All tagged Friday Night Lights

Podcast Episode #26 - Talking with Courtney Summers About Everything, Part 3

Podcast Episode #26 - Talking with Courtney Summers About Everything, Part 3

Sarah Moon
Podcast: Season Two, Podcast

We were lucky to recently spend over three hours (!) talking with noted Supernatural expert Courtney Summers. (We hear she writes books too.) We covered a range of subjects from zombies with fashion sense to writing characters experiencing trauma and everything in between. 

You can find the first part of this conversation over here, and the second right here--we highly recommend listening to them in order. In this episode, we chat about books, but we spend the bulk of our time talking about television and women's representation, and Justin Timberlake and the 50 Shades of Grey movie trailer.

Connect with Courtney: Website | Twitter | Tumblr | Facebook 

If you've not read Courtney's books, two are now available in a nifty bind-up that will have a Justin Timberlake song frolicking in your head for days, What Goes Around. 

How to Support the Podcast

If you enjoy the Clear Eyes, Full Shelves podcast, you can say thank you by enrolling in a free trial of Audible (I've been a subscriber for a year now and love it) or by clicking here the next time you're shopping on Amazon. This helps support the hosting and production costs of the podcast.

We certainly appreciate all the support, tweets, shares and all-around enthusiasm we've received for the podcast! 

Links + Things: Can't Think of a Clever Post Title Edition

Links + Things: Can't Think of a Clever Post Title Edition

Sarah Moon
Links + Things

I'm back with another abbreviated Links + Things (we'll be back to our regular posting next week).  

Required Reading

The Vulcan and the Other (Phoebe North)

And JJ Abrams has approached xenobiology and xenoanthropology in a very Star Wars way in his reboot. Background puppets abound, used to illustrate the diversity of the universe, but this is still a universe where the actions of the humans are those that matter. Scotty has a non-verbal alien friend who plays an almost identical role to Chewbacca in Star Wars; he’s a silent cipher whose words must be surmised only through the pauses of the more plot relevant human. Kirk bags a space babe, but she’s mostly just a sight gag. And there are Romulans and Klingons, but they’re villains–obstacles to overcome, really. But still not people, not fully, not yet.

I meant to share this outstanding, thought-provoking post from author Phoebe North (Starglass) last week and somehow omitted it. She dissects diversity and otherness in the context of the new Star Trek movie, and points to J.J. Abrams' frequently problematic treatment of alien characters in his work. This is a companion to her earlier post about Star Trek: Into the Darkness, which (warning) contains spoilers, but is an important read. 

Why Men Should Speak Up About Sexism, Mysogyny and Rape Culture (Chuck Wendig)

We don’t want the behaviors of this septic culture to become or seem normalized. If we’re quiet about it, we contribute to the normalization of misogyny or any of the other cultural poisons.
Like I said the other day, this isn’t about playing the hero — we aren’t going to fix it with our magical man-hammers, and women are not our Death Star Princesses to rescue. But we can signal boost. We can support. We can be on the side of the angels instead of the side of the diseased dick-bags (they don’t rate being devils, honestly) who want to trumpet their hate and rampant shittiness. We can try to do better and ask that others do the same.

This week author Chuck Wendig (Blackbirds) wrote an unintentional three-part series about sexism as a result of the mess of misogyny from the SFWA (which I mentioned last week). I recommend reading each post, but the last one about why men should speak up about this type of behavior struck a chord with me.

List-O-Rama: Tangled Like/Love/Lust That Doesn't Suck

List-O-Rama: Tangled Like/Love/Lust That Doesn't Suck

Sarah Moon
Listorama

I know, I know... the love triangle is everyone's favorite trope to hate. But sometimes... just sometimes, it's kind of fun/intriguing/compelling.

Here are a handful of like/love/lust triangles that I've enjoyed--seriously.

The "Summer" Series by Jenny Han: Belly, Jeremiah, Conrad

Triangle Type: The Classic - Two Brothers Heart One Girl; Girl Hearts Two Brothers--Yo, It's Complicated!
This series not only features a love triangle (and it's really "love") because Belly really cares about both brothers, Jeremiah and Conrad, and they care about her. Their shared history of summers spent together at the shore makes the complexity of the relationships completely believable--it's achy and the dramatics are irresistible. Read my review here.

Amazon | Goodreads

Dear Googler: You Ask, CEFS Answers

Dear Googler: You Ask, CEFS Answers

Sarah Moon
Dear Googler

The other day I was looking through the CEFS web statistics and was browsing my favorite section: search terms. 

A fascinating trend I’ve noticed is that many Googlers put their searches in the form of a question, not dissimilar from Jeopardy! Since we get a lot of the same searches, I thought I’d answer a few of these common questions.

[Note: I’ve paraphrased a number of these searches that appear over and over again. But I swear, I’m not making any of this up.]

Friggin' Great.

General Books/Recommendations

What should I read next?

Um… I don’t know. I just finished Wanderlove and adored it. Actually, I don’t even know what I’m reading next, to be honest. Maybe check out our CEFS favorites page?

What are the main themes in [book name]?

Kid, you’ve got to read the book. I’m not doing your homework for you. 

Where can I download [book name] for free?

  1. Try your library, if there’s one in your area. Some publishers participate in ebook lending.
  2. If you’re a Kindle owner with Amazon Prime, you can also access the Kindle Owners’ Library in which you can access one book for free each month; many of these are self-published books, but there are a number of traditional publishers participating as well. 
  3. Check Books on the Knob for daily deals, including freebies. 
  4. If you live in a community with a library (not everyone has one, sadly), you can also check out print books for free—the one in my neighborhood actually holds back new releases each week for people who come into the library (Lucky Day Books), so it’s worth actually going in the library too. 
  5. Some ebooks are lendable. If one you want read is, see if a friend will virtually lend you a book for your Kindle or Nook.
  6. Whatever you do, please don’t pirate books. 

What are some books with lots of sex?

That’s probably a question better answered by Rebeca, whose knowledge on that subject is more broad than mine (I’m trying to get her to review the zombie apocalypse polyamorous novel she just read). But, maybe try Victoria Dahl? Her books are a little much for me, but with that said, they don’t have the yucky gender dynamics that can be very problematic. (Yes, this is a very, very common search term.)

What are some books with lots of action/violence?

I’m kind of a wimp when it comes to this subject, but check out our recommendations for my friend Matt in our Book Matchmaker feature. 

I want to read an urban fantasy series with a strong female lead.

Check out these ideas!

Why I'm a Friday Night Lights Convert

Rebeca aka Renegade
Opinion, Rookie Reads, Television

“Let’s make some memories.”When I first heard about Clear Eyes, Full Shelves from Sarah and Laura, the Friday Night Lights reference flew right over my head. They exchanged glances, cackled giggled, and laughingly explained the name of their blog. I responded with a big fat “Huh?”

But my ignorance continued unabated until I was invited to review books for them. My default response to the offer of books to read is—and always will be—a resounding HELL YES.

Thus, in order to do justice to the FNL Character Rating, in the name of research I decided I should actually watch some of this TV show.

Let me begin by saying I grew up in small towns all around Arizona. For eighteen years I lived in towns where the only bookstore was the Christian bookstore. Where at least a quarter of the students were  Hispanic and the division between them and the gringos was stark. Where disagreeing with the government was considered unpatriotic. For a shy, spanish-speaking white girl who loved books, you would have a hard time finding a more alien environment—an environment that managed to be simultaneously hostile and home.

And while the experience has given me an interesting perspective, I have to say I love living in Portland, Oregon now. So you can understand why I might be reluctant to plunge back into this world again.

But FNL is special.