This holiday season, win a free paperback copy of The Second Mango. Feminism, femslash, and a friendly dragon are just around the corner!
It’s hard to find a girlfriend when you don’t know any other lesbians, so the young, nerdy Queen Shulamit hires the legendary warrior Rivka to take her around the kingdom on the back of her dragon in search of other girls like her. But the simple quest quickly turns into a rescue mission when they discover a temple full of women turned to stone by an evil sorcerer.
Illustration “I Love You a Latke” credit: yeaka
I love yeaka, and I love that pun!
And I love your URL 😛
Reading this now and it is super-ace and lovely!
Less than two weeks left! (And thank you.)
Tag: books
Have you read anything by John Douglas? He is the FBI profiler that Thomas Harris based Jack Crawford on.I really enjoyed “The Cases that Haunt Us” – in it he analyzes famous historical murders like Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, the Zodiac Killer, etc. and uses modern investigative techniques to posit a new suspect. Really interesting!
I read Mindhunter ages ago, I think around the time it first came out in paperback, maybe a little after. I thought he had some interesting insights into a couple of areas that people don’t touch on very often. There’s a lot of debate these days about how much profiling is really psychology and how much is essentially on the level of horoscope-casting, but he’s a very compelling writer even outside of his thoughts specific to psychological profiles. I’ll have to have a look at The Cases That Haunt Us.
I haven’t yet read The Cases That Haunt Us (though it is very much on my ‘to read one day’ list) but I’d like to add a rec for The Murder Room by Michael Capuzzo, which focuses on the work and cases of an exclusive cold case sleuthing club made up of retired professionals, with heavy attention paid to its three keystone members – a profiler, a sculptor who reconstructs faces, and a polygraph operator. It’s a genuinely interesting piece of storytelling, written in the style of a magazine feature stretched out to book length, and there’s a fair amount of delving into that line where science and measurable fact meets intuition. Whether or not you believe in their theories or methods (they often argued amongst themselves about cases and conclusions drawn) it’s a captivating biography of three men who between them put away a lot of bad people and helped return many victims to their families.
This is the New York Time Best Selling Graphic Novels list for 11/16/14.
1 SISTERS, by Raina Telgemeier. (Scholastic.) Raina is stuck in the back seat between her younger brother and sister for a weeklong road trip in this family memoir. Will such close quarters force the siblings to finally get along?
2 MS. MARVEL, VOL. 1, by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona. (Marvel Entertainment.) Kamala Khan has always dreamed of gaining superpowers, but when her wish actually comes true, can she use them to save the citizens of Jersey City without being grounded by her parents?
3 SMILE, by Raina Telgemeier. (Scholastic.) Raina experiences braces, an earthquake, boy troubles, frenemies and other plagues of the sixth grade.
4 THE WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM, VOL. 1, by Robert Kirkman and others. (Image Comics.) This massive collected edition — over 1,000 pages — reprints the first 48 issues of “The Walking Dead.”
5 THE WALKING DEAD, VOL. 21, by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard. (Image Comics.) The causalities continue to mount as the war between the Survivors and the Saviors reaches its conclusion.
6 HAWKEYE, VOL. 3, by Matt Fraction, Annie Wu and Javier Pulido. (Marvel Entertainment.) Kate Bishop arrives in Los Angeles, intent on creating her own path as Hawkeye, and almost immediately finds herself in the crosshairs of Madame Masque.
7 THE WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM, VOL. 2, by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard. (Image Comics.) This collected edition, of issues 49-96, follows Rick and his group of survivors as they try to stay alive — with zombies and some humans against them.
8 AMULET, VOL. 6, by Kazu Kibuishi. (Scholastic.) Max makes a promise to the Elf King that he may not be able to keep while Emily and Navin are ordered to go into the war-torn city of Lucien.
9 DRAMA, by Raina Telgemeier. (Scholastic.) Middle-school drama becomes much more intense when Callie becomes the stage manager for a production of “Moon Over Mississippi.”
