And it’s the best thing to ever happen.
Mindy Kaling and B.J Novak were announced as the headliners for NYC's BookCon this morning.
NBC
NBC
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
8 Anagrams In "Harry Potter" You Definitly Didn't Notice
Posted by Unknown on Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Oh.
Tom Marvolo Riddle's name was an anagram for "I am Lord Voldemort."
Warner Bros. Pictures
Dolores Umbridge = Go, Sir Dumbledore!
Looks like someone's name was hinting at whose job she was stealing.
Loryn Brantz for BuzzFeed / Via stevengalen.com
Draco Malfoy = of a cold army
Should have saw this one coming.
Loryn Brantz for BuzzFeed / Via stevengalen.com
Show Us Your Literary Tattoos!
Posted by Unknown on Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Do you wear your love of stories on your skin?
Maybe your tattoo references a specific book...
Or maybe it just represents your love of books in general.
Maybe it's a celebration of your favorite author...
Or a way of remembering a quote that means the world to you.
13 Things By Women You Can Read In One Sitting
Posted by Unknown on Wednesday, March 11, 2015
March is Women’s History Month. Or rather, Herstory Month.
Poems
"A Poem About My Rights" by June Jordan
If you haven't read activist, poet and teacher June Jordan, start here. The poem covers everything from rape culture to corporate interests to racism, all leading to her declaration, "I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name."
"Practicing" by Marie Howe
Former New York State poet laureate Marie Howe writes a different kind of love poem in Practicing. In her own words, it's a "poem of praise" to the girls she practiced kissing with in middle school.
"The Erotic Philosophers" by Carolyn Kizer
Literary and cultural references abound in Carolyn Kizer's sharp poem that takes aim at your favorite religiously-minded philosophers.
"Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)" by Anne Sexton
You're not in Disney world anymore. Anne Sexton doesn't shy away from the dark implications of the Sleeping Beauty fairytale.
"wishes for sons" by Lucille Clifton
Lucille Clifton gives voice to a wish that perhaps every woman has felt at some point in her life: periods for everyone!
Wikipedia Commons / Via en.wikipedia.org
Short Stories
"A Temporary Matter" by Jhumpa Lahiri
Pained silences and observations of the fragility of marriage dominate Jhumpa Lahiri's affecting short story. Shoba and Shukumar receive a notice that their electricity will be shut off in the evenings. Their temporary situation enables them to tell each other secrets, which quickly grow deeper.
"Recitatif" by Toni Morrison
While we wait for Toni Morrison's latest novel, it's the perfect time to read her only published short story. In vignettes, Morrison traces the relationship between Roberta and Twyla from childhood to adulthood, without mentioning the racial identity of either.
"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates
Playing both on the sexual revolution and paranoia of the 1960s, Joyce Carol Oates fosters an increasing level of terror in his her highly symbolic and allusion filled short story.
"Antarctica" by Laura van den Berg
Included in The Best American Short Stories 2014 collection, Laura van den Berg's story of isolation and relationships in the most secluded place on Earth will leave you wondering how well anyone can truly know someone else.
Wikipedia Commons / Via en.wikipedia.org
Essays
"The White Album" by Joan Didion
Why do we tell ourselves stories? Joan Didion asks in her essay on the underlying, and eventually fulfilled, paranoia of the 1960s. To live.
"In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens" by Alice Walker
Alice Walker reflects on the creative legacy of the generations who came before her. Instead of their creative spirit revealing itself in writing, the mothers and grandmothers that Walker praises expressed their artistry through their every day lives.
"Matricide" by Meghan Daum
In writing about her mother's death, Meghan Daum confronts the 'unspeakable' or unflattering moments of her own life. She doesn't show us her 'best' face, but instead, the honest one.
"The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America: Something Like A Sonnet for Phillis Wheatley" by June Jordan
June Jordan gets two mentions because we don't talk about her work enough. Jordan's reflection on Phillis Wheatley's poetry highlights the true miracle that it was, and, is.
Wikipedia Commons / Via en.wikipedia.org
What are your favorite poems, short stories, and essays by women? Share yours in the comment section.
Emma Watson Tweeted A Picture Of Neville Longbottom As A Soldier And The Internet Can't Handle It
Posted by Unknown on Wednesday, March 11, 2015
So many feelings.
Matthew Lewis, aka Harry Potter's Neville Longbottom, plays a soldier in his new BBC Three comedy drama series called Bluestone 42.
And he's grown up and pretty damn hot in it.
(RIP Neville Longbottom).
Warner Bros.
A 200-Word Essay Could Win You An Inn In Maine
Posted by Unknown on Wednesday, March 11, 2015
The owner of Center Lovell Inn and Restaurant is holding an essay contest with the property as the prize.
Dina Rudick/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
What's the price of a dream?
According to one innkeeper in western Maine, $125, no more than 200 words and a postage stamp will do.
More than two decades after a Maine couple gave away the Center Lovell Inn and Restaurant to the winner of an essay contest, the woman who won the quaint year-round inn with views of the White Mountains will once again offer up the 12-acre property to a hopeful, persuasive entrant in the same unorthodox way.
Via pressherald.com
Dina Rudick/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
"There's a lot of very talented people in the restaurant business who would like to have their own place but can't afford it," said Janice Sage, who took possession of the business in 1993 after dashing off a few handwritten paragraphs that would change her life. "This is a way for them to have the opportunity to try."
She hopes to receive 7,500 responses, or about $900,000, about what local real estate agents suggested as a listing price for the 210-year-old inn and two outbuildings overlooking Kezar Lake in Lovell. It is also an amount that would allow Sage to transition smoothly into retirement, her ultimate goal.
