And now, some links!

How do you feed the Olympic athletes? Step one: Buy 3 million bananas.

Celebrity book clubs are run by enthusiastic and voracious readers, but that doesn’t make them immune to publishers’ campaigning for their top titles.

“Everything I did on these friend dates was aggressive, pathetic, or insane.” Kelly Stout set out to make a new friend in an (1) month. (That timeline is way too short imo.)

Two humanitarian surgeons, with extensive experience of working in war zones, write about their time in Gaza, “None of [our experience] prepared us for what we saw in Gaza this spring.” This is a hard read, but a very important one. What’s happening in Gaza is straightforwardly genocide, and the US is eagerly supporting it.  I also recommend this piece by a former IDF soldier and scholar of genocide.

“If there’s one fundamental human impulse that the internet has indulged more than anything else, it’s our desire to be huge bitches.” Twenty years of Yelp.

The queerness of monsters.

“When he asks how much we paid for this vacation, he is unable to best the low price that Ramona has given us. This makes me feel like we are in an armored truck of value, impervious to the rest of the world’s scams.” Traveling via Costco.

A big chunk of undersea cable disappeared. Did Russia take it?

“Some of my past times, including Combs’s stalking me at the Vibe office, had to be redacted. I blacked them out in order to keep the lights on.” A really, really stellar piece from Danyel Smith on her own experiences with Diddy.

Oh my God this piece about The Gods Must Be Crazy and its apartheid legacy, oh my God.

Mo Ryan begs her fellow white women not to let what happened to Nicole Beharie on Sleepy Hollow (I’ll die mad about it) happen to Kamala Harris.

“[J.D. Vance is] still really only good at one thing: advancing by slavishly attaching himself to people richer and more powerful than himself, casting them aside when they become inconvenient.” lol

Wake up, babe, new UNESCO World Heritage sites just dropped.

“People don’t just bring their aspirations to the city. They also come with their wounds. The city is a segregator of wounds.” On Sinéad O’Connor.

“Your child does not need a comms strategy.” Linda Holmes does not support AI-written fan mail.

The journalist for this piece deserves a Peabody. What happens when writers break up? I loved this piece so much. I have forced it upon everyone I’ve ever met. They’ll never stop hearing about it. NEVER.

CALL ME BASIC, but this interview with the Supermarket Sweep gays made me feel tender towards the world.

What are we to make of White Women for Kamala and similar events?

Locked cases may prevent products from being stolen from retailers like Target and CVS, but they’re also preventing products from being, like, sold.

Rose Eveleth is doing a terrific new podcast about sex testing in sports, and she writes about the ethical challenges of writing about athletes’ bodies.

What Tim Walz has is tonic masculinity.

Lydia Polgreen on the Cass Report. This piece is so good.

KLAXON KLAXON WE HAVE NEW EURIPIDES CONTENT.

Why do the family members of crime victims show up for events like CrimeCon?

“There is no playbook for a President Kamala Harris because presidential politics has never imagined a Kamala Harris.”

“How sports gambling came to be such a hulking, clanging presence in our life is the ultimate sports media story—which is funny, in a ghoulish sort of way, given there’s not a lot of sports media left to tell it.”

“Believing you have no part in it is as naive as believing that touching a hot stove won’t get you burnt.” Morgan Jerkins can’t turn away from the tradwives.

“Over a twelve-year period from 1989 to 2001, virtually none of the winners of any high-value prizes were legit.” This story about the McDonald’s Monopoly game is Wild.

The news media is—again—utterly failing to meet the moment.

A prominent advocate for accessibility in gaming appears… never to have existed?

Buy physical media, friends! You won’t regret it!

The post I own a lot of DVDs now: A links round-up appeared first on Reading the End.

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.

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.

“My issue with how we read is as much an existential grievance as it is a labor dispute.” Elaine Castillo addresses the foundation of white supremacy in the literary world, making me VERY excited to read her book.

This is an absolutely bananas story about a criminology professor whose life, uh, takes a turn.

On authors who cross categories.

It’s hard to keep track of all the shit the Supreme Court is currently doing, but ONE of the things they’re doing is decimating the rights of Native nations.

Carmen Maria Machado discusses the Jumi Bello plagiarism thing and considers a better path forward for writers and writing programs.

Here’s why there’s a shortage of peer reviewers, tenure committee members, and journal editors.

How ASL is changing in the digital age.

Really excited to learn that the Department of Education cannot tell the people who owe it money for student loans how much they’ve paid off, how much is left to pay, and what the interest rate is. Super normal stuff.

The mutant metaphor: A new generation is falling in love with the X-Men via queer communities online.

