The Britney Spears truthers are out there, and they are CONVINCED.

“Is it tantamount to sexual harassment to fantasize about being a piece of ice so a Swedish hockey player will glide on you?” This story fascinates me because the only person who I feel clearly did something wrong is the Kraken social media team. AND YET everyone is very unhappy!

Evette Dionne and Tirhakah Love explore the allegations against Lizzo.

The publishing industry keeps consolidating. It’s terrible for books (yes, even now that S&S was not sold to PRH after all!).

Native communities shoulder the cost of reburying the ancestral remains that were taken from their nations. It’s a heavy burden to carry.

Free returns aren’t free (surprise!).

The history of cooking videos!

“Even if you could integrate Bama the brand, you cannot integrate Bama the social reproduction machine.”

“The production team created the conditions of our existence but when we were frustrated with these conditions, we simply turned on each other.” What it’s like to be cast as the villain of a reality show. And speaking of that…

“Quote me on this in capitals and bold letters. Don’t hire anybody to help you through the casting process.” How the cast of season 45 of Survivor got selected.

I’ve been saying for ages that prioritizing the fear of being taken advantage of is morally corrosive, so it’s nice to read an article that’s making that exact same argument from a place of more authority than I personally possess.

What’s it like to be named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists?

This piece on Michael Oher of The Blind Side is tremendously great, top to bottom. I read it three times in a row.

What are we to make of the social media tradwives?

“I’m just saying that he is the sort of guy who is a typical Burning Man attendee these days: the establishment in a goofy hat.” It has been a true pleasure to see the mess of Burning Man.

NUN MUTINY.

“If not blurbs, then what?” This is a terrific piece on the necessity and the injustice of book blurbs.

As someone who is presently watching (and loving) The X-Files for the first time, I endorse this explanation of why it is Good, Actually. (I actually think this writer is understating how good and important the chemistry between the two leads was, but whatever.)

The internet is written in pencil.

A lot of what gets written about AI-generated literature is … kind of garbagey, but this article is legitimately good, thoughtful, and interesting.

JUSTICE FOR NEANDERTHALS.

Happy Friday!

The post lol this is horribly overdue: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

NPR’s Book Concierge for 2022

Brittle Paper‘s list of 100 Notable African Books of 2022.

The Guardian‘s Best Books of 2022.

Paste‘s Best Fantasy Books of 2022.

Kirkus has a bunch of subject-specific lists of best books of 2022.

The Globe and Mail‘s Best Books of 2022.

Laura Miller’s best of 2022. Dan Kois’s best of 2022. (both from Slate)

Shelf Awareness: Best Books of 2022

Chicago Tribune‘s Best 10 Books of 2022

New Scientist‘s best nonfiction of 2022

Washington Post‘s 10 Best Books of 2022

New York Times‘s Best 10 Books of 2022

Foreign Affairs’ Best Books of 2022

Time‘s 100 Must-Read Books of 2022

Barnes and Nobles’ Best Books of 2022

Chicago Public Library’s Best Books of 2022

Vulture’s Best Books of 2022

I am absolutely delighted about Goncharov (1973), and I think you will be too. It is, however, another illustration of how much fandom loves to invest emotions in white characters and whiteness.

“Don’t you want to be able to retire?” How home-reno shows are making us think we want and need home changes we don’t like.

What will writers do without Twitter?

Thank heaven someone has done an oral history of the 12-foot Home Depot skeletons. God bless this Vice article, and God bless the 12-foot Home Depot skeletons. They’re so stupid. I love them so much.

Aubrey Gordon has a new book out and is a national treasure!

An all-spoilers review of what makes Andor so great.

Usually I love the “this industry is completely unregulated!” exposes but this one on hospice is even more of a goddamn bummer travesty than these pieces usually are. Also like… this article takes some turns. You think it’s just “this industry is completely unregulated!” and then some time goes by and there’s a WHOLE ASS SCHEME with a LAWYER IN A WIG DISGUISE and shit. (Seriously, holy shit, I cannot overstate how insane this article is.)

