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thundercrack · 1 year ago

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Study of Elite College Admissions Data Suggests Being Very Rich Is Its Own Qualification

By Aatish Bhatia, Claire Cain Miller and Josh Katz July 24, 2023 (full text under the cut)

Elite colleges have long been filled with the children of the richest families: At Ivy League schools, one in six students has parents in the top 1 percent.

A large new study, released Monday, shows that it has not been because these children had more impressive grades on average or took harder classes. They tended to have higher SAT scores and finely honed résumés, and applied at a higher rate — but they were overrepresented even after accounting for those things. For applicants with the same SAT or ACT score, children from families in the top 1 percent were 34 percent more likely to be admitted than the average applicant, and those from the top 0.1 percent were more than twice as likely to get in.

The study — by Opportunity Insights, a group of economists based at Harvard who study inequality — quantifies for the first time the extent to which being very rich is its own qualification in selective college admissions.

The analysis is based on federal records of college attendance and parental income taxes for nearly all college students from 1999 to 2015, and standardized test scores from 2001 to 2015. It focuses on the eight Ivy League universities, as well as Stanford, Duke, M.I.T. and the University of Chicago. It adds an extraordinary new data set: the detailed, anonymized internal admissions assessments of at least three of the 12 colleges, covering half a million applicants. (The researchers did not name the colleges that shared data or specify how many did because they promised them anonymity.)

The new data shows that among students with the same test scores, the colleges gave preference to the children of alumni and to recruited athletes, and gave children from private schools higher nonacademic ratings. The result is the clearest picture yet of how America’s elite colleges perpetuate the intergenerational transfer of wealth and opportunity.

“What I conclude from this study is the Ivy League doesn’t have low-income students because it doesn’t want low-income students,” said Susan Dynarski, an economist at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who has reviewed the data and was not involved in the study.

In effect, the study shows, these policies amounted to affirmative action for the children of the 1 percent, whose parents earn more than $611,000 a year. It comes as colleges are being forced to rethink their admissions processes after the Supreme Court ruling that race-based affirmative action is unconstitutional.

“Are these highly selective private colleges in America taking kids from very high-income, influential families and basically channeling them to remain at the top in the next generation?” said Raj Chetty, an economist at Harvard who directs Opportunity Insights, and an author of the paper with John N. Friedman of Brown and David J. Deming of Harvard. “Flipping that question on its head, could we potentially diversify who’s in a position of leadership in our society by changing who is admitted?”

Representatives from several of the colleges said that income diversity was an urgent priority, and that they had taken significant steps since 2015, when the data in the study ends, to admit lower-income and first-generation students. These include making tuition free for families earning under a certain amount; giving only grants, not loans, in financial aid; and actively recruiting students from disadvantaged high schools.

“We believe that talent exists in every sector of the American income distribution,” said Christopher L. Eisgruber, the president of Princeton. “I am proud of what we have done to increase socioeconomic diversity at Princeton, but I also believe that we need to do more — and we will do more.”

Affirmative action for the rich

In a concurring opinion in the affirmative action case, Justice Neil Gorsuch addressed the practice of favoring the children of alumni and donors, which is also the subject of a new case. “While race-neutral on their face, too, these preferences undoubtedly benefit white and wealthy applicants the most,” he wrote.

The new paper did not include admissions rates by race because previous research had done so, the researchers said. They found that racial differences were not driving the results. When looking only at applicants of one race, for example, those from the highest-income families still had an advantage. Yet the top 1 percent is overwhelmingly white. Some analysts have proposed diversifying by class as a way to achieve more racial diversity without affirmative action.

The new data showed that other selective private colleges, like Northwestern, N.Y.U. and Notre Dame, had a similarly disproportionate share of children from rich families. Public flagship universities were much more equitable. At places like the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Virginia, applicants with high-income parents were no more likely to be admitted than lower-income applicants with comparable scores.

Less than 1 percent of American college students attend the 12 elite colleges. But the group plays an outsize role in American society: 12 percent of Fortune 500 chief executives and a quarter of U.S. senators attended. So did 13 percent of the top 0.1 percent of earners. The focus on these colleges is warranted, the researchers say, because they provide paths to power and influence — and diversifying who attends has the potential to change who makes decisions in America.

