matters (or doesn’t).

About suffering they were never wrong, the Old Masters.

While I wish this article had talked more about nonbinary folks, who also face a ton of harassment, it was still good to hear from women who have faced harassment as they talk about what they still value about the internet.

The Atlantic’s cover story for Pride Month made me really angry, but Alex Barasch had Slate has a very measured and sensible response to it.

Linda Holmes does not look with favor upon the new Roseanne-without-Roseanne show.

Just read the opening two paragraphs of this piece on women in Luke Cage, even if you don’t want the spoilers from the full article. Because they are a gut punch.

Harassers seem to apologize to everybody except the person they harassed.

Take care of yourselves, friends! Whatever care looks like for you, take the time for it. We’ll all be still here for the fight on Monday. I love y’all.

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

Emily Asher Perrin’s Tor.com piece on identifying with uncool characters spoke to my nerdy, rule-abiding heart.

Akwaeke Emezi talks about finding a path to a truer identity, through Nigerian spiritual beliefs and Western surgeries.

This interview with Jia Tolentino reminds me of so many reasons why I dig her. If you’re not familiar with her work, familiarize yourself! She’s got a book coming out!

Gabrielle Bellot writes brilliantly and eloquently on the colonial thinking that produces remarks about shithole countries, and how every country has “a grandeur in spirit worth fighting for.”

A defense of Book Five Capslock Harry.

Millennial culture is this Twitter thread. (Major spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi contained herein.)

Amal El-Mohtar is taking over for NK Jemisin writing an SFF column for the New York Times Book Review. Two excellent reviewers for an excellent column! What a world!

Some elements of the trailer for The Shape of Water made me suspicious, and I decided not to see it. Elsa Sjunneson-Henry (who did see it) explores the film’s failures of disability representation. (One amazingly easy improvement would have been to cast a disabled actress in the main role.)

On good guys and bad guys and how old-time stories didn’t really have them.

“While men weren’t looking, women built a genre that tackles love, sex, pleasure, class, money, feminism, masculinity, and equality.” Romance novels! (With lots of my fave romance authors being quoted, so hooray for that too.)

Mimi Mondal offers a brief history of South Asian science fiction and fantasy.

The grand jury prize at Sundance this year went to a YA adaptation, The Miseducation of Cameron Post. Woot!

A twitter thread about how to fight in a dress.

One of my 2018 goals is to read more SFF short fiction. Luckily, I have the writers at Lady Business backing me up, including this MASSIVE post of 2017 favorites. What a time to be alive.

Rebecca Traister is so sensible, even when she’s talking about Katie Roiphe who I find to be mostly nonsense.

This interview with the guy who gets Super Bowl halftime shows on the field in LITERALLY SIX MINUTES is really fascinating from a process perspective.

Have a wonderful weekend, friends, and if you’re a Mardi Gras celebrator, have a wonderful Mardi Gras!

The post Too Sleepy to Think of a Title for My Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

“White men’s rage is burning down the world”: Sady Doyle on the profile of the mass shooter.

Also, an older article but an evergreen reminder that a lot of these people do it for the glory. Use the shooter’s name sparingly, if at all, when discussing crimes like these.

At a different point along the toxic masculinity spectrum, some thoughts from Aja Romano on the worst of Rick and Morty fandom and the recent dust-ups over Szechuan sauce at McDonald’s.

On Shirley Jackson and the fetishization of lady murderers. (This article includes spoilers for We Have Always Lived in the Castle.)

Did I link this last time? Lani Sarem’s interview with Vulture? It’s gold. I said “oh SHIT” a couple of times while reading it. Spoilers, Lani Sarem is an enormous liar.

Here’s some really good internet discourse content for your delectation and delight.

Harvey Weinstein in case you missed it (you didn’t miss it) has been accused of a massive amount of sexual harassment going back decades. He has so far apologized for doing it, called his accusers liars, and threatened to sue the New York Times. Rebecca Traister responds. Jia Tolentino also.

