Morning Coffee (12/31/14)

Happy New Year's Eve! You should check out the Google Doodle, of course.

John Green has a great video up about systemic racism.

More evidence Mayan civilization collapsed because of drought

Aaah, Wolf Hall trailer!

11 Muppets You Wouldn’t Invite To A New Year’s Eve Party

How late the world stays up on New Year’s, in one map

The science and magic of mulled wine

Here's some interesting stuff about Kindle Unlimited.

Charles Dickens’ Internet Search History

Morning Coffee (12/30/14)

(Hello out there!)

Here's another great story about my neighbor Mae Keane, the last of the radium girls.

No, Argentina's president did not adopt a Jewish child to stop him turning into a werewolf

Breaking news: Ladies can drink whiskey too!

Our Windowless Megachurches Are Killing the Stained Glass Industry

Wow: NORAD's Santa Tracker Began With A Typo And A Good Sport

OH MY GOD Tom Hiddleston Sang a Christmas Carol with Puppy in His Lap

Deck the halls with Nobel physicists

The Cost of Things in Taylor Swift’s ‘Blank Space’ Music Video

Morning Coffee (12/19/14)

Why Sony Was Wrong to Pull The Interview

Probably a LOT of us could benefit from taking a break and reading this right now: The Holiday Hellidays Stress Test Shit Show: Starring You!

Someone Invited a Vegetarian for Dinner? DON'T PANIC

I'm so excited about the new Judy Blume book.

Moving wind forecast puts beautiful weather in your browser

A New British Show Will Feature a Space Ark Piloted by an Android Bear

Oooh, book socks.

How to Tell If You Are in a Baby-Sitters Club Book

Morning Coffee (12/18/14)

Sony won't release The Interview Christmas Day after all

Why we're reporting on Sony's leaked info

The Doomed Sandy Hook Lawsuit

The Trouble with Teaching Rape Law

Church of England Names Libby Lane as First Female Bishop

Questions were raised about The Toast's contract terms earlier this week, and I'm impressed with how they're handling it.

Funny but also useful: Your Quick & Easy Guide To The 5 New Instagram Filters (And What To Use Them For)

Instacart and Di Bruno: Because Sometimes You Just REALLY Need Your Cheese Delivered to You in an Hour (My cousin works for them in Philadelphia and obvious I am very impressed with her work. CHEESE DELIVERY.)

Amazing: A Spinster’s Holiday Gift Guide: What To Buy For The Woman Who Loves Solitude

Morning Coffee (12/17/14)

Please check out this very important op-ed by my mother and her colleagues: Connecticut is dismantling its system of mental health care for children

Sorry, But You Can't Wear Your Pats Jersey To The Aaron Hernandez Trial

Whoa. SUPPOSEDLY Comcast is going to let Roku have the HBO and Showtime apps. I'll believe it when I see it, but this would be awesome.

This piece about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees is interesting. I didn't know there was DISCO CONTROVERSY.

Worth hours of fun: Google's year in search.

Huh: The fastest-growing job in each state

Sarah Wendell of the great romance fiction site Smart Bitches, Trashy Books has a new Hanukkah romance out and it's only 99 cents.

THESEUS: OH
Stringy
the, the helping girl
no I
I had a vision from the gods
they told me to leave her here
for god reasons

Morning Coffee (12/16/14)

Check out today's Kandinsky Google doodle.

17 Cosy Reading Nooks To Get You Through The Winter I WANT ONE.

The New Cosmopolitan & the Slow Climb Out of Lipstick-and-Lasagna Land

Go Fug Yourself's Holiday Gift Guide is always a delight.

There's another great book-related gift guide at Novel Novice.

This is mesmerizing: What Colour Is It?

I kind of want to make these Anna and Elsa stockings just for MYSELF.

Doctors Performing Surgery For The First Time In Western Art History

Morning Coffee (12/15/14)

Me elsewhere: TV news for the week!

I love Vox's list of Books to Read to Understand the World.

So, Northeastern's radio station has been playing Oasis 'Don't Look Back In Anger' on a loop for hours

"Soon we'll have a peppermint bark origin story. Very dark. Very gritty. I worry about franchise dilution. It used to be about the BARK, man."

Quiz: Which Disney Heroine Are You? (Belle, of course.)

Here are some fun book-related gift ideas.

The Whole Foods Holiday Help site is pretty great.

Whoa: Tiny Flip Books Create A Miniature World In Your Hands

Signs You May Be At Risk For “Space Madness”

Morning Coffee (12/11/14)

Make sure you check out today's Annie Jump Cannon Google doodle.

Enlisted is coming to DVD!!

Shocker: That DNA Evidence Identifying Jack the Ripper Was Wrong After All

"There is no need for the child playing princess to imagine herself as Henry Potter's secret twin sister Henrietta to make herself the hero: the princess is already the hero."

The Elf on the Shelf is the greatest fraud ever pulled on children

I just read and loved Claire Legrand's Nutcracker retelling Winterspell, and she's doing an awesome giveaway.

The Fictional Spinster Classification Index

Hee: Millions Of Holiday Travelers Return From Parents’ Homes All Caught Up On ‘The Mentalist’ (Full disclosure: I watch The Mentalist and my parents do not.)

Morning Coffee (12/10/14)

Yes, Virginia, there is a system of injustice.

How Paperbacks Helped the U.S. Win World War II

NPR's Book Concierge is my favorite.

Cecilia Grant is one of my favorite historical romance authors, and she's got a free Christmas novella out.

Ooh, a Frozen short is coming before Cinderella.

Important Agent Carter information! I will be picking up the nail polish, at least.

