I Can't Read
I can’t.
500 Days of Kristin, Day 349: Always Reading (Labels)
Kristin Cavallari, who got her very own book deal almost one year ago today, is apparently a voracious reader (of labels). In an interview with E! News last year, she revealed: “I eat incredibly healthy. I’m the kind of person that does not eat any toxic chemicals. So I’m always reading the labels.”
If You Lost a Book and Notes at the Concert in the Park, Here They Are
If you forgot some reading and writing material on the Great Lawn in Central Park last night, here it is. Presumably you went to the New York Philharmonic concert there, which marked 50 years of the Concerts in the Parks series. It was a nice show but hectic—the unexpected rain forced an early intermission, caused a…
50 Cent Now Challenging Mayweather to Read Cat in the Hat on Kimmel
50 Cent just found another gear in his ongoing, transcendent Instagram trolling of his former BFF, boxing champ Floyd Mayweather. After offering to donate $750,000 to any charity if Mayweather could read a page of Harry Potter, 50 has upped the ante by arranging for him to do it on national television.
What Books Do You Really "Have" to Read?
This weekend's New York Times Book Review poses the following question to its "Bookends" columnists:
Cruel Judge Sentences Woman To Read Malcolm Gladwell As Punishment
Eco-saboteur Rebecca Rubin was sentenced to five years in prison this week for her involvement in actions taken by the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front back in the '90s. Also she was ordered to read Malcolm Gladwell's most recent book, David and Goliath.
America Is Below Average, But Not the Dumbest Country!
America seems to be locked in a permanent back-and-forth with the world's other developed nations: we call them "poor and weak," and they call us "uneducated and, frankly, dumb." Also, "fat." Well, we may be fat, but look out world: we're much smarter than the Italians!
Librarian Fired After Defending Child Who Loves to Read
A veteran New York librarian was stunned to learn this week that she was being fired after 41 years on the job — all because she defended a child whom her boss felt read too much.
Dan Brown's Ideal Reading Experience Is Not Having to Read
How did Dan Brown, the immensely popular and successful bad writer behind such hits as The Da Vinci Code and Hey, There's a Treasure Map Under This Painting!, get to be such an immensely popular and successful bad writer? He just loves "reading," meaning "listening to stuff."
Young People Don't Want to Read Your Boring, Age-Appropriate Books
Millennials these days are so busy fiddling with their technological gadgets and maintaining their #personalbrands, they have basically forgotten how to read like grown-ups. The youth of today are eschewing realism and historical fiction in favor of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi novels. As part of NPR's month-long look …
A 'Big Brother'-Esque Snooping Program Tells Professors When Students Skip the E-Reading
What the internet giveth, the internet also taketh away.
Are You an Above-Average Book Reader?
When there's nothing else to feel proud of, at least you can tell yourself, "Hey, I am an above-average American book reader, god damn it." Are you? Here are the latest stats, from the Pew Research Center:
Christmas Nearly Ruined for Hundreds of Kids as Abseiling Mishap Leaves Santa Claus Dangling by His Beard Twenty Feet in the Air
A mall Santa in Reading had to be rescued by a member of the British Army after his beard got caught in the rope during an abseiling stunt gone wrong.
'Fifty Shades of Grey' Now America's Only Book
The number one fiction book in all of America today: soft core spank-sex LOLrotica extravaganza Fifty Shades of Grey. The number two fiction book in America: the sequel, Fifty Shades Darker. The number three fiction book in America: Fifty Shades Freed, the final entry of the "erotic trilogy."
The Gardening Dog: Another Nonsense Question From New York's Standardized English Tests
Teachers have been responding to our request yesterday for more examples of queer questions from New York's English Language Arts test, which was administered last week to third- through eighth-graders across the state. As a follow-up to the infamous talking pineapple, we have a gardening dog.
New York's Children Are Being Judged On Senseless Questions With No Real Answers
On Friday, we heard about the nonsensical question involving a talking pineapple that was featured on the New York State English Language Arts test, which was recently administered to grades three through eight. But according to a letter that one angry New York City principal sent to the state education commissioner…
Poor Reading Skills Are Hazardous to Your Health
A new study by University College London shows a correlation between literacy problems and health problems. Adults with trouble reading are twice as likely to die within five years as adults with no trouble reading. To be fair, what the study actually focused on was the ability of senior citizens to read and…
Dear Readers, Please Share Your Favorite Longreads With Us
Please excuse this brief interruption to your regularly-scheduled programming, but we have a quick announcement to share with you that we hope you'll find exciting: Gawker has teamed up with Longreads, the best source for long-form journalism (etc.) on the web, and we now have our very own page over there.
The Best Things We Read All Year
If you're like us, you spent a lot of time this year reading words. But which words were the best words? (Not "amazeballs," for sure.) Here, each Gawker staffer recommends the best things he or she read this year—books, articles, blogs, comics and more.
Kids These Days Don't Read No Better'n They Used To
What is it with kids these days? Amirite? You know what I'm talking about. In this particular case, I'm talking about how kids in elementary and middle school have, sure, okay, improved their standardized test scores in math over the past two decades—but in reading, there's been only "modest improvement." Kids these…