“As the queer content of many of Donatello’s sculptures has been the subject of intense scholarly debate, it would have been intellectually rigorous for the catalogue to address these debates more directly. Instead, silence was observed in deference to the Catholic Church.”

Kavita Das has a new book about writing on social issues, and here she is in a roundtable on the subject with Gaiutra Bahadur and the wonderful Gabrielle Bellot.

The US absolutely owes it to our Afghan allies to adjust the status of refugees now in the US to allow them to stay. Otherwise, they’ll be deported back to Afghanistan. If you take nothing else away from this links round-up, please call your elected officials about this!

Emancipation (the movie!) hadn’t been on my radar until this week, and Valerie Complex has a typically thoughtful review of the movie in itself and the place of Black trauma in cinema.

Always nice to read a story about how romance novels gave someone joy in hard times!

Wesley Morris talks about the crisis of the type of movies that build movie stars.

“Ironically, this is the most personal piece of writing I have ever published.” Isabel Kaplan’s boyfriend (a writer) broke up with her because she’s a writer.

Twitter is awful and being terminally online is awful and everything is awful.

“Our ambulances are simply the entrance to a broken pipeline.” An EMS worker in New York City weighs in on Eric Adams’s shitty new proposal to institutionalize more mentally ill people so that the rest of the New York public won’t have to look at them anymore.

America doesn’t have a polarization problem; it has a white supremacy problem.

Gretchen McCulloch has helpfully standardized how we spell the abbreviated version of the word “usual.” Thanks, Gretchen McCulloch!

Iron Horse asked seven poets about their revision process, and here’s the result.

Have a wonderful weekend! Good luck with your TBR lists! I regret nothing!

The post ‘Tis the Season for Best Books Lists: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Anyway, here are the Depp/Heard links: Gita Jackson on the trial and Moira Donegan on the trial and that’s all the links and the other links are about other topics.

I would like to report that I love nominative determinism. Thank you for your time.

The new film Men, whose trailer I watched twice without realizing all the men are played by the same actor, doesn’t go far enough.

Ten years on, does Gone Girl hold up?

Any time a structure operates without accountability to protect itself rather than the people who comprise it, there will be sexual abuse. A massive new report details how the Southern Baptist Convention silenced survivors and protected perpetrators.

The state of today’s social media encourages plagiarism. Here’s how.

Here’s what’s going on with Seven Seas and its employees’ attempt to unionize.

I’m trying to get more into reading mysteries, so I really appreciated this rec list of historical mysteries that grapple with the violence of empire.

I have seen Double Indemnity despite never seeing movies, and therefore this introduction to it for the Criterion Collection pleased me mightily.

BRING BACK THE AIM AWAY MESSAGE.

Here’s how teens (and everyone!) can identify and avoid conspiracy theories online.

Valerie Complex speaks out about racism at the Cannes film festival.

How to end a story.

And that’s how to end a links round-up!

The post Unfortunately Some Links on the Depp/Heard Trial: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Nasim Mansuri finds a way to love a book — CS Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy — that doesn’t love her back. (link)

The first generation of school shooting survivors has grown up. (link)

Who gets to go with their gut in the movies? Who gets to be the hero who saves the day? (SPOILERS, it’s men.) (link)

Anne Helen Peterson’s description of why Candy Crush is addictive and empty, and Wordle is fun and sweet, is so spot on. (link)

In news that will surprise nobody, Noom is just a diet app, rebranded. I hope the Maintenance Phase podcast does an episode on Noom soon, but I suppose that would be giving them more attention I don’t want them to have. Fuckin diet culture. (link)

Another review of To Paradise, this one getting into Hanya Yanagihara’s pretty messed-up attitude toward disability! Among other things! (link)

I absolutely love The Secret History, but even so, this essay about the moral vacuity of its world is very good. (But I still love it.) (link)

Do you want Bernardine Evaristo to recommend you some books, of course you want that. (link)

“Let people like things” is a credo that has stepped way beyond its original context. (link)

How much do influencers charge brands? NOBODY REALLY KNOWS, not even the influencers or the brands, but one company is trying to change that. (link)

“For kids today from poorer backgrounds, the path I took through education no longer exists.” A $4000 Pell Grant changed Tara Westover’s life. (link)

What is all the constant tracking and counting doing to our reading habits? (Despite having insanely read 31 books in January, I cannot relate to this article because I never set numbered reading goals.) (link)

Sarah Raughly considers what it means that it takes Black tragedy to get publishers interested in Black books. (link)

That’s all for now! Wish me luck on a very busy weekend!