Look, YES I am obsessed with reading about the new book about Go Ask Alice, but NO I am not going to read it probably because tbh I feel like I have gotten everything I need from the media coverage of the book. Anyway, here is Casey Cep.

“Nichelle Nichols gave us the future – what we make of it is up to us.”

I loved this interview with the actresses of Yellowjackets.

Mohsin Hamid’s latest novel was inspired by the growing tendency to sort everyone into buckets of like-me and not-like-me.

Biden’s commission on how to fix the Supreme Court has finished its work, and the report has some interesting and helpful ideas.

In case you’ve missed the updates on the S&S / Random Penguin merger, John Maher is doing yeoman’s work in live-tweeting the trial. You can also check out the New York Times explainer and the Vanity Fair explainer. Also, Amazon is playing a silent role in this trial.

Money diaries: How prison inmates make money and what they spend it on. (Surprise, it’s horrifying.)

Many stars of Twitch and other video services have had to learn how to live with stalkers and harassers.

It’s great that Beyonce and Lizzo changed their offensive lyrics; but why are we so stingy with second chances and benefits of the doubt when it comes to Black women artists?

The New York Times has a handy explainer of why restaurant prices are soaring.

The Good Little Pig and the trend of bathos in contemporary literature.

“Yuval Harari is what I call a ‘science populist.’… [His] errors are numerous and substantial.”

Tressie McMillan Cottom considers the beloved-by-conservatives TV show Yellowstone.

Happy Friday, friends!

The post I Am Very Excited to Read Elaine Castillo’s Book: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

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.

The post THE MILLIONS BOOK PREVIEW: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

I also watched an episode of Star Trek: Discovery and it was x-tremely enjoyable and I was in favor of it. I have not seen other episodes of Star Trek: Discovery, but I am in full support of two hot people running around fighting with and for each other and traveling in time. Anyway! Have some links!

Real comfort food is epitomized by the house meal, that one meal that’s too weird for company and you’re making it because you are the only person who needs to be pleased by it. (link)

Participating in Tolkien fandom while Black is a constantly reminder of the racism within the canon (and also, like, society). (link)

Tressie McMillan Cottam broke my heart writing about Breonna Taylor’s post-it notes. (link)

What does it mean for something to be called “a people’s history”? (link)

We learn the rules for being a good person by talking about them with others. That is what makes Am I the Asshole such a valuable internet space. Maybe. (link)

Very excited that Ashley Reese has taken the time to explain Snapewives to me, as I was not in fandom at the time of this weird fucking phenomenon. (link)

Kamila Shamsie contemplates cultural appropriation and the American observer of the world. (link) Tajja Isen considers the place of sensitivity readers in the (mostly white) publishing landscape. (link)

Indoor dining: Will we ever do it again? (link)

The podcast You’re Wrong About explores the way we misremember news stories, and why. Featuring Monica Lewinsky, the Satanic Panic, and Kitty Genovese. (link)

Tolkien’s notes and papers offer a fascinating glimpse into the moral development of Boromir. (link)

Peak TV is already behind us. What we have now is a lot of mediocre filler produced by a veritable kakistocracy. (link)

Here at the end of the post I’d like to report that — speaking of mediocre filler — I’ve been watching Married at First Sight and have strong opinions about the likelihood that each couple is going to stay together. Let’s not think about that too much. I make other choices that are indisputably good, such as I did laundry yesterday and Tuesday, and on at least one of the evenings this week, I washed the dishes the selfsame night I dirtied them. Wow. What an impressive person.

The post HOUSE MEAL, a Revolutionary Concept: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

“Perhaps you had better stay in the womb, I think, just to be safe.” Alexandra Petri on The News.

Bret Stephens continues to be a dingbat.

Jay Fernandez identifies a few common mistakes that book reviewers make. (Some of this is nonsense! But it’s still interesting.)

The final book in Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy is coming out in 2020! AT LAST I can read Bring Up the Bodies!

Here’s Mikki Kendall talking about how not all harassment is sexual (though it is also sexual!)

On not knowing where you fit as a biracial person.

Caveat emptor: These dolls are haunted (yet collectible).

Amanda Stern wrote a book about a childhood of anxiety, and found that she had to understand parents before she could help other kids like her.

Jim DeRogatis’s new book about R. Kelly isn’t just about the failings of the criminal justice system and pop culture consumers, says Tressie McMillan Cottom; it’s about the downfall of committed, longform journalism and what that means for predators like Kelly. And here’s Hannah Giorgis on the same topic and the many many people who failed Kelly’s victims. And also Treva Lindsey on the culture’s failures around R. Kelly.

“People are mortal, but IP lives forever.” On the mega-franchises that have become our only widely shared cultural touchstones.

