I continue to derive so much comfort from reading, and to that end I’ve got some links. I also recommend the brand new television show Abbott Elementary and the quite old television show Star Trek: The Next Generation, as they are making me feel better. I just finished Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow and loved it, so that’s another rec for you if you’re in the mood for a story about a girl burning shit down. And now, on to the links!

ABBOTT ELEMENTARY. … This show is great. Here are some things about it and its greatness. (link) Plus an interview with Janelle James, who plays the principal. (link)

Lauren Michele Jackson considers appropriation, AAVE, and the artist formerly known as Awkwafina. (link)

“How can we make men care? Does a fear of being disgraced have to be part of the incentive?” This is an interesting article with the really depressing, though unsurprising, punchline that abusers will only think critically about the harm they’ve caused if they can do so while still controlling the possibility of facing consequences; and not often then. (link)

The Crisis Text Line turned out to be an extremely typical tech bro company. Compassionate care for people struggling with suicidal ideation is incompatible with its ethos. (link)

Pregnancy apps are rife with misinformation and propaganda. (link)

I loved this curated list of Black food cookbooks that focus on plant-based recipes. (link)

Norman Mailer hasn’t been canceled — but the uproar about Random House pulling a planned book of his essays says a lot about the state of cancel culture discourse. (link)

“This is not the end. It is a change.” Tiya Miles advises looking to Black history to understand and ameliorate our current fears. (link)

Toril Moi reminds writers not to write for readers who hate them. Write for the people who want to hear what you have to say. (Great reminder in the age of Twitter.) (link)

Morgan Jerkins thinks it’s long past time for Jessie Redmon Fauset to have a literary renaissance. (I am very easily swayed by people being like “everyone should know such-and-such writer from long ago!”) (link)

This piece about the artist Piranesi makes an excellent companion to Susanna Clarke’s latest novel Piranesi. (link)

You’re Going To Italy In A Novel By A Non-Italian Writer! Are You Going To Have A Good Time? (link)

This is a beautiful piece about love, queer love, platonic love, and how queer literature can help us to escape the trap of believing that love only looks one way. (link)

Caretakers are being left to fail. Any conversation about the so-called Great Resignation has to take this into account. (link)

Delighted to learn that Patricia Lockwood was influenced by Emily of New Moon, which I also love. (link)

Take care, and take care of each other, and also Happy Mardi Gras.

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HERE IT IS. (link)

“I doubt Joanna Gaines had ‘Build a Personal Brand Empire Increasingly Reliant on Data Scraping’ on any of her five year plans.” A story of a home renovation show nightmare, and the increasingly surveillance-based world of personal brands. (link)

“Not everything the internet treats as ambiguous actually is. Texts generally do contain evidence that certain interpretations are more valid than others.” (link)

Why are all the TV shows and movies an indeterminate browny-gray these days? (link)

“It feels very much like we’re paying for our freedom — like they have left us to die and are selling us back the right to live.” The cost of at-home COVID tests is a significant financial burden that falls heaviest on poor and disabled people. (link)

This review of Hanya Yanagihara’s latest novel contains many spoilers for A Little Life (and cw discussions of suicide, self-harm, and abuse), and it puts its finger exactly on many of the things I found objectionable about that book, and probably this new one too. (link) (As a caveat, I don’t think it’s appropriate to try to police whether an author is sufficiently queer or sufficiently traumatized to write about queerness and trauma, and I find it very gross that interviewers have asked Yanagihara invasive questions about these things.)

The evolution of book-finding and place-finding. (link)

Joss Whedon’s impact on TV is massive; but his legacy is kind of a mess. (link) He also gave an interview to Vulture, which someone ought to have stopped him from doing but I’m glad they didn’t because he sure says a lot of things. (link)

Elmo vs Rocco and the dubious pleasures of being an adult watching children’s programming. (link)

“We are know-it-alls because we are responsible for knowing everything.” On scams and our constant efforts to avoid them. (link)

How do children’s books address slavery? And what needs to change? (link)

The Gilded Age is really good. On the other hand, how many shows about the adventures of jerky white people does HBO really need? (link)

I loooove to see the Black women of country music get their flowers. (link)

Here is a legitimately sweet and nice interview with the creator of Wordle. (link)

What book previews have you enjoyed so far in 2022? Have you read any 2022 books yet? Are there particular ones you’re dying to get your paws on? I haven’t gone on a proper Netgalley requesting spree in a while, and I definitely oughtn’t do that now, but it is still quite possible that I will.

Also, look. If you read one link from this links round-up, I beg that it will be the Joss Whedon profile in Vulture. It’s just… so damning. There are so many lines in it that made me shriek, not in a good way, and while it’s not necessarily telling you anything you didn’t already know about Joss Whedon’s mindset and behavior as a boss, it’s still fascinating to read it all in one place. My only caveat is that the writer barely challenges Whedon on his racism towards Ray Fisher, either in what she quotes him as saying or when she’s talking about the incident. Which doesn’t seem like a coincidence! In a piece that rebuts moooooost of what Whedon is saying.

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