Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah on how her profile of Dave Chappelle in The Believer came together: ...I think the West has this huge importance on saying, “I’m not in the story.” But you’re always in the story. It’s just that you’ve placed yourself in the center, as if it’s not subjective. And part of my subjectivity coming to it, as a woman and a black woman, is that you’re in the story as…
Lindsey Palka's previous work for The Toast can be found here.
L.M. Montgomery’s novel Rilla of Ingleside, the eighth Anne of Green Gables book, does not get half the praise it fairly deserves. Published in 1920, it is much more of a contemporary novelized account of the First World War than what we usually think of as “war novels,” and it is distinctly different from Montgomery’s other works. Most First World War
Helen Craig's previous work for The Toast can be found here.
The Road is a relatively short book, comprising 320 pages and weighing approximately 380 grams. It contains several scenes of interest for professionals in the animal product industry. Sadly, each has several inaccuracies, and so I am unable to unreservedly recommend this novel. Here I list the fundamental defects, and attempt to suggest alternatives.
I wasn't an early adopter of Supernatural. I knew some huge fans—long-distance, half-online, half-IRL friends who shrieked about it regularly on Facebook long before any of us had Facebook. I didn't get into the show until one day when I walked into a certain university bathroom stall and discovered a shrine to fandom. Every surface was scrawled with declarations of love, from the classic Kirk + Spock to a host of Sherlock pairings.
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE HAS BEEN RECREATED! The mythical potion that grants its drinkers eternal life, the recipe that alchemists have sought for THOUSANDS of years, has finally been discovered. This is literally the most important discovery of human history, and poises us on the cusp of a brand new era in human evolution. Look at that bottle - tiny but ornate! The legends were true; it must only take only a few sips of…
A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown, Julia Scheeres For the kind of person who -- like my mother, WHO IS WRONG -- will always prefer non-fiction to fiction. It's awful, but you'll be able to sleep just fine after you finish it. The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, David Shields For the profoundly secular. Blind Descent: The Quest To Discover…
Gay marriage, guys. Gay marriage. I was at a Utah hospital yesterday when the news came on the waiting room TV, and my friend and I were all "nice!" and then this cute blonde butch-looking receptionist looked stealthily around her and made eye contact with us and did a lil thumbs-up and it was a righteous moment. I mean, long way to go.
Inspired by The Pillow Book (枕草子) of Sei Shōnagon (清少納言), completed 1002 AD OPENING WORDS THAT ANNOY -When I was your age... -Have you gained weight? -Have you lost weight? -Are you familiar with the Gospels? -Not to be racist, but... -I don't have anything against gay people, but... THOUGHTS THAT ACHE -Your parents before they became parents. -The feel of your (now deceased) cat's head under your hand.
When I was seventeen, I attended a lock-in hosted by my church’s high school youth group. For those of you who did not participate in Christian youth groups as youngsters, a church lock-in is essentially a big supervised slumber party that usually takes place on church grounds. It’s not that different from any other slumber party attended by teenagers since whenever sleepovers became a thing: there’s pizza, snacks, music, movies, and a general lack of…
*Unfortunately, the school has exceeded its annual book budget so you will need to purchase your own copy. See buying options on Ms. Palmer’s web site… Please support your local bookstore, or if you buy on Amazon, please do so Tuesday at 5 p.m. so Ms. Palmer’s sales rank will spike. Thanks! :)
Day 1, Aim: How can we begin to learn about Pretty in Ink and its major themes?
I'm down at my parents' house for a few days, and due to "excessive heat" and also fascism I have been forbidden from using their oven to make a souffle, even though I have never made a souffle before and I would really like to and I don't have an electric mixer in my own home so it's impossible for me to make a souffle there, DAD. So I made them a chocolate custard instead, as punishment…
Elena's previous work for The Toast can be found here.
To count how many emails from professors I got during my years in undergrad, I would have to go back to my old email and do some fairly sophisticated filtering. I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'll just estimate that about three times per quarter - over the course of nine or so quarters taking primarily computer science classes - I
An excerpt from Isaac Fitzgerald and Wendy MacNaughton's Pen & Ink, featuring tattoo stories from, among others, our own Roxane Gay.
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Jon Burge is out of prison. He should be in it for a long, long time [insert Gandalf's well-known speech about how many people who deserve prison escaping it, and many who deserve freedom being in prison, so just apathetically sit around accepting the horrors of the world,…
The Toast accepted this piece prior to the death of Debo Mitford, and is running it now in her memory. You would probably enjoy the book in question. “He begged plumes from the hats of his women friends and, picking one up, would sigh with nostalgia and say things like, ‘Ettie Desborough, Ascot, 1921.’ Once the flies were ready, he lay in the bath imagining he was a salmon while Edward, the butler,…
