The Audacious Round Up

For the Week of May 31st

Jun 7

Just wanted to give a shout out to Monica Monroe who designs the book club graphics each month. If you’re looking for a great designer, look no further.

Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford has a luminous review in the New York Times.

Today (6/6) is my one year wedding anniversary. Never thought I would say those words.

Barbara Ehrenreich’s daughter became… a cop?

Jenée Desmond-Harris was my editor at the NYT for quite a while and now she is Dear Prudence! The first installments of her column have been amazing. I love advice.

There is a new breed of apps that encourage vigilantism and outsource law enforcement and it’s something we should all be worried about.

Nicole Chung writes about the fatigue of having to educate white people.

R.O. Kwon writes about white silence in the face of the Anti-Asian hate and discrimination we’ve seen over the past eighteen months.

Michael Arcenaux, always with interesting things to say, writes about returning home.

I’ve always wondered why various sports governing bodies insist on making athletes sit for journalist interrogation, especially after rough losses. Naomi Osaka has had enough.

Michael J. Twitty will be leading an Atlas Obscura experience about Jewish food.

Katt Williams on cancel culture.

This is quite the twist on book burning.

An appreciation of small menus.

The Wigleaf 50 for 2021 is up.

Well, here’s a headline.

About all those corporate pledges to fight racism…

Why book pre-orders matter.

There are a lot of benefits to working from home, including having to deal with fewer microaggressions.

If you’re enjoying Netflix’s High on the Hog, here is a reader.

Oof… Scientology.

Racism.

LAist has an infuriating but really well done report on the precarity of life in Los Angeles’s unpermitted apartment buildings.

A really useful guide to gender identity terms from NPR.

The Man: A Compilation, from Rebecca Hazelton. Anyone who has spent time in the literary community will find resonance in this piece.

Americans love their drinking, apparently.

I have a card in this literary tarot deck and I’m excited for it to come out. You can support the Kickstarter.

CeCe Telfer is pursuing her dream of running in the Olympics.

Naomi Osaka stood up for herself and declined to do press at this year’s French Open. She’s a black woman advocating for herself, she has power and she is beholden to no one and that’s a dangerous thing. It has been quite a roller coaster in the ensuing days. She ultimately dropped out of the French Open after being fined $15,000 and is stepping away from tennis which is definitely not what the French Open was expecting when they tried to push back in some obnoxious, predictable ways. Anyway, here is a good piece on the role of the press in professional sports and the damage journalists can do.

This week I also learned that there are off-brand versions of the KKK! Dollar Store KKK!

I am pretty bummed that Mare of Eastown has come to an end. I enjoyed every episode and this profile of star Kate Winslet.

Mary Ruefle on menopause.