Other
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Online Romance…from 150 Years Ago
From its title (Wired Love) to its tagline (“‘The old, old story’—in a new, new way”), this Ella Cheever Thayer novel from 1880 sounds surprisingly modern. Substitute texting for telegraphs or OKCupid usernames for telegraph operators’ initials, and the book…
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Another Look at Hormonal Birth Control
Is it possible to write a feminist critique of birth control? Holly Grigg-Spall tries to do so in her new book Sweetening the Pill, but according to our editorial assistant Lauren O’Neal’s review in the New Inquiry, she doesn’t exactly succeed:…
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Happy Belated Birthday, Zelda Fitzgerald
In honor of her would’ve-been 113th birthday, check out Gothamist’s collection of photos and footage of Zelda (and F. Scott) Fitzgerald. Okay, okay—her birthday was a week ago, so this isn’t the timeliest post in the world. Still, it’s fascinatingly…
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LGBT, SF, YA, and Other Useful/Distracting Acronyms
In an interview for the Young Adult Library Association’s blog, YA novelist Malinda Lo talks about writing within certain genres—young adult, fantasy/sci-fi, feminist, LGBT—and how it can be both confining and liberating. …I know that labels can be a useful…
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On Becoming a “Glasshole”
In his novel Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart imagines a near-future infested with äppäräts, devices that sort of resemble smartphones, but are more technologically advanced and even more intimately twined into our lives. Recently, as the result of a…
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
Dan Weiss is on tour with his band for the next three plus weeks, but fear not: We’ll still be serving up your morning coffee. What you didn’t know about your hotel room. What amusement parks will look like when nature…
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A Good Guy With a Gun, or The Frank Castle Doctrine, or The Punisher Applies For A New Job
I was always taught that if you have a gun, you better produce it.
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The Women of Ward 3B
[Alice’s] brown eyes are comparatively lucid in a room filled with women alternately sedated or enraged. She comforts Shania, who believes a bulldozer is parked inside her forehead, and Sabrina, who thinks an ex-boyfriend has taken custody of their nonexistent…
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Peggy Sue’s Rock & Roll Mysteries
You’ve probably heard Buddy Holly’s classic song “Peggy Sue” (and/or its sequel “Peggy Sue Got Married“), but did you know Peggy Sue was a real person? She hung out around Holly while dating his drummer, and stayed on the early…
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Is Penguin’s E-Galley Policy Hurting Authors?
When a book is ready to be marketed, Penguin will print loads of galleys. Great, important, standard. But what they won’t do is give out electronic versions of the book. Not DRM and watermarked copies. Not password protected copies. An…
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San Quentin Arts Project Exhibition at SFPL
If you’re in San Francisco, check out the San Francisco Public Library’s exhibition of art from the San Quentin Arts Project. See art by inmates ranging from “renaissance-style portraits in oils” to “a San Quentin cell to scale created from…
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Ted Wilson Reviews the World #192
CIGARETTE$ 4 GOLD ★★★★★ (5 out of 5) Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing Cigarette$ 4 Gold.