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.

Here’s why the VFX world of the movies is so extremely broken.

Color-blind casting is supposed to create a fantasy world for a broader set of audiences. But it comes with its own problems. See also: “Does colonialism exist in Bridgerton’s world?”

The wonderful Gabrielle Bellot considers Netflix’s Sandman.

Conspiracy theories about celebrity pregnancies are unalloyed misogyny.

The CEO who (allegedly) raised everyone’s salary to $70,000 is an abuser, and he has been known to be one for quite some time. Please stop RTing his content!

What makes a dumpling a dumpling? (Challenge: Read this story without achieving semantic satiation on the word “dumpling.”)

“[She] sometimes converses like she has a tiny Bachelor producer in her brain” is the funniest description I can imagine. Anyway, here is a compassionate and smart profile of Meghan Markle!

I am obsessed with this London Underground-style map of the human body.

Why have US universities let themselves become pipelines to Lockheed Martin and similar defense contractors?

JK Rowling has uh. has written a new book. of sorts.

How Normal Gossip (a newish favorite podcast of mine!) gets made.

Masiyaleti Mbewe considers the state of African millennial fiction — though tragically without mentioning the very millennial (in my opinion) The Eternal Audience of One.

Charlie Warzel reflects on the mistake that led to him being Twitter’s main character for a day, and considers what we can learn from it.

Add this to the list of Scientology’s abuses: It relies on a steady stream of immigrant labor that it acquires by cheating the R1 visa system and abusing immigrant workers.

One of my favorite genres of article is “THIS SYSTEM IS TOTALLY UNREGULATED.” For your consideration today: dog training.

“Hollow moral leadership upheld by a spectacle of extravagant, ill-gotten wealth has enabled Britons to remain proud of rather than reflective about empire and its destructive impact today.”

“The Queen is not entitled to your grief.” Ayan Artan, a Somali-British writer, considers the marketing effort on behalf of the monarchy to conceal and erase the damage of British imperialism.

“People like Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder who has gone all in on The Rings of Power, have more wealth than they could possibly use in a single lifetime, and in many respects more power than any king could ever have dreamed of; the rest of us face rising rents, inflation, and a gig economy that affords few protections when we get sick or injured.” On the new crop of fantasy TV shows.

Chinelo Okparanto considers the ethics and aesthetics of writing across racial identities.

Sarah Weinman reflects on Serial and all that it did and didn’t do.

Tips and tricks to run a good book club.

It’s always a cause for celebration when Lamar Giles has a new book out! He has a new book out AND he’s writing about social horror, yay!

Scaachi Coul is terrific as ever on the downfall of the Wife Guy. Linda Holmes on audience entitlement re: same.

This is superb TikTok journalism and I think Kady Ruth Ashcraft for doing it.

“The Very Online never leave: they hate it here but they’re never anywhere else.” On the digital afterlife of my beloved Constantine Cavafy.

So-called “secret menus” that go viral on TikTok are making the lives of fast food workers hell.

Hell of a kicker on this piece about how India’s movie industry has been affected by the rise of Hindu nationalism.

Maori polar explorers!

Happy weekend, friends!

The post It’s Scary How Many Links There Are: 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.

I have never heard of this alt-lit writer from a time before I was quite as online as I am now, but this profile of her was still fascinating. (link)

By contrast, I was around for the full four hours of the recent YA authors / NFT kerfuffle, and since it was very brief and ended up harming nobody, I pronounce it a very enjoyable Twitter kerfuffle. Here is the recap of this scheme that multiple people apparently thought was a good idea. (link)

Don’t feel guilty for your guilty pleasures! (Or, yet another piece of proof that what I have come to mean when I say “guilty pleasures” is not the same as what other people mean when they say “guilty pleasures.”) (link)

I swear this will be the last of my links about the bad art friend. (link) And this one too. (link) And that’s it. Sorry.