The researchers did a novel analysis to measure whether attending one of these colleges causes success later in life. They compared students who were wait-listed and got in, with those who didn’t and attended another college instead. Consistent with previous research, they found that attending an Ivy instead of one of the top nine public flagships did not meaningfully increase graduates’ income, on average. However, it did increase a student’s predicted chance of earning in the top 1 percent to 19 percent, from 12 percent.

For outcomes other than earnings, the effect was even larger — it nearly doubled the estimated chance of attending a top graduate school, and tripled the estimated chance of working at firms that are considered prestigious, like national news organizations and research hospitals.

“Sure, it’s a tiny slice of schools,” said Professor Dynarski, who has studied college admissions and worked with the University of Michigan on increasing the attendance of low-income students, and has occasionally contributed to The New York Times. “But having representation is important, and this shows how much of a difference the Ivies make: The political elite, the economic elite, the intellectual elite are coming out of these schools.”

The missing middle class

The advantage to rich applicants varied by college, the study found: At Dartmouth, students from the top 0.1 percent were five times as likely to attend as the average applicant with the same test score, while at M.I.T. they were no more likely to attend. (The fact that children from higher-income families tend to have higher standardized test scores and are likelier to receive private coaching suggests that the study may actually underestimate their admissions advantage.)

An applicant with a high test score from a family earning less than $68,000 a year was also likelier than the average applicant to get in, though there were fewer applicants like this.

Children from middle- and upper-middle-class families — including those at public high schools in high-income neighborhoods — applied in large numbers. But they were, on an individual basis, less likely to be admitted than the richest or, to a lesser extent, poorest students with the same test scores. In that sense, the data confirms the feeling among many merely affluent parents that getting their children into elite colleges is increasingly difficult.

“We had these very skewed distributions of a whole lot of Pell kids and a whole lot of no-need kids, and the middle went missing,” said an Ivy League dean of admissions, who has seen the new data and spoke anonymously in order to talk openly about the process. “You’re not going to win a P.R. battle by saying you have X number of families making over $200,000 that qualify for financial aid.”

The researchers could see, for nearly all college students in the United States from 1999 to 2015, where they applied and attended, their SAT or ACT scores and whether they received a Pell grant for low-income students. They could also see their parents’ income tax records, which enabled them to analyze attendance by earnings in more detail than any previous research. They conducted the analysis using anonymized data.

For the several elite colleges that also shared internal admissions data, they could see other aspects of students’ applications between 2001 and 2015, including how admissions offices rated them. They focused their analysis on the most recent years, 2011 to 2015.

Though they had this data for a minority of the dozen top colleges, the researchers said they thought it was representative of the other colleges in the group (with the exception of M.I.T.). The other colleges admitted more students from high-income families, showed preferences for legacies and recruited athletes, and described similar admissions practices in conversations with the researchers, they said.

“Nobody has this kind of data; it’s completely unheard-of,” said Michael Bastedo, a professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Education, who has done prominent research on college admissions. “I think it’s really important to good faith efforts for reforming the system to start by being able to look honestly and candidly at the data.”

How the richest students benefit

Before this study, it was clear that colleges enrolled more rich students, but it was not known whether it was just because more applied. The new study showed that’s part of it: One-third of the difference in attendance rates was because middle-class students were somewhat less likely to apply or matriculate. But the bigger factor was that these colleges were more likely to accept the richest applicants.

Legacy admissions

The largest advantage for the 1 percent was the preference for legacies. The study showed — for the first time at this scale — that legacies were more qualified overall than the average applicant. But even when comparing applicants who were similar in every other way, legacies still had an advantage.

When high-income applicants applied to the college their parents attended, they were accepted at much higher rates than other applicants with similar qualifications — but at the other top-dozen colleges, they were no more likely to get in.

“This is not a sideshow, not just a symbolic issue,” Professor Bastedo said of the finding.

