Talia Lavin: Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy.Aileen Moreton-Robinson: Talkin' up to the white woman: Indigenous women and feminism in Australia.
Fiction:
Hari Kunzru: Red Pill. Martha Wells: Murderbot Diaries. Stina Leicht: Persephone Station.Katie Heaney: Girl Crushed.
Ellie Eaton's The Divines is a portrait of an elitist, if not academically so, all-female boarding school and a catastrophe that happened then, that is slowly revealed as the narrator recounts her schooldays. Struggling with returning memories, Jo in adulthood discovers that her memories aren't as reliable as she thought, and that, like many teenagers, she failed to see herself from the perspective of others at the time. This does not veer into a wild, fantasy place of body horror like last year's Catherine House or the magnificent Wilder Girls by Rory Power, but it still maps the inherent horrors of teenage girls, but what they do to each other and what the world does to them.
I didn't even start to read Young Adult Fiction until I was well out of that age group, but now that I do, I wish I had had access to these books earlier, they would have made me feel less alone and more connected during my school days. Katie Heaney's Girl Crushed is one of the best I've read: it's about the end of a relationship, and a main character who is desperate to prove that she is over that first big love, but finds that sometimes the lines aren't as clear, that sometimes going backwards is just as good as going forwards if it is for the right reasons. The novel also features two lesbian bookstore owners who add cultural references more close to my heart (do the kids still listen to Le Tigre and the best break-up song of all time, Sleater-Kinney's One More Hour? I hope so.).
The New York Times: Fauci on What Working for Trump Was Really Like, January 24, 2021.The New Republic: The Uncertain Promise of Biden’s Presidency, January 21, 2021.The New Republic: The Tyranny of the Pandemic Office, January 8, 2021.The Verge: Twitter permanently bans Trump, January 8, 2021.LitHub: Rebecca Solnit: When the President of Mediocrity Incites an Insurrection, January 7, 2021.The Guardian: Rebecca Solnit: Call it what it was: a coup attempt, January 7, 2021.The Atlantic: This Is a Coup, January 7, 2021.Citations Needed Podcast: News Brief: US Media Pathologically Incapable of Criticizing MAGA Mobs Without Evoking Racist Cliches About "Third World", January 7, 2021.