Posted inEditor's Pick

Mallory Ortberg’s Favorite Advice Columns

Mallory Ortberg | Longreads | February 16, 2016 | words

Mallory Ortberg answers advice at Dear Prudence and is the co-founder of The Toast. Longreads asked her to tell us about her favorite advice columns.

Posted inCommentary, Nonfiction, Reading List

Mallory Ortberg’s Favorite Advice Columns

Mallory Ortberg answers advice at Dear Prudence and is the co-founder of The Toast. Longreads asked her to tell us about her favorite advice columns.

Last year, I became an advice columnist. This is my only qualification for being an advice columnist, as I am quite literally just some guy. “Noted some guy Mallory Ortberg.” Here are a few of my favorite advice columns:

1. “The Monty Hall Problem” (Marilyn vos Savant, Parade Magazine)

Priceonomics describes this column thusly:

When vos Savant politely responded to a reader’s inquiry on the Monty Hall Problem, a then-relatively-unknown probability puzzle, she never could’ve imagined what would unfold: though her answer was correct, she received over 10,000 letters, many from noted scholars and Ph.Ds, informing her that she was a hare-brained idiot.

What ensued for vos Savant was a nightmarish journey, rife with name-calling, gender-based assumptions, and academic persecution.

Continue reading “Mallory Ortberg’s Favorite Advice Columns”