The post When your favorite Narnia book is the racist one: A links round-up appeared first on Reading the End.

YES THAT IS RIGHT IT IS THE BOOK PREVIEWWWWWWWW. (link) I haven’t read it yet because I discovered it’s there approximately thirty seconds before writing these very words. I am saving it as a treat for the end of the work week. Yay. Yay. Yay. I love this book preview. I thank The Millions so much for doing it. I know it is a lot of work.

Okay! On to the rest of the links! A lot of them are about television! Watch Leverage: Redemption on IMDBtv!

LET LEVAR BURTON HOST JEOPARDY (link)

Jeannette Ng unpacks some of the history and political assumptions of the wuxia genre. (link)

Molly Ostertag considers queer readings of Lord of the Rings, and what Tolkien might have meant. Including: a surprise guest appearance by Mary Renault! (link)

“Sex/Life is the most boring and meager of sexual fantasies for straight women stuck in mundane marriages who wish they had something better to cling to.” I love a good pan, and Scaachi Koul’s of this Netflix show I’ve never heard of is excellent. (link)

“I do not want to win someone else’s game.” Nikole Hannah-Jones’s statement on why she is walking away from UNC is excellent, and heartbreaking. (link)

Products that go viral on TikTok are typically a flash in the pan. (link)

NEW LEVERAGE IS HEEEEEEEEEEERE so please enjoy this interview with the cast. Then go watch New Leverage. It’s exactly what I wanted it to be. Except for in my vision there would be more Hardison, but I understand Aldis Hodge is a fancypants movie star with a fancypants movie star schedule, sob. (link)

So-called “pot-hunters” regularly loot Native American graves, removing not just funerary artifacts but even human remains. When will it end? (link)

Surprise! People actually enjoy commutes. I can confirm this: Adding a small commute to my day (like 15 minutes) gives me time to decompress before and after work, and get some dedicated reading time. (link)

The life of an assistant in Hollywood has worsened drastically with the fall of network TV. (link)

Not prosecuting people for low-level misdemeanors turns out to reduce crime all around! Hooray! Let’s all just do that, then! (link)

This joint interview with Juno Temple and Hannah Waddingham, of Ted Lasso, will make your heart sing. What a lovely pair of women. Also you should watch Ted Lasso. It is not a perfect show but it is really great in many ways. (link)

I am crushed to learn that despite the incredible cast, Gunpowder Milkshake is boring and bad. CRUSHED. (link)

In closing, please watch New Leverage. If you don’t know what New Leverage is, I highly recommend repairing to IMDBtv (it’s free!) or Amazon Prime and watching the pilot of Leverage. It is very close to being a perfect pilot. Every time I think about the pilot of Leverage, I want to watch the pilot of Leverage. I want to watch it right now, typing this. It slaps. Thank you for your time.

The post I Love Television: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

First and most importantly: The Millions Book Preview! (link)

Serial killers are in decline, hooray! (link)

“Despite the joys of his irreverence, however, it is all too easy to sink in the morass of sexism, if not outright misogyny, muddying the plots of Vonnegut’s novels.” On the writers adored by men of Tinder. (link)

The surreal, chaotic, extremely online culture of quarantine. (link)

Here’s what we lose as publishers combine into a giant scary publishing conglomerate (of evil). (link)

Finding friendship through fandom, a very relevant story in These Times. (link)

“No one gets into anime for clout.” Stitch on the backlash to Megan Thee Stallion enjoying anime. (link)

Schitt’s Creek is a wonderful warm glorious show and this is a good appreciation of its central relationship. (link)

