It’s Wednesday! Which means that it’s time for Wednesday links. We hope these things we’ve discovered around the internet help you kill some time during your afternoon Hump-day slump.
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Mother’s Day was Sunday and I know for some of us (myself included) it can often be a complicated holiday to celebrate. This Mother’s Day, Jezebel revived their post on toxic moms:
You deserve recognition for completing the hardest break-up known to the human heart.
Whether it was because of an addiction, a compulsive need to put you down, an ex-communication, an inability to give and receive love, or just the turmoil of dealing with a broken woman, you did something that most people regard as taboo. And that takes courage.
There are those of you out there who a have found a middle ground, a place where you can avoid the excesses of a mother’s disfigured personality. This could be through tightly scheduled phone calls, no surprise visits, or some topics that agreed to never be discussed. This is not easy. Surely, it has caused you anguish and late-night fights with your significant other. You also deserve credit that you likely do not get enough of.
For those who have “broken up” with their moms, kudos to you for thinking of your own mental and physical health.
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Boston-area Bitches, there’s a meet-up tonight if you’re free and want to swap some books!
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For those who have fond memories of The Baby-Sitter’s Club, check out The New Yorker‘s write-up on the series’ feminist legacy:
The books, while primarily intended to entertain, packed in more than a pinch of kid-friendly feminism. They pass the Bechdel test—adapted here to mean a work of fiction featuring at least two girls talking about something other than a boy—and arguably pass the more recently conceived and more loosely defined DuVernay test, a similar metric for racial diversity. (Though most of the sitters were white, Jessi, a club member introduced two years into the series, is black, and Claudia is of Japanese descent.) “I wouldn’t say that I had a feminist agenda, but I certainly had a feminist perspective,” Martin told me. “I think of myself as a feminist. I wanted to portray a very diverse group of characters, not only from different racial backgrounds, but from different kinds of family backgrounds, religions, and perspectives on life. I just really wanted a group of girls who were very different from one another and who became very close friends.”
Any Baby-Sitters Club fans out there?
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I’m over at Book Riot, recommending 100 international romance authors! RIP to your TBR pile.
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Miniature charge cables
These mini cables are terrific for keeping in your bag to plug in your battery backup. They're 5" long and don't take up any room or get tangled, and they weigh nothing. There is an Android set and an iPhone set.
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Love Marvel? How about interactive maps? Inverse has done their best to map out the Marvel Cinematic Universe in New York City:
Many of Marvel’s superhero films have been set in New York City, and yet it’s hard to find a map that shows where the events of the films actually take place. We’ve created a map of the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe using Google Maps, which we’re calling “Inverse’s Marvel NYC Map.” The collection of MCU events extends north to suburban Westchester County (where Charles Xavier founded his Institute) and south to Staten Island, where The Hand trains its youngest recruits in Iron Fist.
The eight movie properties and nine TV properties represented on the map below below include: X-Men (2000), Iron Man (2008), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), The Avengers (2012), Daredevil (2015), Jessica Jones (2015), Agent Carter (2015), Luke Cage (2016), Doctor Strange (2016), Deadpool (2016), Iron Fist (2017), and projected locations from The Defenders (2016), Punisher (2017), Cloak and Dagger (2018), The Runaways, Inhumans, and Squirrel Girl (date TBA).
Trust me, this thing will keep you entertained for quite some time.
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Don’t forget to share what super cool things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
Thanks for the Marvel Cinematic Universe link! I’ve got a couple who are Marvel fanatics (one for the movies only, one for both movies and comic books/graphic novels) in the book I’m writing, and this will make great fodder for dialogue.
And the Book Riot list is excellent! I’m sure I’ll be reading my way through it for a long time to come.
Thanks for the Book Riot list. But shouldn’t it say “Long live your TBR pile”? That list seems quite invigorating for any TBR pile. 😉
I was a little too old for The Baby-Sitters Club, but read a few last year in order to listen to The Baby-Sitters Club Club podcast, which is awesome.
This has the potential to be very good or very bad: THE ORVILLE, an upcoming comedy TV series set in a STAR TREK-type universe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy9sKeCE8V0
The Bachelorette cast has been announced.
http://abc.go.com/shows/the-bachelorette/cast
Someone tweeted “highlights” of their bios, and all I could say was “poor Rachel.” Enjoy the trips, girl.
Check out Dean, who signed up as a contestant on a game show with an ostensible goal of marriage: “I think marriage is an institutionalized sham derived from religious beliefs.”
See also Milton, who was perhaps unwisely truthful about what he hopes to gain from participating in the show: “[To be] discovered. Everyone tells me I’m made for TV/movies.” (I don’t think Milton’s here for the right reasons, Rachel.)
Bring on the rum!
I highly recommend the Babysitter’ s Clubs graphic novels by Raina Telgemeier ( and anything else by her especially Ghosts and Smile). My 9 y.o. reluctant reader is reluctant no more after getting her hands on these.
I spent my vacation in March driving to all the used bookstores and Value Villages in southern Ontario to find used BSC books for my 13-year-old niece. The later ones are pretty hard to find. I did order a couple online so that she could continue reading as she’s determined to read them in order. It was a fun bonding experience!
I checked out the Book Riot list and all I can say is: “Destiny Driven!?”
Actually, it was a good list – thanks for the link.
I practically LIVED in the Babysitters Club universe between the ages of 7-9. Just picking up an old BSC book makes me feel like I’m reconnecting with an old friend. I like to think they taught me how to be a little more resourceful, empathetic, and independent. It was also amazing to me to have a Japanese American main character because I felt like I NEVER saw other characters in books or TV who looked like me – I’m 4th generation J.A. – except for, like, ninjas (but that’s a whole ‘nother discussion). Thank you for posting this!!
This week I’ve discovered THE COOLEST THING!
Podcasts are my crack when I’m destressing. I listen to them while coloring or working on a Lego set. While listening to The History Chicks (if any of yall haven’t tried them, OMG DO IT! 2 gals take a woman in history and storytell her whole life.) While catching up on them, they recommended a podcast called The Art History Babes, AND I’M IN LOVE!
It’s a few women who have a laid back but informative lesson on art topics. It’s half super structured lecture, half shooting-the-shit about the topic AND IT IS ALLLL THE GOOD!
Last night I listened to their Bob Ross episode and I cried REAL tears from d’awwwing! So! Much! GOOD!
This international romance list is entirely my catnip and it’s going to destroy my wallet. *rubs palms gleefully* 🙂
Ha! I totally emailed the Book Riot list to you guys because I didn’t realize you were the Amanda who wrote it. Oops! Anyway, it’s a fun list. The only one on it that I’ve read was Watermelon by Marian Keyes, which I liked a lot!
Good article here and some excellent book recs:
http://www.tor.com/2017/05/17/bad-girls-dance-where-they-want-to/
Oh, EC Spurlock’s Tor link reminded me of this:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/river-of-teeth-by-sarah-gailey/
I am all the way in on “alternate history hippo western” and “a rollicking book of gunslingers riding hippos into danger.” I didn’t even need the “triumph for identities rarely encountered in westerns, an examination of the danger of living with a heart full of hate, and a treatise on how unity makes us stronger” to preorder that book so hard, it’ll download with bruises.