You Rach You Lose

What did Chinese authorities do in July 2009 when tensions between the predominantly Muslim population of China’s Xinjiang province and authorities escalated into violent riots? They turned off the Internet in Xinjiang. This inspired China scholar Jason Q. Ng to devise a computer script to test all 700,000 terms in Chinese Wikipedia to see which ones are routinely censored on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, which currently has over 300 million users.

The result was the groundbreaking and highly praised Blocked on Weibo blog, expanded here into a book. Ranging from fairly obvious words, such as “tank” (a reference to the “Tank Man” who stared down the Chinese army in Tiananmen Square) and the names of top government officials (if they can’t be found online, they can’t be criticized), to deeply obscure terms, such as “The Four Gentlemen” (though it means a set of four traditional flowers, it can also refer to various quartets of dissidents) and “hairy bacon” (a coded insult for Mao’s embalmed body), Blocked on Weibo collects many of the phrases that could get a Chinese Internet user invited to the local police station “for a cup of tea”—a euphemism for being illegally detained by the authorities.

An invaluable guide to sensitive topics in modern-day China, Blocked on Weibo exposes the fissures between the idealized society that Chinese authorities dream of having and the actual one that Chinese netizens are creating each day.

(via The New Press - “Blocked on Weibo” by Jason Q. Ng)

A serious nonfiction Tumblr book deal — congrats, Jason!

Next Thursday, Tumblr will be celebrating Book Expo America at our favorite bookstore with three of our favorite authors! This is a meet up for readers and writers of all ages, with drinks for the adults and swag and short, funny readings for everyone! Here for BEA? Work at a publisher? Love Tumblr? Love books? Love people? Any of the above — this party is for you!

Ruth wrote Defriended, a creepy mystery about murder and online romance. Eliot wrote Endangered, a National Book Award finalist about bonobos in The Congo. Rainbow wrote the NY Times bestseller Eleanor &Park, a Tumblr favorite about weird kids in love. They are all terrific, so don’t miss it!

From today’s Publishers Weekly!

Mother’s Day

littlebrown:

“I like having a mommy who’s a writer because she tells good stories, and I love her. And Mommy helps me write.”

Beatrice, age 6 and 11 months

Daughter of Lucinda Rosenfeld, author of The Pretty One

Last night at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, we had a glorious launch party for the wonderful Tumblr-born book Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps by Kelly Williams Brown. The night featured stories of being not-quite-grown-up from some of the Internet’s funniest writers: Kelly, Julieanne Smolinski, Lindsey Weber, Christine Friar, Caragh Poh, John Asante, and Kelly’s editor Meredith Haggerty. Our guest bookseller Word Brooklyn sold out of every last copy! If you need a great graduation gift, a guide to life, or a bunch of hilarious Tumblrs to follow while you procrastinate everything you’re supposed to be doing, we’ve got you covered.

Last night at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, we had a glorious launch party for the wonderful Tumblr-born book Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps by Kelly Williams Brown. The night featured stories of being not-quite-grown-up from some of the Internet’s funniest writers: Kelly, Julieanne Smolinski, Lindsey Weber, Christine Friar, Caragh Poh, John Asante, and Kelly’s editor Meredith Haggerty. Our guest bookseller Word Brooklyn sold out of every last copy! If you need a great graduation gift, a guide to life, or a bunch of hilarious Tumblrs to follow while you procrastinate everything you’re supposed to be doing, we’ve got you covered.

"…I don’t even really care about sentences anymore, I just want to get this story written. I just want to tell this truth. A truth that I have made up, but a truth nonetheless."

— Jami Attenberg

"It gives voice to my quiet suspicions that the decade following college graduation is one of loss after loss; a time of people you once loved immensely peeling away into parenthood or panic attacks or bad marriages or sudden religiosity or the suburbs. It captures those strange mixed feelings of trying to be happy for friends when they choose things you think you know will never make them happy; the helpless panic as the strongest and most ambitious feminists give up and give in or maybe just grow up and learn to compromise and who are you to judge anyway? It displays real wisdom about the ways that, over time, paths dead end and options disappear and life can feel like a narrowing of possibilities when you always thought it would be an ever-broadening horizon. Also, it’s funny."

—

The Millions : A Year in Reading: Rachel Fershleiser

Women-processing-their-shit books FTW!

(via rachelfershleiser)

That thing where a book review you wrote five months ago starts circulating again and is all the notes in your dashboard.

whydoihaveablog:

(via Photo by housingworksbks • Instagram)

Dad: Are you nervous?
Me: I’ve been so nervous for three days that I think I’ve just flatlined and realized that I’ve sucked before on stage and I can suck again no problem. I’ll just go home and cry. Or — no — I’m going to cry and then get drunk and cry some more or maybe actually just get angry and then I’ll go home.

Did you guys hear that Caragh is reading at the Adulting party on Thursday? Don’t miss it!

openroadmedia:

Happy National Short Story Month! Today, read “The Bravest Boat” by Malcolm Lowry for free, only on Tumblr.

Read the complete story here.

Are you guys following Open Road? Free short stories all month long!

Only one week left to voice your choice! Visit bookweekonline.com and vote every day through May 9!

(via We voted for our favorite books. Have you?)