10. AMULET, VOL. 1, by Kazu Kibuishi. (Scholastic.) Emily and Navin are two ordinary children who discover a dangerous world filled with demons, robots, and talking animals under the basement of their great–grandfather’s house.
In addition to Ms. Marvel (a comic about identity and alienation with a diverse cast and a distinctly feminist slant) debuting at the number two slot, you know what I see?
Three of the ten are the stories of teenage girls, AIMED at pre-teen to teenage girls. Two more (Amulet) are aimed at both boys and girls, but feature a central female character (Emily) and her single mother (Karen.) And one is a superhero comic about a rarity in the female world: a female character who is not a “Ms.” who is not a “Lady” or a “She” or a “Madam” or a “Girl.” She is just HAWKEYE, just like the man who carries the title, and that is encouraged and accepted within the narrative.
Seven of the ten are the stories of girls.
But girls don’t buy comics, right? 8)
And boys definitely don’t buy comics about girls.
Must be aliens buyin’ all them comics.
Do you know of any articles related to Autism in women or people who identify as one?
Academic articles? Not really, though I might be able to find some. Blog stuff and diagnostic help? Sure!
- Autistic Women’s Network (AWN) is probably a good place to start.
- Musings of an Aspie Excellent blog written/run by a woman with ASD/Aspergers.
- Autistic Hoya Another excellent blog written by a woman with ASD.
- List of non-traditional traits that are generally associated with female ASD folks.
- And, copied straight from neurowonderful’s Autism Masterpost:
For Ladies on the Spectrum
- http://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/day-62-females-with-aspergers-syndrome-nonofficial-checklist/
- http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/aspergers-diary/201008/its-different-girls
- http://taniaannmarshall.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/asperger-syndrome-in-girls-and-women-keeping-up-appearances-and-missed-diagnosis/
Some people may recommend the book Aspergirls by Ruby Simone, but I cannot. I did not like the book at all and did not identify with much of what Simone said. It was also very heteronormative, which really bothered me.
Agreed. I’m a queer autistic woman, and a friend of mine bought a copy of Aspergirls and handed to to me to look at. I admit I didn’t read it from cover to cover, but I didn’t need to. I looked up certain headers that were of interest to me, and decided that I did not want or need to read it. It was so heteronormative that I felt I had nothing to gain from reading it. It was exclusive at best and offensive at worst, and it had this weird New Age vibe to a lot of the stuff she was talking about. Basically, the book is for cishet Aspies who want a man in their life. There is nothing for queer girls, transgirls, lesbians, asexuals, bi girls, gender divergent folks or any other flavour of difference. I cannot speak for how much privilege is in it either, because it was some time ago I looked at it, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a bunch of that, too.
Cover art and book giveaway for A HERO AT THE END OF THE WORLD.
The wonderful Book Smugglers have just revealed the full cover art for A Hero at the End of the World by Erin Claiborne!
Check out their latest post for some exclusive info from the author, as well as a BOOK GIVEAWAY!
A Hero at the End of the World is a hilarious and gripping combination of YA fantasy adventure, queer romance, and political satire.
A riff on “Chosen One” narratives that evokes Harry Potter, the Percy Jackson series and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this book will appeal to all readers of modern fantasy adventures.
