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Reading Week #71

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sidewalks

You know when you’ve been feeling low and then you begin to feel yourself rising out of the fug? That.

This week has been all about establishing new patterns and positive habits. How’ve you been?

 

–– ON ROBOTNIC.CO ––

You have until tonight to enter my International Subscriber Giveaway! [VIDEO, 7 mins]

I also did a wee Friday Reads video today [VIDEO, 3 mins]

The time has come for Bookish Blether Episode 18 – Our Favourite Books. [AUDIO, 34 mins]

 

 

–– ARTS & CULTURE ––

So this white American man called Michael Derrick Hudson has been using the Chinese pen-name Yi-Fen Chou to get his poems published. Jenny Zhang of Buzzfeed wrote this scathing and absolutely necessary takedown: They Pretend To Be Us While Pretending We Don’t Exist.

In related, I loved hearing Margo Jefferson on Privilege & Race on the Lit Up podcast. [AUDIO, 42 mins]

Renata Adler was excellent on the Longform podcast and I caught up on her infamous piece called The Perils of Pauline. I never got the fuss over deified film critic Pauline Kael either.

“Promotion is expensive”: Elena Ferrante on anonymity is a lesson in clarity.

To Hell With Vox’s Victorian-Living Idiots. In short, “They are anti-tech Silicon Valley libertarians who believe identity is derived from what stupid shit you surround yourself with, regardless of what horrors brought it to you.” Eviscerating. Brilliant.

Taking bets on how long til the Texas school system puts Mallory Ortberg’s Ayn Rand’s Charlotte’s Web on the syllabus.
 

 

–– DIGITAL ––

I loved Hank Green’s video on Tumblr, and Yellowstone: The Terror of Change. [VIDEO, 4 mins]

Laura Bennet, for Slate, writes about The First-Person Industrial Complex and how it’s harmful. She has a point, but the focus is squarely on tabloid internet – there’s value in the diversity of voices the web brings (see Jenny Zhang’s piece, above). Perhaps it’s not such an epidemic. Maybe it’s a phase.

Hey so uhh What Ever Happened to Google Books?

This writer is Coming Out of the Closet as a Yahoo Mail User – and actually her inbox hygiene sounds pretty good. (Not as good as mine though. I’m getting, like, 6 emails a day right now.)

 

 

–– ON PAPER ––

I’m on a real short book kick so I’ve read tons this month. This week’s highlight was Morvern Callar by Alan Warner, a modern Scottish classic that I much preferred over its film adaptation.

This weekend? I made a video about what I’ll be reading. (If you’re a super-keen newsletter-opener and try to click on this before 12.30pm this won’t be live yet.)

Hit reply and let me know what you’re reading, too.
 

 

–– &c. ––

Meanwhile, in South Africa, they’ve discovered a new human-like species. What!!!

Ann Friedman’s latest is ostensibly about making friends in college, but moreso it’s about why starting over is an art.

 

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Read anything good this week? Hit reply or tweet me about it, won’t you?

​Have a lovely weekend!

 

Reading Week #70

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Barge Trip

Last week’s Book Club on a Barge was a great success. Look how sunny it was! Great friends, a massive picnic and hunners of book chat makes me very happy indeed.

Now Autumn is in the air and… BOKE. I’ll be having nane ae yer PSL, fluffy cardiganed Mr Autumn Man shite.

Now, the links.

 

–– ON ROBOTNIC.CO ––

A new video this week, containing a Book Haul and an International Giveaway! Wanna win some books? You know what to do. (If you don’t know, I mean watch and comment.)

In October, I’m running a workshop in Edinburgh on Finding Your Voice Online. Wanna come?

What’s your sticking point at work? Mine is Getting Started. People seem to relate!

 

 

–– ARTS & CULTURE ––

I’m loving this: One woman’s mission to photograph every Native American tribe in the US.

Jesse Eisenberg’s short story collection, Bream Gives Me Hiccups, came out this week. I loved it. Here’s his By the Book. I think I’m going to have to take some of his recommendations.

