Red Mage Conspiracy

doctorwho:

‘Doctor Who’ Fans Offer 14,000 Free Books To UK Schools

Speaking of “it’s nice to do something nice for someone” this is pretty cool:

When David Dovey came across a post on eBay proffering some 11,000 mint condition Doctor Who novelisations in a massive job lot, he immediately considered what his next best step would be.

So, while talking to a few friends on the internet, a plan was hatched. They would club together and buy the books, and then donate them, in batches of six or so, to schools.

In the end, the auction finished at just £656 (around $1015), and the friends made a website and invited schools to get in touch if they wanted some of the books.

Already some 300 schools have signed up, and 1,400 of the books have been sent out. Through various donations their original haul has increased to 14,000, and this is just the beginning. The consortium hope to encourage all Doctor Who fans to donate one book to their nearest school, whether it’s part of their collection or one that has been specially purchased.

Read the rest at Anglophenia

jamesmariarty:

theuntoldtales:

Lovely poems Waterstones!

the last one, i’m dying

(via little-fleur)

bookspaintandfireflies:

rhaithe:

typingfrantically:

Let me talk to you about books.

Specifically, one book. This book.

This book should be a best seller. This book should be required reading for graduating from high school. Before you get that diploma, you read this book.

This book deals with debunking “Neurosexism,” which is a very fancy term for all of that evolutionary psychology bullshit that people spill about those “brain differences” between boys and girls.

This book debunks such myths as:

• Boys are better at math than girls
• Women make crappy lawyers/business CEOs/etc, as their brains are not cut out for aggression.
• Men make crappy counselors/primary school teachers/primary parents/etc, as their brains are not cut out for empathy.
• MEN ARE BUILT FOR GOING OUT AND HUNTING WHILE WOMEN ARE BUILT FOR STAYING HOME AND BABYMAKING IT’S NOT SEXISM IT’S JUST BIOLOGY
• And many other such myths.

Furthermore, this book covers topics such as: 

• Neurosexism and gender perceptions in multiple races (as this is not a singularly white experience, just as the western world isn’t a singularly white experience)
• Sex discrimination in the workplace, and how women are (or, more often, are not) allowed to behave
• How science is used (badly) to support many of these claims
• Experiences of trans* people, both through interviews and empirical studies.

AND FINALLY - It is all brilliantly researched, cited, compiled - and it’s easy to read! Cordelia Fine actually manages to be funny while writing this, which I think is important, because it makes all of this information infinitely accessible.

Delusions of Gender has reinforced what Oberlin taught me: The gender binary is stupid and arbitrary, and dangerous. And it is a self-perpetuating bias that needs to be addressed to be overcome.

So adding this to my to-read list.

Want. 

(Source: faetrouble, via sweetdreamr)

amandaonwriting:

The Top 10 Best Opening Lines Of Novels
1. Cat’s Eye, Margaret Atwood, 1998
“Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space.”
2. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, 1953
“It was a pleasure to burn.”
3. Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell, 1936
“Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.”
4. The Gunslinger, Stephen King, 1982
“The man in Black fled across the Desert, and the Gunslinger followed.”
5. The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien, 1937
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
6. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
“Lolita. Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.”
7. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides, 2002
“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.”
8. Peter and Wendy, J. M. Barrie, 1911
“All children, except one, grow up.”
9. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, 1813
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
10. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut, 1969
“All this happened, more or less.”

by Meredith Borders via LitReactor

(via lucy11iom)

9gag:

Think about it

(via lucy11iom)