AT LAST it is Millions Book Preview O’Clock wooooo!

Brandon Taylor really really REALLY did not enjoy the new adaptation of Persuasion. I do not have a dog in this fight.

“One of [Elon Musk’s hobbies is that he sometimes likes to pretend that he will acquire public companies…. This is an expensive hobby!” Matt Levine explains what’s going on with Elon Musk and Twitter.

On Costco and the immigrant experience.

Ed Yong is, thank God, back once again to explain what we need to know about the BA.5 variant of horrible stupid COVID.

This article about the politics of English in India is fascinating and has definitely made me want to read the author’s whole book.

Thanks to Strange New Worlds, Star Trek feels like Star Trek again. This is not an argument I can personally weigh in on, as I am working my way through DS9 at the moment and have not yet gotten to the new shows. But it seems right.

“I don’t know how else to explain it, they just clean the way you clean in a kitchen.” The Bear gets Chicago wrong, but it gets restaurant kitchens so right.

This Vulture interview with the subtitlers for Stranger Things fails to capitalize d/Deaf appropriately, but it’s still a very interesting look behind the scenes at what goes into the art of subtitles.

Pop culture is reevaluating Tracy Flick. Not me, though, I was always horrified that people acted like she was the villain of that movie. Like, wtf.

Ravynn Stringfield was not nourished by academia, but by the presence of Black women in the world of comics.

In case you’ve missed the wild and wacky world of Funny Girl‘s recasting, here is an explainer of what is going on.

In this thread, Alexis Hall answers every question Carrie Bradshaw asks in the original Sex and the City.

“People don’t die for no reason; Aquarians just occasionally get reckless on the freeway. Simple.” A story about doing astrology.

Here are some extra-good books by indigenous authors this year.

The head of the New York Antiquities Theft Task Force has some surprisingly insightful things to say about how to be a good person. Also lots of good, juicy art theft details.

Speaking of Interesting Jobs, I’m obsessed with movie sound design, and this article on Foley artists FED MY SOUL.

David Treuer’s Austrian father viewed America as a land of rescue and safety; for his Ojibwe mother, it was a land of injustice.

Rolling Stone reported on bot activity in favor of the Snyder cut (and what Zack Snyder had to do with it). Gita Jackson responds, noting that despite higher-than-usual bot activity, fandom is QUITE capable of being terrible organically (and, in this case, they were).

When your coauthor is an AI.

Happy Friday, friends! In case you didn’t click that last link, I will leave you with a piece of AI-generated writing; may it blossom weirdly in your souls. “The moon was truly mother-of-pearl, the white of the sea, rubbed smooth by the groins of drowned brides.”

The post Really the Millions Book Preview This Time: 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.

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THE MILLIONS BOOK PREVIEW. SIREN EMOJI.

Intisar Khanani discusses her journey from self-publishing to traditional publishing. (If you haven’t read her books yet, you should do it now! I love her!)

It’s good to change your opinion! On not widening the feminist generation gap.

Why do women writers hate themselves? Maybe we’re asking the wrong question.

YA author Dhonielle Clayton (her book The Belles is coming out later in the year!) talks about what sensitivity readers do, and why they aren’t nearly enough.

Karen Attiah argues that Western media has a problem with depicting African nations as if they are shitholes — it’s not just Trump. (If you’re not following Karen Attiah, you should be!)

Jezebel gets to the heart of the thing (well one of the things) that made me uncomfortable about that Aziz Ansari thing. Here’s some additional thoughts (both about the thing itself and conversations around the thing, with lots of good links) from the Lakshmi and Asha Show.

Ijeoma Oluo has the conversation about race with her mom that she’s been dreading. You should preorder her book cause it looks like it’s going to be really good.

I hope y’all are all staying warm this week! Have a wonderful weekend with lots of reading!

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Maddy Myers is great, y’all. Here she is on on-screen queer kisses over at The Mary Sue.

Y’all, you guys, hey everyone, guess what! England is about to get the FIRST EVER Kurdish novel to be translated into English. How cool! How good for the Kurds! I hope it publishes in the US also!

This Natalie Luhrs piece for Uncanny Magazine unpacks what’s so great about romance novels — among other things, it’s that romance takes emotional growth really seriously.

This Sarah Jeong article about the Star Wars prequels makes a pretty good case for its conclusion:

I guess what I’m saying is, maybe if the Galactic Senate hadn’t defunded Planned Parenthood, the Republic wouldn’t have succumbed to an evil fascist dictatorship.

Speaking of Star Wars, I never do this, but I loved this Bodhi Rook-centric fic so much that I’m sharing it here. Even if you don’t read a lot of fanfic, read this one. It’s superb. Hat tip to Rukmini Pande for the rec.

Some book adaptations coming to TV this year. GET PSYCHED.

The Millions has released their glorious, glorious 2017 book preview (through June). TBR lists beware!

Your reminder that writing white supremacy into disciplines of folklore and medievalism was a major strategy of the Nazi regime. (Or: on white nationalism in medieval studies.)

The world has been feeling more than ever like hot garbage this month, but I also read this Twitter thread about C.S. Lewis and Susan, and it meant the world to me. Cf: this excellent point.

I hope you all have an exceptionally fortunate Friday the 13th! If you need something to give you a little boost, maybe try the new Netflix Series of Unfortunate Events, which looks really fun.

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In the wake of Black Lives Matter pulling out of the Pride parade in San Francisco due to increased police presence, some thoughts on the disconnect between the two major civil rights fights of our day.

