Noah Berlatsky

"The look on Miley's face during Nicki Minaj's savage, expletive-laden rant says it all," Salon tweeted the day after the VMAs. Less than 140 characters, but still enough to link a black woman to a longstanding racial slur.

Some love stories don't end happily. So why do so many romance novels insist they do?

So, if there are so many ways to sing this song, and if it's meant different things at different points, why complain about Beyoncé's version?

In the U.S., anti-Semitism is universally condemned. This means that, effectively, anti-Semitism doesn't exist.

If my wife and son had thought bubbles above their heads, like in the comics, you would be able to read them saying, "dog dog dog dog dog dog dog."

Sex and bodies don't clarify gender; they confuse the issue.

Iin a passionate Facebook thread last week, children's author Meg Rosoff rejected the idea that there are "too few books for marginalized young people," as librarian Edith Edi Campbell had suggested.

Maddie & Tae's new hit both indicates and subverts country's long history of sexism.

For once, central character Andrew's flaws are tied up in the fact that he is—wait for it—fundamentally decent.

Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Edith Piaf: they're all still practically household names.