My son is obsessed with the score to Mario Galaxy 2, and I need to say, for the record, that I’m about to lose my goddamn mind.
Rachel Vorona Cote
@rvoronacote.bsky.social
Author of Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today. Freelance book critic all over the place. Get in touch: rachelvorona@gmail.com. @RVoronaCote on Instagram. She / Her.
I read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie today, my first Muriel Spark. It shook me! What an utterly mesmerizing, destructive, simultaneously inspired and delusional titular character. Also, that narration — so blithe and biting. I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.
Not to be a harpy, or anything so distasteful, but … It’s well nigh impossible to fund endometriosis treatment or improve prenatal care. Meanwhile, men can’t be bothered to make plans with their friends, or they complain about not getting dates, and we gotta burn down forests to help them get off.
WIRED@wired.com · 3d agoJoi AI hired 10 people to masturbate using AI companions as part of a monthlong “wellness” study. The company claims the practice could help “solve male loneliness.” www.wired.com/story/these-...
it's honestly fucking wild how hard it is to be a trans person who does anything creative and practically beg for any kind of media attention, even from queer publications, but someone posts a text screenshot saying they're not taking HP money and they get headlines for two straight days.
Weezer, Pinkerton Interpol, Antics Tori Amos, Under the Pink The Strokes, Room On Fire Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream The Killers, Sam’s Town
Eric Michael Garcia@ericmgarcia.bsky.social · 2d agoWhat are some GOATED second albums in your mind?
Please don't ignore me before it's too late. 💔 I'm in unbearable pain and I fear losing my fingers. I desperately need $160 for treatment, but I don't have the money. Please help me through this ordeal, or share my plea. Your kindness could save my fingers. 🙏❤️🩹 chuffed.org/project/moh01
an unbelievably bleak story and one for which the usual ghouls in the British media have a lot to answer for, even though they won't
Chris Berez@chrisberez.bsky.social · 2d agoHoly fucking shit Jason Arday found dead
love love love this essay by David Hollingshead. So smart, so funny, and winningly earnest
Humanists Have Done Nothing Wrong | Defector
For many years, I’ve held a pet theory that cultural consumers can be grouped into two broad categories: Primary Source People and Secondary Source People. The former are the book lovers, cinephiles, ...
defector.com
I think you all are vastly overestimating how much chicness is possible in this kind of humidity.
Kathryn is such a smart critic, and this is going to be superb.
Kathryn VanArendonk@kvanaren.bsky.social · 4d agoI am really, really, really, REALLY excited to be able to share the cover of my book, as well a link so you can preorder it for when it comes out in April. Look at the ears!!!! wwnorton.com/books/978132...
Yesterday, as my son and I were heading home, we drove past the DJT Institute of Peace—the letters spelling T's name are flagrantly more visible than the rest—spotted the cartoonishly garish statues on the Arlington Memorial Bridge, and saw a gaggle of National Guardsmen at a crosswalk. Miserable.
Free DC@freedcproject.bsky.social · 5d agoFor the last year Trump has subjected DC to an unjustified, illegal, and dangerous militarized occupation. The occupation has hurt our communities over the past year, but it has also ignited a powerful and growing movement — and we'll keep organizing until we win.
Please don’t write in the newspaper 700 years from now that I got absolutely smoked.
Andrew Curry@andrewcurry.com · 5d agoThe man's skeletal injuries looked like a train hit him, but he died in 1304 CE. At #ppa26Berlin last week, @uniofbradford.bsky.social scientist Jo Buckberry concluded he was likely whacked by a flying boulder, making him the first confirmed trebuchet death in the archaeological record. @science.org
Putting aside the ethics of supporting a virulent transphobe's empire... we need to seriously curtail the parameters of radical acceptance, because this is the kind of mass psychosis that makes me think we deserve to be colonized by aliens.
