Author Archives

Em Perper
Bookseller, writer, editor.

'Orange is the New Black' is Back: A Reading List on the Representation of Prison

Now that we’ve all had a chance to finish watching Orange is the New Black (who am I kidding — we all binge watched it in a day or two, right?), I thought I’d share four pieces that clarify and critique the way prison is represented on the show. The first two pieces cover season one, for all you newbies out there. The second two address the most recent season.

1. “Five Formerly Incarcerated Women on Prison, Relationships, and Orange is the New Black.” (Kat Stoeffel, The Cut, August 2013)

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The Culture of Video Games: A Reading List

Videogames fascinate me. I’m not very good at the majority I’ve tried to play, but, like kickball and baking, I still play, because they’re fun, and I don’t have to be good at everything. (Except Pac-Man World 2 for PS2. I rule that. Especially the ice-skating levels.) Friends have helped me play Bioshock Infinite and introduced me to Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin’? I like to read How Games Saved My Life. In these voices, I hear passion. Not defense or argument, but thoughtfulness and joy. It’s the same joy I express when I rant about a particular book or marvel at a stunning piece of longform journalism. I am not going to be the person who ranks media’s promise or power or worth, who turns up her nose at YA literature or One Direction or Zelda.

1. “Video Games: The Addiction.” (Tom Bissell, The Guardian, March 2010)

Don’t let the cliched title fool you. This isn’t an indictment of video games. Tom Bissell is a fantastic writer, whose pieces I’ve included in the past, but his past includes a cocaine addiction and a Grand Theft Auto IV addiction. “Any regrets? Absolutely none.”

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Food For Thought: A Reading List

This week, we return to your regularly scheduled Longreads programming. The theme? Food: queering food, eating Pokemon, the potential of Soylent, tasting curly fries for a living, and Canadian food trucks.

1. “America, Your Food is So Gay.” (John Birdsall, Lucky Peach, June 2013)

“It’s food that takes pleasure seriously, as an end in itself, an assertion of politics or a human birthright, the product of culture—this is the legacy of gay food writers who shaped modern American food.”

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Yes, All Women: A Reading List of Stories Written By Women

This week, a lot happened. A misogynist went on a violent rampage. #YesAllWomen took off on Twitter. Dr. Maya Angelou, feminist author and all-around genius (and don’t get me started on her doctor honorary), died at 86 years old. This week, I present a long list of essays, articles and interviews written by women. Many are about women, too. Some are lighthearted; others reflect on the events of the past week. I included a variety of subjects to honor those who might be triggered by the deadly violence of last week’s shooting, because women do not only write in the wake of tragedy—we write, we exist, for all time. So in this list there is reflection and humor; there are books and music and religion; there are all kinds of stories, fiction and non. Read what you need. Engage or escape.

1. “Summer in the City.” (Emma Aylor, May 2014)

Aylor, author of Twos, uses #YesAllWomen to write about about the sexual harassment she experienced as she researched her dissertation on the work of Wallace Stevens.

2. “In Relief of Silence and Burden.” (Roxane Gay, May 2014)

The author of An Untamed State and critically acclaimed badass gives her “testimony … so we can relieve ourselves of silence and burden” in the vein of #YesAllWomen, sharing stories of harassment, abuse and more.

3. “Not All Women: A Reflection on Being a Musician and Female.” (Allison Crutchfield, Impose Magazine, May 2014)

A wide range of female musicians react to a depressingly misogynistic article in Noisey about how to tour in a dude-dominated band. They share what they’ve learned on the road, emphasizing self-care, communication with bandmates, and doing what you need to do to feel safe and be your best self.

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Thoughts From the Sexual Spectrum: A Reading List

The following writers straddle the line between explanation and expression. Here is my piece. It is personal.

Lauren Morelli’s piece especially touched me. An ex-boyfriend once told me he consulted with his pastor and his wife to see if he should be concerned; would my “healthy fascination with bisexuality” (his words, which I don’t necessarily hate or disagree with) be a deterrent to a serious relationship? The pastor’s wife told him that I should be completely sure I wouldn’t leave him for a woman, should we get married (P.S. we were both 22). These people had never met me, but they were trying to articulate my complex relationship with myself and the people I love. At the time, I brushed that pain aside; now I am hurt and angry. I have never written about this before, but the bravery of Lauren Morelli’s piece dares me to. It dares all of us to face our lives with rugged honesty.