Wonder Woman Number Two is not good. (link)

Disney won’t stop changing protagonists of color into animals. Can we not? (link)

Native Twitter loves Baby Yoda and here’s why. (link)

Want your book published? It helps to be white — just like 85% of acquiring editors. (link)

“Every day, I thank God that Tolkien did not live long enough to share his opinions on Twitter, unlike, say, other wildly popular and previously beloved fantasy authors of our era.” On rewatching Lord of the Rings at Christmas. (link)

Alyssa Cole won’t apologize for putting politics in her romance novels (& she shouldn’t because they’re amazing). (link)

An interview with the intimacy coordinator for Bridgerton. (link)

Remember American Dirt? A controversy that happened in 2020 and people were like “oh no cancel culture”? Well, it remained a bestseller even after All That Mess, but here’s a postmortem on why it all went down that way. (link)

Don’t forget about progressives in red states. (link)

TV characters aren’t wearing masks consistently. It is not the best. (link)

Also not the best: the ongoing romanticization of the British monarchy. We hate monarchies! Remember? We hates it! Strange women lying about in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! (link)

There’s still an age gap problem in roles for actresses, and we are beyond tired of talking about it. (link)

“He promised that he would be with them. But, like a lazy coward, Trump went home to watch the show on TV.” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor goes deep on the convergence between white supremacists and the Republican party. (link)

The Color Purple is a masterpiece, not least for the way it gives a voice to survivors of trauma. (link)

“It has always sucked to compare yourself to the prettiest girl in school, but it sucks a lot more to feel like everybody else in the entire world is the prettiest girl in school.” On the faux-body positivity of Instagram. (link)

Wesley Morris is predictably fabulous writing about The Great Gatsby. (link)

I am very excited to read Aya de Leon’s sex worker heist novels. I have the first one checked out right now. Here’s how she became a writer. (link)

These have been SOME LINKS. I hope you enjoyed them! I hope that your workplace has given you the federal holiday of Martin Luther King Day off. Please have a very blessed weekend in which you get lots and lots of rest. I’m sorry we all have lived to see such times.

The post MILLIONS BOOK PREVIEW: A very belated links round-up appeared first on Reading the End.

“Watching the series, I was unable to ignore one central question: Why should we give a damn about the emotional life of a racist, sexist white woman?” Angelica Jade Bastien is typically brilliant on Mrs. America. (link)

Judith Butler is not having it. (link)

Maisy Card considers her memory of Nanny, leader of the Jamaica Maroons. (link)

Code Switch tries to figure out what kind of books we should be reading during quarantine, with the help of Farah Jasmine Griffin. (link)

A wonderful profile of romance and thriller novelist Alyssa Cole! (link)

Here is an oral history of Wishbone. I love Wishbone! (link)

How do people understand each other? Linguist David Adger discusses how language works. (link)

The James Beard Awards got canceled this year, and it’s all a big mess. Here’s your guide to what’s going on. (link)

“It’s a system that can construct a fiction with facts.” ZZ Packer discusses the facts that were raised by Kentucky’s attorney general in the Breonna Taylor case, and the facts that were obscured. (link)

Aisha Harris has created a pretty incredible taxonomy of modern American blackface. (link)

An open letter from the UK & Irish publishing community, in solidarity with trans and nonbinary people. (link)

“I’ve spent the past four months watching sex scenes to determine which seeming sex symbols actually, you know, have sex in movies.” (link)

Can we rethink how YA frames coming out? (link)

“To answer a glaring question: No, collab houses don’t really make any money. It is not a wise business decision, per se, for a management company to spend lavishly on rent solely because fans like seeing their favorite TikTokers hanging out together.” This is fascinating. (link)

Rejoice! Despite the meaninglessness of all time, it is nevertheless the weekend! Eat, drink, and be merry! As for me and my house, we are in intensive quarantine and shall have no pancakes this Sunday, but we will struggle to get by all the same.