Hey Ladies are back!! "My only teeny tiny ish is I would literally never wear a floppy hat."

Heh: Disheartened Man Expected At Least One Text While Checking Phone After Flight

Morning Coffee (12/9/14)

Here's President Obama on The Colbert Report.

Hasidic Enclave Keeps Its Secrets Amid Elusive Rebbe's Tight Control

I need to get reading: I've read none of the Times's 100 notable books of the year and only two of the notable children's books.

Emails Where Shit Got Real

The Comprehensive Guide to Dating a Book Nerd

These statistics about common names are interesting but I'd like to see it with different spellings of the same name combined, as well.

How Well Do You Know “You’ve Got Mail?” (I got two wrong and I'm so ashamed.)

Heee: Local Woman Asked to Leave Friend Group Due to ‘Weak Personal Brand’

Morning Coffee (12/8/14)

Wow: Missing Masterpiece Discovered in the Background of ‘Stuart Little’

Ooh, these snowflake photos are awesome.

What Disney Movies Taught Us About Girl Power

RUDOLPH IN LATIN

The Tricky Ethics of Intergalactic Colonization

24 Things All Young Adult Fans Are Tired Of Hearing

Ruin Your Own Happiness, Part I: How To Be Disappointed By Good News

Hee: Hear Kristen Bell and Straight No Chaser's 'Text Me Merry Christmas'

Morning Coffee (12/4/14)

Eric Garner’s Killer Won’t Be Indicted

Swedish PM calls first snap vote in 50 years after far-right force budget defeat

Socioeconomic Class in Contemporary YA Lit: Where Are The Poor Teens?

Are you a Game of Thrones fan? If so, you will enjoy this puppet reenactment of the Purple Wedding. Then you'll want to watch everything else these hilarious, adorable characters do at Classic Alice. Start here.

The Sony Pictures hack is a big deal. Here’s why.

Someone at Wellesley is doing some interesting research on the propagation of Twitter rumors.

Heh: New York Times’ most popular stories ever

This DRIVES ME NUTS: If you’ve got ‘another thing coming’, you’ve got another think coming

Morning Coffee (12/3/14)

I know I'm the last person in the world to find this bandwagon, but I finally started listening to Serial and it's as compelling as everyone said.

Yay: Twitter is taking steps toward better harassment reporting and blocking.

Best birth announcement ever.

Aaaaaah, information about the Life After Life sequel!

Fascinating: Inside the Weird Brains of Real-Time Translators

I love books about books and I've somehow only read two of these, so I should get on that.

Why Don't You... Rent a Llama for Your Wedding? Why don't you... NOT DO THAT?

Unhappy Families in Western Art History

What I Read: November 2014

Betrayal in Death by J.D. Robb (Dallas/Roarke #12): A particularly enjoyable entry in the series, thanks to an interesting mystery case, ties to Roarke's past, and the usual strong character dynamics. I love that (so far, at least) Robb is keeping Dallas and Roarke in a good place while still dealing with the differences between them, and the relationship between Peabody and McNab provides a good secondary romance plot.

Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving: I knew the basic story but had never read this one, so I figured I should read along with the Classic Alice plot! I enjoy Irving's writing, and the Arthur Rackham illustrations in this edition were gorgeous. And, you know, ghost bowling. Absolutely here for the ghost bowling.

Texts from Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg: Quite funny, as expected - plus it made me want to go read or reread a bunch of the books it parodies IMMEDIATELY.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton: Read for book club. I'm not a fan of magical realism, generally, so I had trouble getting into this - when people suddenly turn into birds or are so tall they block the sun, my automatic reaction is to roll my eyes. That said, while I was never sold on those aspects of the story, Walton did a good job of making me care about the characters. And I liked her prose style; the bakery descriptions were definitely my favorite part of the book.

White Snow, Bright Now by Alvin Tresselt: This caught my eye when I walked past the picture book bins at my local library, and I'm glad I grabbed it! The narrative was charming, and I really like the illustration style.

A Demon Summer by G.M. Malliet (Max Tudor #4): I continue to really enjoy this series. While I missed the village stuff a bit in this one, the look at nunnery life was fascinating. The mystery itself was a little slow to get going, but satisfying in the end. And I'm so excited about the developments in Max's personal life.

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame: I'd read this for a history of children's lit class in college, but my memory was hazy, so I reread along with Classic Alice. As is often the case with classics, I was delighted to rediscover how FUNNY it was. It was also genuinely touching, and while I'm not always the biggest fan of animal stories, I mostly got past that here. (I did have to make myself stop trying to figure out exactly how anthropomorphic these animals were supposed to be, especially when it came to things like how large they were compared to humans - the illustrations made them human-sized - and exactly how the animal/human justice system worked.)

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: This was delightful - hilarious and clever and compelling. I only wish I'd done more background reading first, as I fear a lot of things were going over my head because I'm not as familiar with this period of history as I should be.

Morning Coffee (12/2/14)

My Vassar College Faculty ID Makes Everything OK

Huh: Supposedly Alois Brunner died several years ago in Syria.

Winnie the Pooh banned from Polish playground for being 'inappropriate hermaphrodite'

Whoa: Online Girl Scout cookie sales are coming. I am actually not that huge a Girl Scout cookie fan, but I like things that make it easier to help faraway family/friends' kids with their fundraisers.

Ooh, need a gift book recommendation? Check out the Penguin Hotline. Penguins are standing by!

Speaking of Penguin, I desperately want their new line of Christmas classics.

Everything I need to know, I learned from 'The Holiday'

This sounds like quite an auction.