I am now in love with D’Arcy Carden, who plays Janet on The Good Place. Read this interview only ONLY if you are caught up on The Good Place.

When should you talk to your children about fascism?

I don’t watch Younger, but I do work in publishing, so this fact-check of Younger’s depiction of publishing charmed me no end.

Have a great weekend!

The post Not My Cheeriest Ever Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

How to be an author on social media.

David Brooks wrote an insane article claiming that cultural barriers are more significant than structural ones, and also ?sandwiches are confusing to uneducated people? look I don’t even know. Anyway, this response about faking it is really good.

Some Spiderman comics to read now that you’ve seen and loved Spiderman: Homecoming.

Lindy West asks: Will men stick up for me?

“We can love a thing and still critique it. In fact, that’s the only way to really love a thing.” Daniel Jose Older on the whiteness of book publishing and how to change it.

Just some solid gold internet content right here.

Okay, I guess in addition to Serena Williams and Pete Sampras, Andy Murray can take up residence in the smallish tennis player corner of my heart. This is nice.

Tony Kushner is writing a Donald Trump play. I should have seen this coming. I can’t wait for it to come out, you know, twenty years from now.

The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler turns fifty.

I have been hearing about this webseries adaptation of Middlemarch QUITE A LOT lately, and although I have been burned by some non-LBD webserieses before, I’m inclined to give love a chance. This decision is in no way influenced by the fact that I’ve recently convinced two friends to watch Lizzie Bennet Diaries and am working on a third. (One of them is sending me text updates and it’s magical.)

The brilliant Clare McBride offers an overview of furry history over at Syfy Wire.

And something really marvelous to end on: The Millions has released their second half of 2017 book preview. HEAVEN.

Have a wonderful weekend, friends! Watch the Wrinkle in Time trailer as many times as you need to: You deserve it.

The post Rewatching the Wrinkle in Time Trailer: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

On diversity in historical romance.

Given the history of Nazi appropriation of medieval studies and folklore, I was particularly interested in this February series at the Public Medievalist about people of color in the medieval world. The introduction to the series is here, and you can click through to the other pieces in it.

Well this story about a doctor who reads a lot but never any women makes me want to punch someone.

Why “we made it for the fans, not the critics” is nonsense.

The US is insisting that Cambodia pay off a huge debt incurred by a dictator the US installed via coup. It’s tremendously garbage.

How to counteract gaslighting.

Linda Holmes is predictably fantastic on the “Missing Richard Simmons” podcast.

I loved this Jezebel review of a book called How Not to Hate Your Husband after Kids, which both gets at a lot of intractable gender dynamics and made me want to read this book whose title initially really really put my back up.

Author Karan Mahajan on being brown in Austin.

Jia Tolentino is such a terrific writer. Here’s her piece on the gig economy and how it celebrates overwork.

Belle should have married Gaston: A historical perspective.

Why do dude journalists think lady celebrities want to sleep with them (spoilers: they don’t)?

The post Interrupting Women: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

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 of this article to accept the word “cluey” into our vocabulary (i.e., the story about the board game Clue), AND THEN STOP, because it is genuinely unbearable to read the rest of these stories, and that’s not hyperbole, I really mean it, for God’s sake don’t be like me and read the whole cluey-ass thing.

“Two powerful men being friends is an inevitability. Two powerful women being friends is a conspiracy”: On how the concept of cliques is used to express suspicion of close female friendship.

Plagiarism in the age of self-publishing.

Thoughts on diversity and publishing from Nikesh Shukla, including some glorious side-eye for stories about middle-aged white male writers having affairs with their lovely young female students.

“The shift in language that trades the word ‘integration’ for ‘diversity’ is critical. Here in [New York City], as in many, diversity functions as a boutique offering for the children of the privileged but does little to ensure quality education for poor black and Latino children.” Nikole Hannah-Jones on the decision to send her daughter to public school in New York City.

Interrogation techniques that aren’t torture.

Down with periods! Up with line breaks!

The post Sad and Angry Week: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.