Jenny Zhang considers the idea of “authenticity” in ethnic cuisine and what we’re really looking for. I also highly recommend the Sara Kay article that’s linked inside of this one.

Vulture endeavors to define a beach read.

DOWN WITH SPONTANEITY.

Lindsay King-Miller writes about the appeal of murder lesbians (no, not JUST Killing Eve) (but yeah, Killing Eve).

Every NIMBY’s speech at a public hearing.

Happy weekend! What have you been reading?

The post Haunted Dolls Is Really the Highlight: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

In thrilling news, Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon IS TOMORROW. Can you tell I’m excited? I am SO excited. I have an aunt coming into town, so I don’t know exactly how many hours I’ll end up being able to do, but I’m excited about whatever it turns out to be.

Molly Ringwald wrote a really fascinating piece about sexual harassment and her films with John Hughes.

Junot Diaz writes with extraordinary power and honesty about being raped as a child. Trigger warning for child sexual abuse, ofc.

After taking the top prize at Sundance yet somehow not being picked up by a distributor, The Miseducation of Cameron Post finally has a distributor and will be available to watch in the summer. Yay!

It’s okay to give up on books you aren’t enjoying. Let the switch flip in your brain, and set yourself free from the prison of books that aren’t a good fit for you. The mindset “Maybe I didn’t give up forever” is the one that has helped me a lot.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is incisive on the subject of NFL cheerleaders and the problem with the NFL setting itself up as the guardian of moral virtue.

How publishing is changing (and not) w/r/t race and gender.

Millicent Simmonds, one of the stars of the new film The Quiet Place, wrote a piece for Teen Vogue about becoming the deaf role model she never had.

Mikki Kendall on the two black men arrested at Starbucks for existing there. Black customers are inherently perceived as threatening, which is what leads to situations like this one. And last but not least, here’s a round table of some of my favorite writers talking about navigating public spaces while black. (If you’re not following all these people you should be! They’re great.)

How grad school applications can become performances of trauma for applicants from marginalized groups.

I can’t assess the accuracy of this piece about how East Asian narrative traditions differs from Western narrative traditions, but it’s a really interesting read. I want to keep this in mind when I’m reading books from China and Japan in the future.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the best show on TV but it does have a tonal dissonance problem in how it portrays the moral implications of various actions. Irene Yoon and Lili Loofbourow break it down.

On constructing a kinder future (in the stories we create and consume).

Not sure what’s been going on with FanCon? Clarkisha Kent has the depressing scoop. Rosie Knight and Jazmine Joyner have another very detailed breakdown of all the nitty-gritty details, at Women Write about Comics.

Skin care marketing is often just selling whiteness.

The post Starbucks and FanCon: A links round-up appeared first on Reading the End.

Lower Ed is what Tressie McMillan Cottom helpfully defines in her epilogue as an autoethnographic study, which is to say that she herself is part of the story. Cottom worked as an admission counselor (i.e., a salesperson) for two different for-profit colleges before pursuing her PhD. While researching Lower Ed, she also went through the enrollment process for nine separate for-profit colleges, to investigate the similarities and differences in the way those colleges pursued new students. She also draws on the stories of people she personally interviewed about their for-profit higher ed experiences, some of whom she knew from real life and others of whom she met along the way. Lower Ed works to understand who attends for-profit colleges and why, in the words of the people who are making those choices.

Interspersed with those stories is a wealth of contextual information about how for-profit schools operate and what kind of benefits they offer the students they work so hard to enroll. Although there’s an argument to be made that for-profit colleges are predatory — and Cottom doesn’t shrink from making it, when called to — Lower Ed presents a measured and thoughtful view of the benefits of these institutions as well as their drawbacks. Yes, they spend more on marketing than on instruction. Yes, they target financially and socially vulnerable students and heavily pressure them to take on large amounts of loan debt in search of a future that may never materialize.

However, as Cottom points out, the more “legitimate” version of higher education — such as prestigious public and private universities — leave those very students behind. Poor students, older students, first-generation students, and others lack the experience and time to successfully navigate bureaucratic barriers to entering more traditional higher ed settings.

One of the main points that Cottom brings up over and over again is a thing I am constantly having to remind myself about: However impactful individual choices may be, they still count for very little when set against the institutional forces that guide and control so much of our lives. Cottom notes:

What is interesting to me is how much disdain is spread among students and schools and how little disdain there is for labor markets.

Cottom argues that companies invest less and less in workforce development while individuals are asked to invest more and more, spending money they don’t have in an attempt to meet an ever-shifting standard of employability.

Lower Ed is a short book that packs a big punch; it’s left me with a lot to chew on, both about higher education and about the many many FRANKLY INFINITY ways society finds to reproduce inequality. So, you know. Fun thoughts to think.

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