The plumber is not trying to kill you, and other thoughts on where white-lady true crime has left us. (link)

When people leave Q-Anon, they need support, and that support has been very hard to find. (link)

“Being complicit pays.” Kayleigh Donaldson pans the new documentary series about Brittany Murphy’s life. (link)

Social media work and audio producing are their own forms of ghostwriting. (link)

Another excellent Fan Service column from Stitch! This one’s about ways of thinking about the morality of darkfic. (link)

What online stories have you been reading, friends? Also, I don’t really think your hands are unlovable! That was only a figure of speech.

Also, today is Oscar Wilde’s terrible ex-boyfriend Bosie’s birthday. Celebrate accordingly, I hope by cleansing your house and mind of any traces of your own terrible exes.

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

MUMSY READ THIS ARTICLE. Everyone in it is such an asshole. THANKS AND SEE YOU SOON. (link)

Did your mom keep buttons in that one kind of cookie tin? Priya Krishna goes long on food containers and how we repurpose them. (link)

In trying to rewrite sexist narratives about the women of the 90s (and other recent times), films and TV shows often flatten out their complexities. (link)

Someone’s gotta stop Disney. (link)

Here is a piece about Margaritaville in Times Square that’s really about our relationship to work and leisure and how fucked up it all is. (link)

BLOB COVERS. Now that someone’s pointed it out, I can’t unsee it. (link)

Jails and prisons were always unbearable. Under COVID, they’ve gotten worse. (link)

“If one race—black people—was essentially invented in order to be bought, sold, used, and enjoyed at will, the desire to transform oneself into that race, even imaginatively, amounts to the capitalist impulse to own.” Namwali Serpell on racial transformation. (link)

“Viewing the average R. Kelly defender as uniquely deranged misses the societal forces that empower people like him in the first place.” Shamira Ibrahim on her time among the R Kelly supporters at his trial. (link)

The dangers of stan Twitter. (link)

“There would be no River of Gender to cross and leave my old life behind.” Ryka Aoki (whose new SFF book Light from Uncommon Stars I reviewed this week!) on what Ranma 1/2 meant to her. (link)

Who coaches the life coach? (or, cultish nonsense, part eleven trillion) (link)

Have a beautiful and majestic weekend, my darlings! Remember to strive for ethical behavior in all things! And remember that even if someone does a slightly unethical behavior unto you, it’s wise to have a sense of proportion rather than stalking and harassing the person what wronged you over the course of five years.

The post I’m Sorry But I Need to Talk about It: 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.

….Here are some links.

Atul Gawande knows how to stop the spread of coronavirus when we reopen.

A VP at Amazon resigned in disgust due to the treatment of whistleblowers about the treatment of warehouse employees. Word.

God, Anne Carson rules.

Why we miss our weak ties so much in the age of COVID.

COVID has added a new clause to America’s racial contract.

Jaya Saxena signs up for oodles of online experiences, and reports back.

G….osh, I have learned some things about author Emily Giffin this month.

Antarctican isolation offers the perfect opportunity to observe a new accent as it forms. Antarctica also offers insight into why people are starting to go extra crazy in these exact days that we are now in.

SL Huang considers the vagaries of genre labels (as a writer whose books straddle the line between SF and thriller).

The hero our quarantine needs: The filmed staged version of Hamilton (with the original cast!) is coming to Disney+ on July 3rd.

The translation of women by women is a feminist project.

If you’re like me and have been mopity-moping around since 2013 about the lack of new Sarah McCarry books, your struggles are at an end!!

What are you up to these days, my lovely friends? Has anything from the internet particularly tickled your fancy? Drop me a line and tell me all about it!

The post Atul Gawande Saves the Day with Common Sense: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Advice on how to dress professionally hits marginalized women so, so differently than men or even women with more privilege.

Toni Morrison died this month at the age of 88. The Guardian has a round-up of author tributes to her. Hannah Giorgis considers her legacy in American writing.

The interlibrary loan system (in America) is the apex of human civilization. It just is.

Jay-Z’s deal with the NFL is giving them cover for Colin Kaepernick.

Here are the creepiest sexist film reviews ever. (I am delighted that the Wonder Woman review is included here, because Jesus Christ.)

