Here’s what it’s like to be an audiobook narrator.

I wouldn’t exactly call Gaudy Night an “overlooked” novel but that doesn’t mean I will turn up my nose at this appreciation of Gaudy Night and its heroine, my favorite character in all of literature, Harriet Vane.

So here’s the thing about My Favorite Murder. (Disclosure, I am not a true crime person so I do not have any motive to defend MFM except that many of my friends adore it.)

What to buy the children in your life this holiday season. There is so much truth in this post, especially the part about how children love office supplies.

WELP this is a horrifying article about the TV show Almost Family and how traumatizing it is for people who have actually found themselves in the sit this com purports to represent.

Petition to rename the Iron Age the Flax Age.

So a private equity firm has bought up the dot-org registry, which means that .org at the end of a website will no longer mean nonprofit. Eat the fuckin rich.

Courttia Newland talks about ways that white women demean and harass black men, largely depending on the stereotype of hypersexual black masculinity.

“When you order something from Amazon and you’ve worked inside Amazon, you wonder, ‘Hey, is ordering my package going to be the demise of somebody?’” On the (un)safety practices at Amazon’s fulfillment warehouses. A reminder that if you can avoid shopping at Amazon, it’s good to avoid it. They are very evil over there.

Government policy penalize disabled people for working or getting married.

This is a really amazing podcast, and I admire and respect Joey Clift so much for doing this. Native comedian Joey Clift was asked onto a podcast to talk about gross stereotypes of Native Americans in a video game. On Thanksgiving. He called the podcast hosts out on this.

I’m reliably in love with “these books are overlooked” lists, so I adore this Lithub round-up of the best overlooked books of the decade.

“In his fiction, marriage is a force intended to control women; in life, he acted as though marriage was intended to trap men.” On marriage and domestic companionship in Wilkie Collins’s life and fiction.

Some thoughts on how major African literary prizes are contributing to the work of canon formation. (This reminded me v much of Toni Morrison saying that canon building is empire building. Phew.)

Alejandro Zambra on learning English and writing for translation.

Black film critics are facing backlash for criticisms of Queen and Slim. Andre Wheeler talks to Clarkisha Kent and Angelica Jade Bastién about the phenomenon.

And that’s it for now! Have a wonderful weekend, and fill up your Christmas lists with the NPR Book Concierge recommendations!

The post Does Anything but the NPR Book Concierge Matter? A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Of course, when I do make time for the books that I own but haven’t read, I rarely regret it. I bought Kassia St Clair’s The Secret Lives of Colour when I was in London with Mumsy and Alice, in the Notting Hill branch of Daunt Books, a shop whose bags Alice and I had seen so many times during our stay in London that we were starting to feel like we wouldn’t be true Londoners if we did not acquire a Daunt Books bag.

Well, for one thing, Daunt Books is a damn treasure — and we weren’t even in the main branch! We were in a satellite branch! When I go into an independent bookstore, the first most important thing that I desire is for its selection to feel curated. Daunt Books had that in spades, plus an organizing principle that nods to its primary function as a travel bookstore and makes a shopper feel urbane as hell: The books are organized by country, where each country’s section begins with phrasebooks, dictionaries, and travel guides, branches out into history, and finishes up with literature from that country. I was so deeply in love that I bought three books I didn’t need and barely had room for; when I got home Mumsy was like “uhhhhhh are you going to be within the weight limit for checked bags?” and I was like “lol we’ll see!” (I was.)

The Secret Lives of Colour was the book I purchased solely because of its beauty, and I rejoice to report that it’s as brilliant as it is beautiful. You can see why Daunt Books, my new favorite indie bookstore,¹ selected it for inclusion in its inventory. St Clair cycles through the color wheel telling stories of colors that stood the test of time, colors history forgot how to make, and colors that would literally kill you.

(Stop spelling the word “color” two different ways, Jenny!)

Some things I learned from this book include: Half of China’s current ivory supply comes from woolly mammoth tusks that have been unearthed because the damn polar ice caps are melting; everyone in ancient Egypt lined their eyes with kohl because everyone looks great in eyeliner;² and people will pay just about any price and kill any number of innocent beetles to have beautiful dyes for their clothes. Oh, and it was a hell of a life trying to be a painter in olden times because half your colors were trash and the other half cost all the money you had in the world.

The Secret Lives of Colour makes perfect bedtime reading in (I swear I use this phrase in every post now, but I want y’all to know that I would be so excited if it no longer applied and I would terminate its use with extreme prejudice if I could) these troubled times. St Clair tells short, charming, weird stories of paints and dyes and pigments, and everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

PS the margins of each page have a swatch of the color currently under discussion. I love this book. I am so happy I bought it. Thanks, London.

The post Review: The Secret Lives of Colour, Kassia St. Clair appeared first on Reading the End.