Athletes

One in eight admitted students from the top 1 percent was a recruited athlete. For the bottom 60 percent, that figure was one in 20. That’s largely because children from rich families are more likely to play sports, especially more exclusive sports played at certain colleges, like rowing and fencing. The study estimated that athletes were admitted at four times the rate of nonathletes with the same qualifications.

“There’s a common misperception that it’s about basketball and football and low-income kids making their way into selective colleges,” Professor Bastedo said. “But the enrollment leaders know athletes tend to be wealthier, so it’s a win-win.”

Nonacademic ratings

There was a third factor driving the preference for the richest applicants. The colleges in the study generally give applicants numerical scores for academic achievement and for more subjective nonacademic virtues, like extracurricular activities, volunteering and personality traits. Students from the top 1 percent with the same test scores did not have higher academic ratings. But they had significantly higher nonacademic ratings.

At one of the colleges that shared admissions data, students from the top 0.1 percent were 1.5 times as likely to have high nonacademic ratings as those from the middle class. The researchers said that, accounting for differences in the way each school assesses nonacademic credentials, they found similar patterns at the other colleges that shared data.

The biggest contributor was that admissions committees gave higher scores to students from private, nonreligious high schools. They were twice as likely to be admitted as similar students — those with the same SAT scores, race, gender and parental income — from public schools in high-income neighborhoods. A major factor was recommendations from guidance counselors and teachers at private high schools.

“Parents rattle off that a kid got in because he was first chair in the orchestra, ran track,” said John Morganelli Jr., a former director of admissions at Cornell and founder of Ivy League Admissions, where he advises high school students on applying to college. “They never say what really happens: Did the guidance counselor advocate on that kid’s behalf?”

Recommendation letters from private school counselors are notoriously flowery, he said, and the counselors call admissions officers about certain students.

“This is how the feeder schools get created,” he said. “Nobody’s calling on behalf of a middle- or lower-income student. Most of the public school counselors don’t even know these calls exist.”

The end of need-blind admissions?

Overall, the study suggests, if elite colleges had done away with the preferences for legacies, athletes and private school students, the children of the top 1 percent would have made up 10 percent of a class, down from 16 percent in the years of the study.

Legacy students, athletes and private school students do no better after college, in terms of earnings or reaching a top graduate school or firm, it found. In fact, they generally do somewhat worse.

The dean of admissions who spoke anonymously said change was easier said than done: “I would say there’s much more commitment to this than may be obvious. It’s just the solution is really complicated, and if we could have done it, we would have.”

For example, it’s not feasible to choose athletes from across the income spectrum if many college sports are played almost entirely by children from high-earning families. Legacies are perhaps the most complicated, the admissions dean said, because they tend to be highly qualified and their admission is important for maintaining strong ties with alumni.

Ending that preference, the person said, “is not an easy decision to make, given the alumni response, especially if you’re not in immediate concurrence with the rest of the Ivies.” (Though children of very large donors also get special consideration by admissions offices, they were not included in the analysis because there are relatively few of them.)

People involved in admissions say that achieving more economic diversity would be difficult without doing something else: ending need-blind admissions, the practice that prevents admissions officers from seeing families’ financial information so their ability to pay is not a factor. Some colleges are already doing what they call “need-affirmative admissions,” for the purpose of selecting more students from the low end of the income spectrum, though they often don’t publicly acknowledge it for fear of blowback.

There is a tool, Landscape from the College Board, to help determine if an applicant grew up in a neighborhood with significant privilege or adversity. But these colleges have no knowledge of parents’ income if students don’t apply for financial aid.

Ivy League colleges and their peers have recently made significant efforts to recruit more low-income students and subsidize tuition. Several now make attendance entirely free for families below a certain income — $100,000 at Stanford and Princeton, $85,000 at Harvard, and $60,000 at Brown.

At Princeton, one-fifth of students are now from low-income families, and one-fourth receive a full ride. It has recently reinstated a transfer program to recruit low-income and community college students. At Harvard, one-fourth of this fall’s freshman class is from families with incomes less than $85,000, who will pay nothing. The majority of freshmen will receive some amount of aid.