Roxane Gay and Erica Jong discussed feminism and it got awkward. Where’s the video of this, internet?!

What can a pretty well-known writer learn from the world’s best-selling author? More than she thought, apparently.

 

 

–– THE END OF SUMMER ––

Summer is slipping away, and I keep finding great wee life moments – so let’s make a moment of it.

Tim Kreider reflects on The Summer That Never Was in the New York Times.

A new railway line opened up between Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders. Here’s a charming wee review of it, entitled Borders Railway.

People on Sunday – save this one for the end of your weekend. A gorgeous slice of life from Joseph Roth in the New Yorker, 1921.

 

 

–– ON PAPER ––

I am currently right at the end of two books: Citizen by Claudia Rankine and Jellyfish by Janice Galloway. Both are great. Everything I’ve bought recently has been pretty short-form so I can’t decide what to get to next.

What do you reckon? More short stories, some essays, maybe a novel I’ve threatened to read and never did?

Hit reply and let me know what you’re reading, too.
 

 

–– &c. ––

I’m Becoming a Slack-fingered Idiot and I Guess That’s Fine. Lazy typing shall come for us all.

The ‘Dear Fat People’ video is tired, cruel and lazy – but I still fight for the woman who made it – a vital response to that terrible viral video from Lindy West.

 

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Read anything good this week? Hit reply or tweet me about it, won’t you?

​Have a lovely weekend!

 

Reading Week #69 – Nice

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I’m sorry, it had to be done. (Evan dared me.) (If you don’t know what I’m talking about it’s ok, everything is cool.)

How’s your week been? I’ve had a good one, and tomorrow we’re having book club on a BARGE so things couldn’t be much better, really.

How about some links for your weekend reading?

 

–– ON ROBOTNIC.CO ––

On time, for once, with my August Reads – capsule reviews of every book I read last month. There were many.

New Bookish Blether! In this week’s podcast we discuss how to find and choose books.

Yesterday I appeared on BBC’s Janice Forsyth Show to review this week’s film releases. Click through to catch up on iPlayer.

 

 

–– ARTS & CULTURE ––

This week we said goodbye to the wonderful Oliver Sacks, whose final writings I’ve been sharing these past few months. Here’s a letter from his closest friends: A Life Well Lived.

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes In Defense of a Loaded Word.

The less said about that Guardian article slagging off Terry Pratchett and his fans, the better. BUT it has served as an amazing prompt. Here’s Stevie aka SableCaught’s rebuttal [VIDEO], and Dan Pipenbring of The Paris Review’s delightful twist on the topic.

I wound up missing out on the August group read of Moby-Dick between some of my bookish online friends. Candace’s video about the experience made it sound irresistible in her video #AhabAugust; Or, Moby-Dick was much weirder than I expected..

Stephen King asks, Can a Novelist Be Too Productive? Ehh. Alright, mate.
 

 

–– DIGITAL ––

On the state of churnalism, Guy Patrick Cunningham urges, Don’t Settle: The Journalist in the Shadow of the Commercial Web. On of the best elucidated arguments I’ve read in a long time.

Hold onto your butts! Jessica Valenti interviewed Anita Sarkeesian.

Emily Gould wrote about The Art of the Out-of-Office Reply. Which is in the Fashion and Style section of the New York Times because… she has a vagina?

Looks may fade, but selfies are forever. Prayer hands.
 

 

–– ON PAPER ––

TWO five-star reads this week. The book hangover is real, you guys. I loved both the hilarious satire Quesadillas by Juan Pablo Villalobos and the compulsively deviant The Dumb House by John Burnside.

The rest of the week is all about The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma – this month’s book club pick. Which we’re having on a barge, this Saturday, as you do.

Which books are on your nightstand?
 

 

–– &c. ––

Disagree, but also can’t help but agree with Sadie Stein On “Hangry”.

Sexism has a stranglehold on publishing. How can we undo it? – a great opinion piece from Anna James.
 

 

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Read anything good this week? Hit reply or tweet me about it, won’t you?

​Have a lovely weekend!