How do?

I’m busy getting ready for my upcoming trip to New Jersey and New York. Don’t miss me too much!

Here’s your weekly dose of links. Enjoy x

 

–– ON ROBOTNIC.CO ––

New Bookish Blether! In Episode 21 we discussed Prize List Pressure – how we cope with the pressure to read literary award nominees and winners, along with some literary prizes we trust and follow.

 

 

–– ARTS & CULTURE ––

I really enjoyed Austin Kleon’s talk on notebooks, which he gave on his recent book tour. [VIDEO, 31 mins]

Molly Young is great on books (just take a look at her single-serving “what I’m reading” Tumblr) – and now she’s doing a weekly New York Times column called Help Desk. Here’s the first edition.

Lovely stuff from George Saunders: My Writing Education: A Time Line.

This week it was time for my monthly read of Sadie Stein’s Daily Correspondent blogs. Here are two highlights: Back Away Slowly and Let’s Use “Weird” in the True Sense of the Word.

Gotta love a good New Yorker funny: The Greatest Feats of the Awkward-Social-Situations Escape Artist.

 

 

–– THE FUTURE ––

… what’s so irritating about the recent ubiquity of the word ‘‘diversity’’: It has become both euphemism and cliché, a convenient shorthand that gestures at inclusivity and representation without actually taking them seriously.

Anna Holmes asks, Has ‘Diversity’ Lost Its Meaning? I think it’s hot on the heels of “content”.

Isn’t it great when two of your favourite internet things get together? It happened for me: She Does interviewed Ann Friedman. Great listen.

The Allusionist and the other Radiotopia podcasts are currently fundraising, if you fancy kicking them down a few dollars. Here’s a recent episode on Vocables [AUDIO, 14 mins.]

After 10 years, Google Books proposal to scan millions of books – including those still in copyright – was declared legal. Here’s The Atlantic on What the Google Books Victory Means for Readers.

 

 

–– ON PAPER ––

I liked this article with Bill Bryson being Bill Bryson. After reading this I downloaded his new book. Started it in bed last night. Then immediately had to stop because I was giggling uncontrollably and my husband was trying to sleep.

This week I read Poor Things by Alasdair Gray with a few friends, and if not for them I’d never have finished it. Gray is clever, but his machinations are totally transparent, so I found this one clever but difficult to enjoy.

I also finished listening to Barrel Fever by David Sedaris – far from my favourite of his, but I do love his sardonic delivery. Now I’m all out of backlist and have to wait for his new one.

What’s on your nightstand?
 

 

–– &c. ––

Wil Wheton wrote about soft-rebooting his life. While his references wear on me a little I think he really gets to the root of a problem that most of us have: feeling we don’t deserve better, and some steps for how to overcome it.

 

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

Til next week, pals.

 

Welcome back! I decided to take a wee break last week. How’ve you been?

Things have been quiet around here, mostly getting equipped for the colder months and taking in lots of films and things. We watched Book of Mormon in London a couple of weekends ago and the songs are still stuck in my head like a fever dream. In celebration of Back to the Future Day I also watched the entire trilogy, at the cinema, in a oner. It was fun!

​So, how’s about some links?

 

–– ON ROBOTNIC.CO ––

The Big Issue asked me to review a couple of new releases, so I wrote about Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff and Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg. Enjoy.

On my podcast Bookish Blether we talked about Autumn Reads – what’s on our lists, along with some recommendations.

Last week I also reviewed PAN, The Program and Hotel Transylvania 2 on BBC Radio Scotland. You can catch up on iPlayer.

 

 

–– ARTS & CULTURE ––

After he won the Man Booker Prize last week, Marlon James excellent personal essay – From Jamaica to Minnesota to Myself – resurfaced. It’s a great read.

I never got the appeal of Henry David Thoreau’s self-indulgent writings. Then Kathryn Schulz eviscerated him and it felt so good. Pond Scum: Henry David Thoreau’s moral myopia.

LitHub asked, Who Would Win If Writers Played for the Pennant? I don’t know how many of you are into books and baseball, but I loved this.

Famous quotes, the way a woman would have to say them during a meeting.