- fandom please I implore you all to talk about Dean Thomas more
- literally yelling for a red card during a Quidditch match
- painting a potter for president banner for his friend HOW CUTE
- offering to forge a signature so that same friend could go to the village with the rest of them
- actually he paints banners supporting Harry on two separate occasions four years apart
- is it weirder that he keeps doing that or that Harry keeps getting himself into situations where he requires banners
- good with a quill be still my beating heart the boy is an artist
- literally not giving a single fuck that their teacher was a “dangerous half-breed” because he respected the hell out of him as a person and educator
- IF YOU MEAN PROFESSOR LUPIN, HE WAS THE BEST WE EVER –
- and he grew up as a muggle so he had already been exposed to werewolf folklore and he had every excuse to be afraid or prejudiced and instead decided to judge him on a human level, even without the familiarity the trio etc. had to him
- standing up for that same teacher time and time again
- including to a ministry official who he just generally gave the sass to anyway
- never losing his faith in Harry even when his very best friend in the whole world and approximately 89% of the wizarding community basically thought the bloke was a nutjob
- convincing his best mate to join DA
there was a fair bit of an anti-dean sentiment in HBP best to ignore that then- never having any animosity towards his friend for getting together with his ex-girlfriend so soon
- completely supporting and defending Harry while on the run because OBVIOUSLY why stop now after seven years of doing literally that at every single opportunity
- being completely bemused by but always kind towards Luna
- helping to dig the grave on the beach
- running out into the final battle without a fucking wand
- evidently winning one at some point
- everything to do with him and Seamus however you want to view their relationship but frankly I could do a whole other post on that
also I met Alfie once and he was so pretty- dEAN THOMAS
Akiva Goldsman’s mother, Mira Rothenberg, wrote a book that is very, very dated but which I own. It’s about her working with schizophrenic and autistic children back when no one rly knew how the fuck anything worked and it’s actually p. interesting. Both of his parents were psychology professionals, though.
aaaah very cool, I did not know that!
Seconding that rec, I own that book, it’s called Children With Emerald Eyes and it’s fantastic. I wrote a long review of it on Goodreads, if you want to know more about the content. It’s hard to read at points because of the difficult subject matter, but it’s a very unusual, quality book about post-world war two child psychiatry by a very ahead-of-her-time professional. Rather than dated I’d call it historical. I own a lot of books about child psychiatry, psychology and special needs teaching/therapy (like, over 50, not even counting any of my dedicated autism books, and I’ve read many more), and I can say without hesitation that it’s in my top ten.
today’s a lazy day
Autism helped me become an internationally published author – here’s how
YA author Corinne Duyvis was “glad” when she was diagnosed with autism because it allowed her to learn more about herself and other people. Here she explains how the diagnosis led her to writing and eventually her first novel, Otherbound.
Autism helped me become an internationally published author – here’s how
NOVEMBER RELEASE FOR “A HERO AT THE END OF THE WORLD,” FROM BIG BANG PRESS.
After a few months of work and a successful Kickstarter campaign, it’s time for Big Bang Press to announce the release date of OUR FIRST BOOK!
Written by Erin Claiborne (AKA fanfic author eleveninches), A Hero at the End of the World is a Young Adult fantasy satire of “Chosen One” narratives like Buffy, Harry Potter and Percy Jackson.
“Seventeen-year-old Ewan Mao has spent his whole life preparing for his destiny: defeating the evil tyrant who’s been terrorizing Britain for as long as he can remember. But Ewan never dreamed that when the time came, his best friend Oliver Abrams would fulfill the prophecy instead.
Five years later, Ewan is living at home and working in a coffee shop while Oliver is a national hero, working at the Serious Magical Crimes Agency. But the two friends are unwillingly reunited when a strange magical cult targets Ewan in a plot to end the world as we know it.”
This book will be published on November 11, 2014, and will soon be available for pre-order in both paperback and ebook format!
The art in this post is by Jade Liebes (hydrae), who illustrated A Hero at the End of the World. We’ll be posting the full cover art and some sample illustrations soon, along with a sample chapter from the book!
Last December, BBP used Kickstarter to crowdfund three original novels by talented authors from the fanfic community. The Kickstarter was a huge success and was covered by all sorts of media outlets including io9, Wired, HelloGiggles, and Hypable. You can find out more on our website, including info about our next two books, written by Kady Morrison (gyzym) and Natalie Wilkinson (febricant).
I’M SO EXCITED TO FINALLY POST ABOUT THIS! Erin’s book is hilarious and amazing. I can’t wait for more people to read it!!
no joke, y’all, erin’s book is a breath of fresh air in a stuffy ya dystopia hellscape
knitting in the dark 