Posts by author

Lauren O’Neal

  • What to Read When There’s No More Breaking Bad

    With the series finale of Breaking Bad drawing ever closer, we’re looking for new ways to get our drug-story fix. That’s why we were as excited as Aaron Paul on The Price Is Right to see Lauren Eggert-Crowe’s “Breaking Bad (and Beyond) Reading List”…

  • The Sonic Wonder of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” Speech

    Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington, the massive civil rights protest at which Martin Luther King, Jr., famously delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. That speech’s stirring vision of political and social equality for blacks…

  • Classic Authors’ Karaoke Jams from Readers

    Yesterday, we linked to Rob Sheffield’s Bookish post matching classic authors with karaoke songs. Our readers responded with their own picks on Twitter, and we loved them so much we collected some of our favorites on Storify. Read them below…

  • Iran’s Epic Poem, Now with Illustrations

    You’ve heard of the Ramayana and the Epic of Gilgamesh, but have you heard of Shahnameh? It’s Iran’s epic mythical poem, and it’s “twice the length of The Iliad and The Odyssey combined.” Artist Hamid Rahmanian wanted to bring the seminal…

  • On Growing Up in the Orgone Box

    In January, we posted about an SF Weekly interview, equal parts fascinating and disturbing, with a man who wrote a memoir about his sexual experiences with dolphins and other animals. That man, Michael Brenner, has written another memoir, this one about…

  • I’m Not A Novelist, But I Play One In a Video Game

    The writing life isn’t a game—except when it is. The Novelist, an indie video game by Kent Hudson, lets you play at being a author without having to put pen to paper…though the game doesn’t seem too much easier than…

  • Come Rumbl With Us!

    If you’re not reading our Tumblr—the aptly titled “Rumblr”—then you’re missing out on GIFs, Friday Reads, and our in-house astrologer who is not actually an astrologer, Madame Clairvoyant. Here’s a preview of her latest dispatch from the stars: Sagittarius: This is…

  • Accio, Buyer’s Market!

    Real-estate company Movoto has appraised “the Burrow,” the Weasley family home in the Harry Potter series, and figured out what it would sell for in the muggle world. The calculations are a lesson in the values of close reading, taking into…

  • Emily Dickinson: Karaoke Queen?

    For Bookish, music writer and self-described “karaoke ho” Rob Sheffield lists which songs famous authors of the past would have belted out on karaoke night. He’s unquestionably right about Oscar Wilde crooning something from The Smiths, though it seems a…

  • An Excellent Book—and Such Endorsements!

    To promote his new book Happy Mutant Baby Pills, OG Dad author Jerry Stahl rode around with writer/director/producer Larry Charles, trying to dig up endorsements from those famous friends. The result is probably the only book trailer to be posted on…

  • Alas, Poor Transatlantic Review!

    The Paris Review just celebrated its sixtieth birthday—and not a gray hair in sight! But many game-changing, sterling-quality literary magazines didn’t make it to that ripe old(ish) age. At Flavorwire, Jason Diamond rounds up some of the Paris Review‘s most promising peers…

  • MaddAddam Is Coming

    If you, like us, are drooling in anticipation for the conclusion to literary empress (and Rumpus interviewee!) Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy, well, mop up your chin and then check out this mini-profile of Atwood and her most recent speculative-fiction series.…