The Audacious Roundup
For the week of December 29th
AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS
Our January selection is Hitch by Sara Levine. We will have a live book club discussion with Sara on January 22nd at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is open! I hope to see many of you there. For newcomers, there is a bookclub FAQ if you have questions about how it all works. We’re partnering with the lovely people at Allstora for the Audacious Book Club. Now, you can sign up to have the monthly selections delivered to your doorstep each month! Otherwise, I’ve put together an Audacious Book Club storefront if you want to buy current or forthcoming book club titles.
THE NEWSLETTER WEEK IN REVIEW
It was a quiet week, the holidays and all.
PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL NEWS
If you have an interest, I’m judging the Craft Literary essay contest. Submissions are open until January 25th.
Thanks to you guys and other readers, The Portable Feminist Reader is a NYT bestseller! So thank you! And if you haven’t gotten a copy yet, there’s still time! (And there will always be time, it’s a book.) And check out Love Letter to a Garden, by Debbie Millman.
Book and project buying links: Books I’ve Written, RGB Imprint Titles, Rebind: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.
READING MATERIAL
RIP Tatiana Schlossberg. She was thirty-five.
Zohran Mamdani is now the mayor of New York. He was sworn in at the City Hall subway stop, using a Quran. His inaugural speech was wonderful. Billionaires are sad.
Former mayor Eric Adams, meanwhile, is going to do something with crypto?
NYC is set to get three casinos…
The U.S. bombed Venezuela, kidnapped Maduro (dictator, bad) and his wife, and now the Nike sweatsuit he was wearing is sold out. What on earth does that say about us? The Times and Washington Post knew about the plans but didn’t report on them until after they were executed to “protect the troops.” Meanwhile, Venezuela does indeed have a lot of oil, but getting it and using it is complicated. And as usual, disinformation abounds online. Trump says we’re not at war with Venezuela but the bombing kind of suggests otherwise. For his part, Maduro plead not guilty for the charges he is facing. And Trump continues to articulate his obsession with taking over Greenland. America First at work, I guess.
The president is pretending his is not an older man with some health issues and is defying lots of medical advice because he knows best. In a small victory, Trump is withdrawing National Guard troops from American cities.
The USPS changed a rule about when mail is postmarked that could affect mail-in voting.
Privatizing disaster recovery makes it a luxury good, which means, that a whole swatch of people are left without resource or recourse when disaster happens.
Israel will be banning Doctors Without Borders and other vital NGOs from providing aid in Gaza. What can you even say about something like this? It’s unspeakable.
Tony Dokoupil is now the host of CBS Evening News. He’s not very good at it thus far though it is early days. Bari Weiss, the head of CBS News is chartering a private jet so CBS can talk to “real Americans.” Why not!? Fuck those people who were fired. Fly private even though “real Americans,” fly commercial.
Good news, Wisconsonites. Abortion is still legal.
Good news, L.A. renters—your landlord has to provide a refrigerator now. That they previously didn’t have to is one of the weirdest Angeleno quirks.
The Tesla diner in L.A, that all the influencers flocked to when it first opened, isn’t doing that well anymore. Of course it isn’t.
I really want this adorable little car, so bad. If it was in pink, I would love it and give it a sweet name. Also the word cabriolet is so cute.
It should surprise exactly no one to learn that Open AI is going to prioritize advertising content. Of course they are.
A Trader Joe’s tote is a hot new commodity abroad.
Watch nerds had a gathering.
Are we asking too much of our refrigerators?
The stories of Faith Ringgold’s quilts.
On New Year’s traditions in Black households.
If you enjoy women’s basketball, the Unrivaled season has started.
RIP Isiah Whitlock Jr. Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit! RIP Peter Greene. RIP Sophie Kinsella. RIP Dr. Janell Green Smith, a Black maternal health advocate who died in childbirth.
Mickey Rourke has fallen on hard times.
For NYC subway riders, RIP to the MetroCard.
A lot of artists are cancelling appearances at the Kennedy Center. As they should.
A profile of the CEO of NPR. A profile of May Cobb, author of Hunting Wives. A profile of Carrie Coons and Tracy Letts.
Here is some reporting on how books did 2025. While lots of people don’t read, sadly, the people who do read, read A LOT!
The New York Times includes The Hitch in its roundup of books being published this month. Nerd Daily includes the forthcoming novel Magician in their roundup of sci-fi and fantasy books worth reading in 2026.
Some beavers built a useful dam in the Czech Republic!
Tyler Perry is being sued, again, for sexual harassment.
For Coyote, Daniel Lavery writes about visiting a gay bathhouse.
Beyoncé is a billionaire and, I guess that’s news. There shouldn’t be any billionaires though.
There was a lobster heist!
There are consequences for going off GLP-1s; the hunger comes back. Of course it does! Speaking of, anti-fat bias also occurs in the influencer realm. Alas. We are in another era of emaciation, indeed. (But do whatever gets you closer to happy!)
Ira Madison writes about the gay hockey show!
True service journalism—a Bad Bunny syllabus.
Happy new year, to all of you. I appreciate your support and subscriptions so very much. I’m excited for the new year, however grim the news may be. We’ll be doing some fun things here including writing classes! What are your hopes, your small, feasible hopes, for 2026?
Horrifying that they knew and didn't say anything. This is the Bad Place.
The little car is so cute