She also hopes the novel approach will ensure that the inn will land in worthy hands.
Via pressherald.com
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Caitlin Moran on Taboos, Feminism, and Writing Honestly
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, March 10, 2015
The author of How to Be a Woman and How to Build a Girl shares her opinion on everything from contemporary feminism to the Internet.
Caitlin Moran is a columnist for The Times of London and the author of two acclaimed books: the memoir-cum-manifesto How to Be a Woman, and the novel How to Build a Girl, which was recently optioned for a film adaptation. Moran writes about everything from obscure D-list British celebrities to the challenges of contemporary feminism with equal panache and vigor, and with an eye for the absurdities of life. Moran is a fount of opinions (her riff in How to Be a Woman about how to determine whether or not you are a feminist is priceless), comic routines, and embarrassing anecdotes. She is a comedian with the soul of an activist, or possibly an activist with a terrific comic repertoire: "I'll talk about anything, honestly. Seriously. It's shutting me up that you'll have a problem with."
How do you juggle writing honestly about yourself with any lingering sense of embarrassment about your past?
Caitlin Moran: Bill Hicks said you're born with a certain amount of drinks you can drink and drugs that you can take. You can either do them in one big go or eke them out slowly over your life. With drugs, I did them all in one fucking bunch by the time I was 24. And certainly with embarrassment, I was so perpetually mortified that whatever gland it is that makes mortification just burned out by the time I was 23. It just got overused, and then it died.
What are you proudest of?
CM: You're supposed to say give birth to your children, aren't you, but one of them was just brought out by a doctor and the other one just kinda fell out.
I haven't complained. I've tried to be jolly. I could have written a misery memoir and instead I tried to make it funny. I never complained. Turning those tears into a chuckle. That, and finally learning how to back-comb my hair. Because I either thought you had hair that grew vertically out of your head, like the cast of Dynasty or Dallas, or that was it.
Those are two very impressive accomplishments.
CM: Thank you.
Do friendships become more or less important with age?
CM: I've got more friends than I've ever had in my life at the age of 39 — although given that I didn't have any friends until the age of 27, it doesn't say much — because I found the internet. For me, and I suspect a lot of socially awkward people, dealing with people face-to-face seems really traumatic. Particularly if you have massive sweating issues, and particularly if on top of that you have quite smelly sweat that smells like onion soup.
Does the internet have a problem with politeness?
CM: I read something once that when you're online, your inhibitions are lowered to the state where you've had three drinks. Once you basically know that the entire internet is slightly drunk, it all makes a lot more sense, and you deport yourself accordingly.
Do you have a place or time that belongs to you?
CM: I can only work between the hours of 8:30 and 4:30, because that's when the kids are at school. So I get to do all my work and have all of my fun in that time, which means just sitting on a chair, typing, alternately clicking between writing a column and being on Twitter, and smoking as many cigarettes as I can before my lungs give out.
Are there subjects that are off-limits, either in your writing or at a dinner party?
CM: Whenever I see a taboo, I just think that's something we need to drag screaming out into the light and discuss. Because taboos are where our fears live, and taboos are the things that keep us tiny. Particularly for women. All the things that are taboo are the things that are not normal, and all the things that are not normal are the things that are exclusively about physically being a woman. So once you've got a big feminist and political justification for talking about how you went round to Benedict Cumberbatch's house and did period all over his sofa, then there's no reason not to tell that anecdote in the middle of a dinner party.
Is there anything that can disqualify you from being a feminist?
CM: No. When you say you're not a feminist, if feminism hadn't existed, and you didn't live in a feminist world, you wouldn't be saying that, because you'd be too busy scrubbing out the toilets in back while cooking up your husband's tea and dying in childbirth at the age of 34. The problem that we have is thinking there's only one kind of feminist, and that she's politically correct and right on at all times, wears flat shoes, doesn't wear makeup, probably doesn't have sex, is very angry, wears dungarees, is a vegetarian.
Poll: Which "Game Of Thrones" Character Is The Most Dateable?
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, March 10, 2015
When you play the game of love, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.
Pick who you think is the most dateable*, then tell us why in the comments below!
*regardless of death in the books or show
Jarry Lee / BuzzFeed / HBO
Real Talk: Hobbits Are Sexier Than Elves
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, March 10, 2015
I’m hobbitsexual and proud.
Listen, nerds. If you've seen The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies and you think that elves are the sexiest residents of Middle Earth, you're fucking wrong.
New Line Cinema / Via lotr.wikia.com
Yes, OK. Elves have long, shiny hair and carry themselves with the wisdom only thousands of years of introspection and study can bring. Big whoop.
New Line Cinema / Via lotr.wikia.com
They are also notoriously snobby, emotionally unavailable, and have been known to monologue extensively while glowing from within.
They are also all vegans, which don't even get me started on.
New Line Cinema / Via sodahead.com
All in all I’d rate the sex appeal of your average Tolkenian elf somewhere between sitting pantsless on an iceberg and chipping a molar.
New Line Cinema / Via it.lotr.wikia.com
31 Quotes From Children's Books That Will Inspire You At Any Age
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, March 10, 2015
“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Submitted by Annalise Joanne Settefrati via Facebook
2. "You must never feel badly about making mistakes ... as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons."
–The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
—Submitted by Elizabeth Danielle via Facebook
3. "I don't understand it any more than you do, but one thing I've learned is that you don't have to understand things for them to be."
―A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Submitted by amandak4a7974022
Submitted by nicolerenaes
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Mindy Kaling And B.J. Novak Will Headline NYC's Book Con