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Reading Week #27

10.17.2014 by Nicola //

dorothy-gin — I’ve got a date with this lady tonight. You?

Welcome to Reading Week #27!

There is a ton of great shit on the internet this week.

So, on with it:

–– ON ROBOTNIC.CO ––

I finally posted my September Reads Wrap-Up. It was a good reading month.

Yesterday I broadcasted my views on The Judge, Palo Alto, and Bjork: Biophilia on BBC Culture Studio, alongside the brilliant Siobhan Synnot and Pasquale Iannone.

I also (finally) posted a video about my trip to North America. Here, or here:

–– ARTS & CULTURE ––

From my new favourite Twitter feed, @JSTOR_Daily: Was Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp Unamerican? Yes. No. Well, kinda. Well…

Chaplin added fuel to the fire when he vocally criticized a return to free market principles after the recovery of the Great Depression: “I don’t want the old rugged individualism…rugged for a few, ragged for many.”

How very dare he.

Two great pieces on Gone Girl (spoilers abound): Marriage is an Abduction and Lady Psychopaths Welcome.

“I draw for Gaza”: the defiant art of Haneen Nofal. Beautiful. Evan and I just watched Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown episode on Jerusalem and Gaza – well worth a watch if you’re on Netflix.

–– DIGITAL ––

The Forgotten Female Programmers Who Created Modern Tech. “Every time you write on a computer, play a music file or add up a number with your phone’s calculator, you are using tools that might not exist without the work of these women.” I mean, come on!

A pretty good list of 12 Podcasts you should catch up with. It includes a few I enjoy: Call Your Girlfriend, Death Sex & Money, Start Up, and a few more just recommended to me by the lovely Alice.

If you’ve been as confused about this Gamergate business as I have, Deadspin explains.

Newsletter of the week: Everything Changes by Lauren Olin brings joy to your inbox, daily. This week was the best gifs, ranked. Last week was the secret histories of emoji. A couple of weeks before, inspirational corgis. Get on it.

–– LADYBITS ––

Actually not at all Ladybits, but: Madeleine Holden aka the hilarious and brilliant @moscaddie critiques dick pics. This and more about the impossibility of female gaze in New Inquiry article, Dick Picky.

[The dick pic has] a kind of dual nature: The dick pic is hostile yet pitiable, aggressive but also acutely pathetic. They’re also almost invariably ugly. Dick pics are, on the whole, dull and artless, inexpertly captured and painfully unerotic.

If You Didn’t Know Mallory Ortberg Is Hilarious, Where Have You Been? Fictional Characters Whose Lives Would Have Been Vastly Improved By An Abortion. “Peeta had really wanted children, but that was just too fucking bad.” And Lane, you poor sweet thing.

Roxane Gay, again. It’s not me it’s her. I have feared white men and I have loved them.

Gender Genre: a man on #ReadWomen2014.

Book Talk: Feminist Non-Fiction. A starter kit and handy run-down for those interested in some contemporary books on ladybits and that, from Holly, a new BookTuber I’ve recently e-met.

–– ON PAPER ––

I FINALLY FINISHED KAVALIER AND CLAY.

What book(s) are you currently reading?

–– &c. ––

Watching the Royals-Orioles game & realising that the Giants is an exceptionally good looking team. pic.twitter.com/w4xeeYNVFf

— Nighoula Balkind (@robotnic) October 15, 2014

What were your favourite reads of the week?

Reading Week #26 – Ladybits Ahoy

10.10.2014 by Nicola //

lazy-sunday — A book, my feet, and a lazy house-guest.

Busy week! How was yours?

This week is a bit heavy in the Lena Dunham department. I can’t help it that she has a book out! Incidentally, I’ve read the first chapter so far and… well, we’ll see.

If you hate her, don’t worry. It’s all over after this – I promise.

Incidentally, last week I added a segment titled ‘Ladybits’. This week is almost entirely comprised of ‘ladybits’ – so, enjoy.

–– ON ROBOTNIC.CO ––

Not much to see here! But I did write a bit more about my intentions and reading history in The Essayist Project: An Introduction.

–– ARTS & CULTURE ––

Is This a Golden Age for Women Essayists? Says Cheryl Strayed: “As long as we still have reason to wedge “women” as a qualifier before “essayist,” the age is not exactly golden.” Amen, lady. I mean, writer person.

& in related: Non-Fiction Deserves a Nobel. If Bertrand Russell and Winston Churchill once got them, why hasn’t anyone since? Get it sorted, Nobelers.

This week in fictional characters’ reading lists…
Daria’s Reading List. I didn’t ever watch much Daria, but she’s still a kindred spirit.