These pieces aren’t about me, though—they are about profound, unique experiences. But they are opportunities to put names with faces, to make the abstract real, and what is more important than that?

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The Fault in Our Canon: A Reading List About Problems in the Literary Canon

This brief list is but a glimpse of the complex, crucial and ongoing discussion about the importance of inclusivity and the problems with privilege in the literary canon. Please share your recommendations: essays and articles in this vein, books you wish the canon could accept, etc.

1. “On ‘The John Green Effect,’ Contemporary Realism, and Form as a Political Act.” (Anne Ursu, Terrible Trivium, May 2014)

Realism’s literary privilege in America, the diminishment of other genres, the erasure of minority voices and the weird fact that everyone seems to have forgotten that fantastic YA fiction was around for a long time before John Green took pen to paper.

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Dating in the 21st Century: A Reading List

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

1. “Love Me Tinder.” (Emily Witt, GQ, January 2014)

The denizens of Tinder in all their weird, wild, witty glory.

2. “Dating While Trans: The Doldrums.” (Audrey Arndt, The Toast, May 2014)

For a long time, Audrey openly described herself as transgender in her OKCupid profile.

3. “Forever Single: DATING WHITE PPL.” (Soleil Ho, Infinite Scroll, January 2014)

Or “11 Challenges of Having a White Partner” as a person of color.

4. “Dating on the Autism Spectrum.” (Emily Shire, The Atlantic, August 2013)

For many autistic teens and adults, the flirting, dating and the rest of the romance rigamarole don’t come easy. That’s where programs like PEERS come in.

Photo: David Goehring

Working 9 to 5: A Reading List About the Way We Work

The lines between my life and these lists blur often, and this week is no exception; I begin a new job tomorrow.

1. “Workin’ 9 to 5 (What a Way to Make a Living).” (Megan Reynolds, The Billfold, April 2014)

“I can’t shake the feeling that the 9-to-5 grind carries the one hallmark of adulthood—obligation. The work of the modern office employee is finely tuned drudgery, a daily exercise in doing stuff that you don’t necessarily want to do, but know you have to.”

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Reading List: Leslie Jamison, Author of ‘The Empathy Exams’

“When people ask what kind of nonfiction I write, I say ‘all kinds,’ but really I mean I don’t write any kind at all: I’m trying to dissolve the borders between memoir and journalism and criticism by weaving them together.” – Leslie Jamison

This week, Choose Your Own Adventure with Leslie Jamison. I’ve compiled a collection of interviews with and essays and short stories by the author of The Empathy Exams. But the way you approach this list is up to you. Ready? Let’s begin.

To read Jamison’s interview with the Virginia Quarterly Review, proceed to number 1 (this is a good introduction to the author, if you’ve never heard of her or only know her a bit).

To read Jamison’s interview with Flavorwire, proceed to number 2 (best if you’ve already read The Empathy Exams, or are about to).

To read Jamison’s interview with The Paris Review, proceed to number 3 (best if you love the particular flavor of Paris Review interviews and have not read The Empathy Exams yet, because a version of this interview appears there).

Want to get to know Jamison through her writing first? To skip these interviews altogether, proceed to numbers 4 or 5.

1. “An Interview with Leslie Jamison.” (John Lingan, VQR, April 2014)

 

2. “‘The Empathy Exams’ Author Leslie Jamison on the Empathy of the Internet and the Limits of Opinion.” (Elizabeth Donnelly, Flavorwire, March 2014)

 

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Drug Life: A Reading List

1. “Finding Molly: Drugs, Dancing and Death.” (Shane Morris, Bro Jackson, September 2013)

Every batch of Molly is different. And that’s what makes the pills or powder you’re buying at your local music festival so dangerous. Shane Morris offers a first-person account of his time in both the EDM and Molly industries.

2. “Is Marijuana Withdrawal a Real Thing?” (Malcolm Harris, Aeon, January 2014)

When the author takes a smoke break after five years, his dreams are disturbing enough to send him looking for answers in medical journals and user forums.

3. “The New Face of Heroin.” (David Amsden, Rolling Stone, April 2013)

In case you’ve missed the swathe of NPR reports, Vermont is a plaid-clad heroin hotspot, “conjuring up images more commonly associated with blighted inner cities than a state with the nation’s fifth-lowest unemployment rate and a populace that is 95 percent white.”

 

Photo: Wikimedia Commons