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

Remember I told you about bookshop.org, where you can order books and it’s like indie bookstore Amazon? Well, they have a wonderful list of March and April book releases, and we can help them gain exposure and visibility in this time of coronavirus! And here’s how to support indie bookstores in a time of pandemic. For my own part I have preordered four books that I’m excited about from the queer-owned SF indie bookshop Tubby & Coos, using Bookshop dot org. Thanks Bookshop dot org!

Speaking of March book releases, we interviewed Intisar Khanani, author of the brand new (and terrific!) YA novel Thorn, for the podcast this week! Listen and buy her book — it’s wonderful!

And in case you’re still not sure why March/April book releases matter, here’s Amy Klein on what it’s like to have a book released in the midst of coronavirus.

Nicole Chung will only have a few more opportunities to see her mother alive. So what should she do about traveling in a time of pandemic? (This, uh, is a slightly older article, in that it’s quite recent but still feels like it’s coming to us from the past. WHY IS CORONAVIRUS HAPPENING SO MUCH.)

The Decameron has become, um, extremely relevant allasudden.

An expert on gatherings answers questions about how we’re going to view our social lives, businesses, etc., during and after this time of pandemic.

That time JRR Tolkien got mad at WH Auden for trying to write a book about him. He found it very distracting from his important project of finishing The Silmarillion, because of course he did.

In defense of Jessica on Love Is Blind.

“To save you two hours of hearing Hooper explain over and over why cats are cats but also not cats, we’ve pulled out 20 highlights from the director commentary for you to enjoy.” Dispatches from the directory’s commentary on Cats.

This is a very useful Q&A about COVID19 as it relates to groceries, delivery, and getting takeout. This is also a very useful piece about not panicking re groceries and delivery services.

The downfall of a school of witchcraft and wizardry.

Triaging COVID-19 patients based on their presumed likelihood of recovery is wrong.

….What.

“I’m going to say a silent prayer for Mr. Ronald now and roll for him later.” So this is how this is going. tw: distressing COVID-19 content.

Looking back at these links, there are… more of them about coronavirus than I necessarily intended. I am tired of having incompetent national leadership, and I would like to go on break for that. Plus nobody seems able to tell me whether our stupid stimulus checks are going to be taxable income, but I assume that they are and it makes me want to punch everyone in the dick.

ANYWAY. Federal incompetence aside, I love all of y’all a great deal, and I hope you will drop a line to let me know what’s been keeping you sane. We could all use some good ideas!

The post Apparently We’re Two Weeks In: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Frankly, I think a great parenting move would be for parents of kids of all genders to focus on being attentive to the needs of others. But oh my God, yes, men do not clean up spills or feel responsibility for cleaning up spills.

How to build a kinder online community — or, how polite criticisms en masse can still feel like hostility.

“Feminist researchers have also found that many women don’t feel that they deserve long stretches of time to themselves, the way men do. They feel they have to earn it. And the only way to do that is to get to the end of a To Do list that never ends.”

J. Ryan Stradal talks about the skills shared in common by novelists and reality TV producers.

Soraya Roberts goes deep on the public intellectual and their value to the Discourse.

“Netflix has made heartwarming reality shows central to its brand.” An excellent decision, because if there is one thing I need, it is heartwarming shows. See also Jane the Virgin.

Lord I am exhausted by the Jane Mayer thing about Al Franken but anywhere here’s a follow-up from Jezebel. Meanwhile CBS renewed Bull, because of course they did. The world is a garbage fire.

Apparently everyone on Tinder loves tacos.

The Where the Crawdads Sing lady CAN’T GO BACK TO ZAMBIA BECAUSE OF ALLEGATIONS HER HUSBAND KILLED A MAN.

Speaking of white writers, Anne Tyler adopts “a posture of racial silence” when writing about Baltimore — which Jess Row argues is common for white writers of her generation.

This is a very unsettling piece about a particular kind of work environment. I AM UNSETTLED.

Have a great weekend, friends, and reflect on the peace-giving fact that if you haven’t been kicked out of Zambia for maybe killing a man, you are doing better than the author of a Reese Witherspoon book club book.

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