The Guardian@theguardian.com · 7d agoHarry Potter fans force relocation of £430m undersea cable to avoid Dobby’s ‘grave’
Me after folding the hand towel in the bathroom (rather than stuffing it between the bar and the wall)
Sarah Archer@sarcher.bsky.social · last wk.Folding laundry, feeling remarkable.
I think that it is hard to come to meaningful conclusions when you are operating on a rather essentialist and binaristic understanding in which men can only be and want a certain way. I don’t mean that to be snarky — just that the writer boxes herself in. thepointmag.com/criticism/st...
Student of Desire | The Point Magazine
Years ago, I had an intense relationship with a man who was brilliant and deeply interesting to talk to. I didn’t doubt he felt similarly […]
thepointmag.com
I’m extremely behind the zeitgeist, but I just finished the first book in the On the Calculation of Volume series, and loved it. It’s a compelling conceit that could have fallen flat if it weren’t executed with such sensitivity and intelligence. The book feels like loneliness at its most exquisite.
My preschooler asked me if I was having my grief (Greek) yogurt this morning.
Aspiring literary men are welcome to enroll in my woman-taught nonfiction writing course!
Adrian 'buy HAIR SHIRT' Sobol@yoadrianididit.bsky.social · last wk.Excuse me?
Seeing all sorts of references to Weird Girl Lit these days, so now’s my chance to beg everyone to take an hour to read Christina Rossetti’s 1962 poem, “Goblin Market.” You are simply not prepared for how crazy it goes.
Paul Yoon’s excellent new novel, Etna, is out today. I’m so glad I was able to write about it in this essay about animal narrators for @theatlantic.com.
Rachel Vorona Cote@rvoronacote.bsky.social · 2w agoMy latest piece for @theatlantic.com is about animal narrators in fiction, with particular attention to Paul Yoon's extraordinary new novel, Etna, which Homer and/or Nolan heads will be happy to learn is another version of The Odyssey. Here's a gift link: www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...
Paul Yoon’s excellent new novel, Etna, is out today. I’m so glad I was able to write about it in this essay about animal narrators for @theatlantic.com.
Rachel Vorona Cote@rvoronacote.bsky.social · 2w agoMy latest piece for @theatlantic.com is about animal narrators in fiction, with particular attention to Paul Yoon's extraordinary new novel, Etna, which Homer and/or Nolan heads will be happy to learn is another version of The Odyssey. Here's a gift link: www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...
Animal narrators in fiction have a long history, but they seem to be having a contemporary moment. Rachel Vorona Cote on Paul Yoon's "Etna" and the instructive journey of a very good boy:
When the Narrator Is a Very Good Boy
A new novel helps explain why so many storytellers enlist animal narrators to explore humanity.
bit.ly
I’ve had some wine and am watching The Incredibles for the first time. It’s very enjoyable, but its underlying ideology is…whew.
We dragged our preschooler to a record store this afternoon, which had a disco ball hanging from the ceiling in one room. Our son saw the disco ball; asked me “Is it disco time?”; and began to dance. (It was, apparently, Disco Time.)
I intermittently think about pitching Tori Amos’ “Under the Pink.”
Stop Calling Me Frank@stopcallingmefrank.bsky.social · 2w agoYou have a month to write a 33 1/3 book about the album of your choice. Which record are you going to write about? (No previously covered albums allowed; new shit must come to light: see below.) (For all books in the series: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_1/3) (H/t @monostich.bsky.social
In The Atlantic’s Books Briefing, @boriskachka.bsky.social explores two works with animal narrators that teach us something funny about human beings:
Two Unexpectedly Hilarious Kafka Stories
The animal narrators in these works teach us something funny about human beings.
bit.ly
It’s true. Every time he walks past me reading the book he basically cheers.
Paul Cote@paul-the-cote.bsky.social · 2w agoBeautiful new piece from Rachel that also ended up serving one of my long-in-the-making goals: finally getting her to read Watership Down.