How did escape rooms become such a phenomenon? (I went to one once and I couldn’t stop coughing and it was rather stressful. The game master person came on the intercom to be like “….do you need a cough drop?” and it was like the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me, although it did not cure my cough, in the end.)

A pleasing trend in time-traveling lesbians has emerged; please everyone read The Psychology of Time Travel.

I enjoy it when people get mad about colloquialisms. (I say this as someone who sometimes gets mad about colloquialisms.)

“Rereading Jane Eyre recently, I was struck by how witchy it is.” On the resurgence of witches in pop culture.

These are tiny dollhouse renos. I have nothing to add to that.

The 1619 Project is an initiative by the paper to observe the 400th anniversary of slavery coming to America. It’s a massive undertaking under the leadership of Nikole Hannah-Jones, and if you have NYT access, you shouldn’t miss it. The Guardian is running a week-long series to commemorate the same event, which you can find here.

In many ways things are incredibly bad and getting worse, but here’s a bright side: Looks like humans cured Ebola???

This is a very pure video.

I hope that you have glorious plans for the weekend. It is Thursday as I write this, and I have already used up a rewatch of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, but if you haven’t yet done that this week, I recommend it. However charming you remember it being, you are exactly right. It is that charming. I might watch it another time this weekend. It’s in my top three movies and I mean that, along with Clueless and 10 Things I Hate about You YEAH YOU HEARD ME AND I STAND BY IT.

This has ended on a strangely combative note. I wish you all good luck in this cold dark world.

The post Interlibrary Loans Are Pure Solid Gold: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Anyway, not that anyone was sitting at home like “huh where is Jenny,” but that is where I have been. Undergoing changes and fretting about them. Not reading very much. I am not at my best, but also (ofc) feeling extremely guilty for not being at my best. Like who am I that I deserve to have days — entire weeks actually! — when I am not at my best? NOBODY, THAT’S WHO.

Oh, you know what’s a book I did read? I read a picture book about a girl who never makes mistakes. I loved it at once and it was #lifegoals but then, can you believe, as the book goes on, the girl makes an enormous, a genuinely mortifying mistake that would scar a real child for life; or if not that, then it would surely create in her a renewed desire to, from there on out, achieve perfection in all things. But in this NONSENSE PICTURE BOOK, do you know what happens? She resigns herself to making mistakes sometimes. HAH. The little girl in the picture book is WEAK and took the COMPLETELY WRONG LESSON away from her awful, humiliating error. What a terrible book.

Whatever. Here are some links.

On the whiteness of craft culture.

Extremist hate groups understood online platforms in a fundamental way long before the New York Times cottoned on, reports New York Times writer who doesn’t listen to black women on Twitter. (I’m being snarky, but this article makes some interesting points about how online platforms function, which is why I’m sharing it.)

Why judging the poor isn’t helping anybody.

Michael Twitty, author of a new book about black heritage and black food in the South, speaks to Hannah Giorgis of The Ringer about his family and his research.

Daniel Heath Justice on the students he teaches and the question of whether they are special snowflakes who don’t live in the real world. And a pairing: Kiese Laymon on people he knew at Vassar and their power and privilege.

MUMSY DO NOT CLICK THIS NEXT LINK. I WANT TO TELL YOU THIS STORY MYSELF. Everyone else, definitely click this next link. Okay Mumsy it is all right, I have now told you this story. Click away.

Watching the YA community doggedly figure out why Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give got bumped down to number two on the NYT Bestseller List by a book nobody had ever heard of was frankly magical. Here’s a YA literary agent breaking down why this story was so bonkers.

Speaking of scams, here’s an author who has lied about pretty much everything, including I SWEAR TO GOD making up an agent, building that fictional agent a website, and using a picture of Ian Somerhalder for that agent’s face. What is this world.

Wesley Morris on white supremacy in the pop culture of this summer.

“Jenny when will you stop linking to everything Ijeoma Iluo writes?” IDK friends but today is not that day. Here she is making me cry on the subject of talking to your kids about race early and often.

Have an amazing weekend! I will be inside my apartment all weekend trying to reconstruct my fractured ego.

The post A slightly glum update (and a links round-up) appeared first on Reading the End.