A profile of our nation’s top ASL interpreter for hip-hop artists. My one complaint about this article is that it does not include sufficient videos of Amber Galloway Gallego being awesome.

Mother Jones reporter Shane Bauer spent four months as a guard in a for-profit prison in Louisiana and wrote a massive report on it. It’s basically exactly what you’d expect from our broken-ass prison system.

Suki Kim, author of Without You There Is No Us, talks about categorizing her book (a work of investigative journalism) as a memoir, and the persistent devaluing of women’s work. It made me scrutinize my own reaction to the ethics of her book, and I hope I’ll be more cognizant of that when reviewing journalism by women in the future.

Why plots are so important (also, has anyone read Emily Barton’s book, The Book of Esther? I am tentatively interested but want more information from y’all).

Your summer comic book recommendations, from Kieron Gillen, Kate Leth, and Marjorie Liu. Bid adieu to your productivity.

Queerbaiting in Captain America

The Millions released their book preview for the second half of 2016, and it is EPIC. I also discovered just yesterday that there’s a nonfiction one too.

THE SCIENCE OF BOOKS: All books everywhere with no exceptions whatsoever¹ follows one of six emotional arcs. Oh how I love a taxonomy, my precious.

Rumaan Alam inquires what makes a book diverse, and wonders if his own novel — about straight white women — can be considered diverse.²

On Twitter last week I told a story about a good dog from history that doesn’t die tragically. You can read that story here.

Finally, and completely frivolously, please enjoy this wonderful review of the Blake Lively shark movie by Wesley Morris (one of my favorite cultural critics ever), which is brilliant on the subject of interchangeable celebrities.

The post Let’s Hope August Is Better: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Did you miss my linguistics nerdery? Great news: Here’s an article about how language shapes our brains.

Jenny Zhang on being a writer of color and the Best American Poetry mess.

If you like Return of the Jedi but hate the Ewoks, you understand feminist criticism.

Remembering to use a trans person’s preferred pronouns is no harder than remembering to use a woman’s married name: An appeal for good manners.

A high fantasy novel without incestuous subtext.

Awesome Person Sofia Samatar interviews Awesome Person Sarah McCarry about monster girls.

I heave enormous sighs every time I read about the Stonewall movie: Learning about Stonewall was my way into intersectional feminism, way back in high school, and I want there to be an awesome movie about it. But want must be my master. Here’s the wonderful Meredith Talusan on trans erasure.

Also: Stonewall is apparently terrible. A real stinker.

I gazed blankly at the news that Ta-Nehisi Coates is going to write a run on Black Panther for Marvel, for like twenty seconds. It sounds like the kind of joke somebody would make to illustrate why Marvel is so much better than DC. BUT IT IS REAL.

Strunk and White, grammar cops.

The post You should buy the Hamilton cast recording: A links round-up appeared first on Reading the End.

If only I had a private income, I would drop everything right now, and devote the scant remainder of my days to teasing the Dictator of All Italy…Indeed, my dream-life is largely made up of scenes in which I say to him, “Oh, Il Duce yourself, you big stiff,” and thus leave him crushed to a pulp.

And this is just how I feel about Jonathan Franzen. Not because he is a fascist or in any way a danger to America. Just because I find him extremely annoying, and I find internet jokes at his expense extremely delightful. All of which to say: ‘Tis evidently the season once again to be making fun of Franzen.

A call for messy comic book heroines.

I still like listening to stuff on vinyl, but otherwise, this point about the internet improving our lives is well taken.

Y’all this may make me a curmudgeon but I don’t want a brain-net. I like the internet where it is, exterior to my brain. Please and thank you.

Linda Holmes of NPR tackles the problems with portraying Black Widow in a superhero landscape woefully short on women.

HOORAY Eddie Redmayne is confirmed going to be in the JK Rowling movie about magical beasts.

After the most recent icky rape scene in Game of Thrones the Show, The Mary Sue has made an editorial decision to stop promoting or talking about the show.

On titles that are lists of three things. It notes that they sound better if the third thing is longer, and that, friends, is why some genius came up with the name “ascending tricolon,” a phrase I tried not to overuse on my Latin AP exam many years ago.

This woman was, as a toddler, a participant in primate research. She remembers almost nothing about it.

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If the internet were a high school. I like the BuzzFeed one the best. Also keep your eyes peeled for a cameo by the Lizzie Bennet Diaries‘s own William Darcy.

Scott Tobias wrote an article called The Church of Scientology is Bad at Twitter, which is one of many reasons I cherish the internet.

Trevor Noah is going to be taking over for Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. He made some dumb jokes on Twitter, but I am hopeful that those jokes don’t represent anything fundamental to his humor. I am also hopeful that in the next iteration of the Daily Show, we learn ALL ABOUT AFRICA.

Writing about a networked world.

The wonderful Cass of Queerly Seen is running a project about Oscar Wilde from now until May 25th. Seems like this is as good a time as any to write a long, indignant post about the wrongs done to my beloved Robbie Ross.

The New York Times has a wonderful article on Orphan Black and how it plays with gender, if you don’t mind spoilers for the early parts of the second season.

This fortnight has been the time in which I have truly realized the delights of the Australian show Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. I don’t even like murder mystery shows. But this one is THE LEGIT BEST, and the third series is due in May (huzzah). Ana of Things Mean a Lot put me onto it, but see also NPR’s MonkeySee, Previously.TV, Tor.com, Smart Bitches Trashy Books, and The Toast.

On politics and the Hugo Awards.

On when “no” means “yes.” (Ahahahaha I tricked you, you thought the article was going to be about rape culture and then it was about contranyms. GRAMMAR HUMOR.)

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