 

 

–– DIGITAL ––

If the selfie is a feminist act, the male gaze reclaimed and foisted triumphantly on a selfie stick for purposes of female self-expression, then the daily routine video addresses something even more pervasive: The surveillance that young women live under. That surveillance has been internalized now. Girls perform from the moment they wake till when they fall asleep at night. They perform not just for boys, but for themselves, for other girls, and for the Internet.

On The Kernel, Roisin Kiberd wrote this brilliantly realised piece about how YouTube’s ‘My Daily Routine’ is a beautiful lie.

Oliver Burkeman wrote about hard work and the effort trap. With so many no doi articles about long work hours going around, this was a refreshing take on the subject.

This has been popular, but Nancy Jo Sales found the star of my favourite memes and put a hilarious title on it: Ermahgerddon: The Untold Story of the Ermahgerd Girl.

 

 

–– ON PAPER ––

Last weekend I had a big-time binge, finishing Grandmother Divided by Monkey Equals Outer Space by Nora Chassler (book club), 10:04 by Ben Lerner, and In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park. Then I read nothing for a week.

I’m currently reading Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things with a few friends. I’m also dipping into The Long-Winded Lady by Maeve Brennan, which is all kinds of wonderful.

What’s on your nightstand?
 

 

–– &c. ––

A couple of “how to” posts I found useful this week:

How to Prioritize, Pursue Goals, and Focus When You Have Many Interests. I’ll be trying this out.

Great tips from Brené Brown on How to Reckon with Emotion and Change Your Narrative.

 

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

​Have a lovely weekend!

 

Long weekend yeahhhh! I’m off to London today. Plans include visiting my podcast buddy Holly, book shopping in aid of Books Are My Bag, seeing Book of Mormon, stuffing my face, and drinking lots of cocktails.

What are your plans for the weekend? Anything exciting? Here are some links to keep you occupied.

 

–– ON ROBOTNIC.CO ––

You may or may not have noticed that quietly attempting to post at least once per weekday throughout October – so there’s plenty to read around here.

How about some capsule reviews of the books I read last month, aka September Reads?

Looking ahead, I caught the seasonal reading bug and posted my Autumn TBR [VIDEO, 6 mins].

Book Week Scotland 2015 launched this week, and they have an amazing line-up of bookish events taking place across the country from 23–29 November.

ICYMI, Bookish Blether #19 is about the opposite of a reading slump, a Book Spree!

 

 

–– ARTS & CULTURE ––

On LitHub, Sloane Crosley talked about her “novel dysmorphia”. Basically she wrote a 700-page novel, which has now been released as a 372-page novel. I like to think about the processes authors go through between drafts – the additions and subtractions, and how the end product we read has never come out fully-formed. Weird, right?

My favourite film podcast did an episode on my favourite filmmaker! You Must Remember This: Buster Keaton’s Biggest Mistake [AUDIO, 43 mins]

I am totally in love with illustrator Megan Nicole Dong’s cartoons of men being deceived by make-up. This one’s husband-endorsed: he laughed so hard he had a coughing fit.

“My past is littered,” she said, “with the bones of men who were foolish enough to think I was someone they could sleep on.” Whoa.

 

 

–– THE FUTURE ––

Here’s a great discursive piece from Ann Friedman – Me Inc.: The paradoxical, pressure-filled quest to build a “personal brand.”

Who knew The Politics of Pantyhose could say so much about society?
 

 

–– ON PAPER ––

This past week I’ve read Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg – which was a good, slightly underwhelming small town drama.

I also finished Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff – a seemingly pretentious but ohmyfuckinggod actually outstanding and totally rich story of a marriage with a total deconstruction of the manic pixie dream wife. There is way too much to say about that book.

My full reviews will be in the next Big Issue so look out for that.

Next on my list is Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, my current buddy read which is remarkable so far but quite chunky so I might take my Kindle away this weekend and start this month’s book club pick: Grandmother Divided by Monkey Equals Outer Space by Nora Chassler.

What’s on your nightstand?
 

 

–– &c. ––

True or not, this Craigslist missed connection is sweet and beautifully written and heartbreaking.

 

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

​Have a lovely weekend!