TV is in a writers’ crisis and a showrunners’ crisis.

What do book people want? UNIONS.

A viral twitter thread claimed that a forager people in Tanzania eat no plants. The thread is wrong; but more importantly, it points up the historical prejudices that continue to haunt the field of anthropology.

The 4*Town backstory you needed after finishing Turning Red.

Everything I have learned about the Amber Heard / Johnny Depp thing has been against my will. The online response to it has been very deeply disturbing.

Western audiences have missed the Buddhist and Daoist thought and symbolism woven through Everything Everywhere All at Once (which I have still not seen yet! argh!).

I do not read audiobooks and cannot weigh in on whether less is more when it comes to audiobook reading, but still I found this article interesting.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor considers the Buffalo shooting and what happens when we try to hide from history.

Here’s what happening in the Republican Party in Idaho.

BookTok is bringing attention and energy to the backlist.

Daniel Lavery lays out some common rhetorical strategies used by families who feel they have the right to determine their loved one’s gender transition by committee.

“Without first having had ASL, I would not have understood myself as a person with a story to tell.” Sara Novic discusses her new book and the recent explosion of art that engages with Deaf culture.

The two best-known Darcys chat about being Darcy.

When Tulane’s medical school was accused of racism, it was the accusers who lost their jobs.

Happy Friday, friends! Hang in there!

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Two articles about burnout: one here, one here.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is a tremendous writer on Black politics, and this profile of her is terrific. (link)

Nadya Agrawal talks about what the movie Bend It Like Beckham meant to her as a kid, and what it means to her now. PS that movie should have been gay. (link)

“This is how a misogynistic culture is conceptualized, created, cultivated and codified. It doesn’t happen because one dude does a bad thing. It happens when like-minded dudes are allowed to be one another’s gatekeepers, and the gatekeepers of broader culture, when faults are allowed to go unexamined, and so they instead spread: Harvey Weinstein dictated the content of movie theaters for decades; it turns out he was abusing women all along. Roger Ailes, Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer shaped coverage and discussion of sexual misconduct scandals throughout the 1990s and 2000s; they were later accused of sexual misconduct themselves.” (link)

And further to the Philip Roth bio: (link).

I ALSO MISS SMALL TALK, and I’m saying that as an introvert so introverted that other introverts are like “geez, dude, lighten up.” (link)

On opening a brick and mortar bookstore during a pandemic. (link)

What makes time loops so eternally alluring? (link)

Bravo and its array of Real Housewiveses has faced a racial reckoning. (link)

Sophie Haigney considers the practice of citation and what it gives to us in this endlessly googlable world. (link)

The landscape of historical romance remains very white, but some authors are trying to change that. (link)

“It’s like being a kid in a candy store, if candy were ebooks.” On the Libby app. (link)

The hot new thing in campus novels is ADJUNCT CAMPUS NOVELS. They have everything: precarity, absurd dissertation topics, not quite nihilism, vengeful hares. (link)

The COVID crisis in India is a direct result of Modi’s primary focus on dismantling Indian democracy and persecuting non-Hindus. Meanwhile, thousands of people are dying. (link)

We remain in scary times, but I hope that you are able to carve out some space for comfort and joy this and every weekend. I myself am doing a puzzle. And reading. And talking with friends, and eating cake. And I hope those things for all of you too.

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

This piece on Netflix password-sharing is incredible, but also, it has such a good update at the end.

Adam Serwer on the Jussie Smollett mess and the history of hate crime hoaxes. Zak Cheney-Rice on what this case does and doesn’t mean.

The knitting community is grappling with racism.

Carrie Ann Lucas, a vocal disability advocate, died because her insurance company wanted to save $2000 on an antibiotic.

All worldbuilding is inherently political.

Here is a completely bananas article about a fake sex doctor, although holy shit TW for dismissive, irresponsible language about suicide and attempted suicide.

I am so embarrassed that I never realized Henry Higgins in Pygmalion is queer-coded. Dammit, My Fair Lady!

Namwali Serpell considers the limits of fiction’s ability to make us more empathetic.

Nobody remembers this influential 19th-century novel, written by a woman. This article argues that it’s all Henry James’s fault, which feels like — kind of a stretch? Like, the whole of the literary canon tends to exclude women as much as possible? I don’t think we can really lay it all at the door of one obituary.

More Murderbot is on the way!

An excellent vid of the ladies of Marvel. (Though as Michi Trota points out, it also highlights the lack of Asian women in the MCU — I’d have loved for this to include some Melinda May!)

Sarah Gailey on how imposter syndrome can lead to abuse.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on Michelle Obama’s persona and her new book, Becoming.

Happy weekend, friends! If you’re in a place that’s liable to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, I hope that place is celebrating in a nice, fun way and not an awful, gropey way!

The post Henry Higgins Is Gay: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

These are just some motherfucking snails inside some motherfucking dollhouses.

Why casting Nagini as an Asian woman is so offensive.

Ron Charles considers whether we still need Banned Books Week, and reaches no real conclusion.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a writer I adore, talks about Howard Zinn and why it matters that his work was essentially and fundamentally collaborative.

I can’t wait to read Rebecca Traister’s latest book, Good and Mad. Here’s everything she was reading while she wrote it.

I typically click straight out of articles that bewail how easy it is to “cancel” somebody, but Wesley Morris has a lot of interesting, thoughtful things to say about art and morality. He also, in my opinion, missed some nuance — as people who complain about cancellation culture often do. Vulture put on a terrific round-table of responses from critics, including another forever-fave of mine, Angelica Jade Bastien. Their conversation helped me to understand something I believe but have been struggling to articulate about artistic disagreement.

What your favorite Shakespeare play says about you.

Roxane Gay reflects on the Kavanaugh hearing and harassers who claim themselves as the victims.

How to tell a good made-up language from a bad one.

Reese Witherspoon peddles a version of Southern femininity that isn’t available to everyone.

Here is a (very spoilery) superb appreciation of Practical Magic, my favorite Halloween movie.

Happy weekend!

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