From the guy who pulled together all 330-some books mentioned in Gilmore Girls, here’s a smattering of 7 Gilmore Girls-related books to read now. It’s nice to have them narrowed down. Plus, I’m currently reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay so I’m basically already participating.

How to Learn: Lewis Carroll’s Four Rules for Digesting Information and Mastering the Art of Reading. Simple, yet effective. The kind of thing that makes you go, “Oh… I knew that. I should actually, like, do it.”

–– DIGITAL ––

The brilliant Veronica aka Ron Lit is bringing academia to BookTube (YouTube for books). I like her latest video so much I’m embedding it.

& did you hear that Roxane Gay is starting a new The Toast sister-site called The Butter? I can’t wait.

–– LADYBITS (AKA ROXANE GAY/LENA DUNHAM CORNER) ––

Powerful stuff from Roxane Gay on The Price of Black Ambition.

Don’t Love or Hate Lena Dunham. Create More of Her. The pressure on young female celebrities is unsustainable. The name is tangential to the point: WE NEED MORE WOMEN IN MEDIA SO THAT ONE WOMAN DOESN’T REPRESENT THE LOT OF US. Okay? Okay. Let’s work on that. Props to the writer, Rebecca Traister, and New Republic – you’ll be seeing more of them here soon.

In related: Sally Ride & the Burden of Being “First”. Not like the first to comment on an article, but be the first lady to do stuff. In case you weren’t sure.

Roxane Gay Talks to Lena Dunham About Her New Book, Feminism, and the Benefits of Being Criticized Online. Cool.

Tech’s gender problem abounds. Fortunately, some companies like Etsy are leading the way to parity.

–– ON PAPER ––

Okay so, yes, I’m still reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.

As mentioned at the top, I also started Lena Dunham’s book, Not That Kind of Girl.

What book(s) are you currently reading?

–– &c. ––

This Twitter exchange.

What were your favourite reads of the week?

Reading Week #25

10.03.2014 by Nicola //

Princeton University Press courtyard at twilight.

Happy Friday, friends!

The wanderer hath returned! I’m back to work after a wonderful week away in Princeton and Toronto where I walked about a thousand miles and bought a big old pile of books. It was a great time.

Since I took last week off, this will be a bumper post. Read on!

–– ON ROBOTNIC.CO ––

ICYMI, last time I announced my new reading project: The [Female] Essayist Project. I’ve finished 2 books and have posts coming up very soon.

Over on my business blog, A Guide to Evergreen Content and why it’s worth the effort.

–– ARTS & CULTURE ––

The Paris Review interviews Margalit Fox. I love interviews with Margalit Fox! She’s an obituary writer at the New York Times and speaks beautifully on the subject. Here she is on the Longform Podcast.

Vanishing Drive-Ins is a lovely project and a nice wee slice of Americana. Inspiration for a little something I hope to work on soon… (also via Paris Review.)

This was a fitting addition to my Princeton reading list: Albert Einstein, Mob Idol – a two-part article from the New Yorker, 1933.

Two from Anthony Bourdain:
How to Travel. Unofficial subtitle: from a dude who gets around.
And less good, but related Anthony Bourdain’s Life Advice in Men’s Journal. For manly men, obvs.

–– DIGITAL ––

Podcasts are back, says a Wall Street Journal writer who clearly hasn’t been paying attention.

Speaking of podcasts – Episode 9 of Call Your Girlfriend is a belter.

–– LADYBITS ––

An interesting piece on marital code-switching, i.e. switching up how you describe your relationship status depending on the company you are in. I culturally code-switch all the time… but I’ve seldom, if ever, called my husband my boyfriend. It does raise an eyebrow or two…

Why can’t we just let teenage girls enjoy their sexuality? A million times yes.

–– ON PAPER ––

Can a Book Ever Change a Life for the Worse? – a NYT discussion with Leslie Jamison and Francine Prose. Features a particularly knarly work reception anecdote from Jamison.

This week I visited Labyrinth Books in Princeton, The Strand bookshop in New York City, and Book City and Indigo in Toronto. I bought:

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
Ten Years in the Tub by Nick Hornby
Crazy Salad & Scribble Scribble (bind-up) by Nora Ephron
Bonk by Mary Roach
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

I also finished a couple of essay collections: Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, and And The Heart Says Whatever by Emily Gould. Blogs on these coming soon.

What book(s) are you currently reading?

–– &c. ––

Loyalty Nearly Killed My Beehive. An esoteric but interesting read. Bees are always fun because they remind me of Eddie Izzard’s bee-keeper bit. “I’m covered in bees!”

Will Portland Always be a Retirement Community for the Young?. The latest addition to my binders full of “If we moved to the US, where would we live?” think-pieces.

What were your favourite reads of the week?