The Audacious Round Up
For the week of January 13th
AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS
Our January selection is Private Rites by Julia Amrfield. We will have a live book club discussion with the author on January 26h at 2 pm EST/11 am PST. Please note that this is a different time from our usual discussions because the author lives abroad. Registration is open! I hope to see many of you there.
THE NEWSLETTER WEEK IN REVIEW
PERSONAL PROFESSIONAL NEWS
A recent project I did is with an outfit called Rebind where they have writers talking about classic books and there’s an AI component I do not fully understand BUT, I was able to “rebind,” my favorite novel The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. The first three people to click this link will get a free subscription to Rebind. Regardless, I hope you check out my rebind and the others available from writers like Chloe Cooper Jones, Marlon James, Margaret Atwood, Garth Greenwell, and many others.
Opinions is out in paperback. The Portable Feminist Reader is coming out in 2025. Pre-orders are now open and it is always a huge help when you pre-order. Stand Your Ground is OUT NOW! Megan Pillow and I wrote a book called Do the Work. The Tenth Anniversary edition of Bad Feminist is available.
Debbie Millman has a new book, Love Letter to a Garden, and it will be published on April 15th, 2025. Also included in the book are 10 recipes by me—a mini cookbook if you will. Pre-orders are open!
The second Trump presidency is imminent. Here is some of what his administration has in store. Now, most of this isn’t likely to hold or is all that legal but when has that ever stopped Republicans and when have Democrats ever had the backbone to fight fire with fire? Elon Musk, unelected, will have office space in the White House. Why? Who the fuck knows? Trump plans on starting deportation raids in Chicago, by sending 100 or so ICE officers to the city. Whatever happens, it’s crystal clear that fear tactics are already being used. And Stephen Miller is even more of a problem, this time around. Potential defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearings proceed apace and it is bewildering that he might actually be confirmed despite having no experience and no qualifications for the job.
The only thing vaguely interesting about this terrible time is seeing the assholes who are willing to bend the knee and abandon the charade of being principled. (All the billionaires except maybe Mark Cuban.) Seriously though… extreme wealth really makes people even worse than they may have already been. And like, we knew Mark Zuckerberg was a total weenie, but my goodness, the depths of his weeniehood are staggering. Also he is very preoccupied with “masculine energy,” which… well, I will keep my ungenerous thoughts about that to myself. Anyway, Meta is also stealing our books to train its AI.
Hollywood envoys? What?
Michelle Obama, protector of her own peace, shall not be attending the inauguration.
Rebecca Traister, who always has smart ideas, suggests that Republicans are operating largely out of fear.
There are many organizations doing excellent work in L.A. as the fires continue to burn and people start to figure out next steps. And One Voice L.A., is raising funds for all the people who lost their jobs after their employers’ homes burned down.
A lot of things went wrong in the early hours of the L.A. fires. There is a lot of hazardous waste that must now be cleaned up. The extent of the destruction is significant.
Good news, though. Tiptoe the Tortoise made it out of the Palisades safely.
In Gaza, there is, at least in theory, a cease fire that has been agreed to by all parties. This is something that should have happened more than a year ago, before more than 46,000 people in Gaza were killed but here we are. There will be prisoner and hostage releases as both sides stay down. May this be the beginning of the road to a free Palestine.
Angelenos, the public library, which is excellent, has a residency program!
A report on NYC’s congestion pricing first week.
RIP David Lynch, who made weird and cool and interesting art and inspired countless others to do the same. This was a lovely remembrance from Kyle MacLachlan.
The Supreme Court, 9-0, decided to uphold the TikTok ban. People fretted about the app’s demise. I certainly was sad to see it go as I sure do enjoy those little videos. The app went dark for a few hours and then in some grand collusion, the app is back because Trump cares not about laws etc.
Starbucks is reversing their open bathroom policy.
Longreads curated a list of ten excellent short stories to read.
Here are some opportunities for artists and other creative people.
Maybe Trader Joe’s isn’t as great as it seems on the surface…
The brain trust at Walgreen’s realizes that maybe locking everything up is not conducive to sales.
Tesla is discounting that ugly ass truck of theirs.
A profile of Neko Case who has a memoir forthcoming.
A woman walks into a bar and falls in love with an AI chat bot.
Of course there were going to be issues with the UKs new visa policy. They were warned.
Just for kicks, this is a WILD WILD house in Boca—a nesting doll of chaos.
The moon is now a threatened cultural site because capitalism will ruin things even if they are off-planet.
The dearth of women in urbanism shows in how cities are designed.
Bad Bunny will be doing a residency in Puerto Rico! But will he do one in NUEVAYOL? That is the question.
Some recent newsletters I have enjoyed:
Thanks for this Roxane, I appreciate The Querent being included here. I am regular reader of the roundups so it was a nice surprise.
Mark Cuban is undoubtedly less evil than most of our oligarchy. But he did hop right into business bed with Miriam Adelson when it suited his purposes, so I'm not letting him off the hook entirely.