Dartmouth just raised $500 million to expand financial aid: “While we respect the work of Harvard’s Opportunity Insights, we believe our commitment to these investments and our admissions policies since 2015 tells an important story about the socioeconomic diversity among Dartmouth students,” said Jana Barnello, a spokeswoman.

Public flagships do admissions differently, in a way that ends up benefiting rich students less. The University of California schools forbid giving preference to legacies or donors, and some, like U.C.L.A., do not consider letters of recommendation. The application asks for family income, and colleges get detailed information about California high schools. Application readers are trained to consider students’ circumstances, like whether they worked to support their families in high school, as “evidence of maturity, determination and insight.”

The University of California system also partners with schools in the state, from pre-K through community college, to support students who face barriers. There’s a robust program for transfer students from California community colleges; at U.C.L.A., half are from low-income backgrounds.

M.I.T., which stands out among elite private schools as displaying almost no preference for rich students, has never given a preference to legacy applicants, said its dean of admissions, Stuart Schmill. It does recruit athletes, but they do not receive any preference or go through a separate admissions process (as much as it may frustrate coaches, he said).

“I think the most important thing here is talent is distributed equally but opportunity is not, and our admissions process is designed to account for the different opportunities students have based on their income,” he said. “It’s really incumbent upon our process to tease out the difference between talent and privilege.”

Source: Raj Chetty, David J. Deming and John N. Friedman, “Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges”

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invaive · 1 year ago

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THE MODERN MOTHER WORLDLY

medea – eugène delacroix / el arbol de la llorona – photo by gabriel perez salazar / child murder by mothers: patterns and prevention – susan hatters friedman and phillip j. resnick / medea on her golden chariot – germán hernández amores / la llorona as andrea yates – iliana rocha / the widow of a slain soldier – unknown artist / bruno is orange – hop along / the marguerite of faust – after j. bertrand / funeral – the buttress

#deeply specific but hopefully someone else gets me on this #web weaving #parallels #medea #la llorona #maternal filicide #iliana rocha #hop along #faust and marguerite #the buttress #andrea yates #child harm #child death #mine

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spocksocksrock · 1 year ago

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ok I saw the reblog of your star trek books post about someone asking for recs someday, but I’m impatient and have decided I am not gonna wait and that I will send the recs ask MYSELF dammit!!

I feel like i’ve never gotten into the books because I’m worried they will be bad, so if you have any TOS/DS9 book recs I would LOVE to hear them — I have consumed all Star Trek content made up until this point and am so so desperate for new material

thank you SOOO much for asking i love any excuse to talk about st books!!! (though it is kinda funny cause that same person talking about recs did end up messaging me already lol)

for TOS i would say the best ones are:

Killing Time by Della Van Hise — famously gay and for good reason, it’s just blatantly romantic spirk content. it’s all about how they are meant to be together in every alternate universe and that they are soulmates <3

Spock’s World by Diane Duane — bones, kirk, and spock go to vulcan because the vulcans are considering leaving the federation. really great plot and super accessible characterization for the main three!

Vulcan’s Forge by Susan Shwartz — follows two plots- young spock figuring out that he wants to join star fleet, and older spock dealing with kirk’s death and trying to move on. it’s really not as sad as it sounds and it adds so much to spock’s character imo.

id honestly also recommend the novelizations of the movies, they definitely add a lot of new content

—

DS9 is harder cause i love soooo many of these but some of the best are:

Hollow Men by Una McCormack — kind of a sequel to the episode ‘in the pale moonlight’, garak and sisko go on a trip to earth to deal with dominion war stuff (and everyone else has shenanigans on the station)

The 34th Rule by Armin Shimerman — basically quark whump, him and rom are sort of kicked off the station and go to a prison camp and the rest of the characters have conflicting feelings about this (it’s a bit overdramatic at times but i love quark-centric stories so 🤷)

Fallen Heroes by Dafydd ab Hugh — this one is pretty crazy, quark and odo suddenly travel 3 days into the future and find the entire station is dead, like Everyone died, and they have to figure out what happened and fix it (i love quodo and there’s a scene where quark vacuums odo up, need i say more)

Saratoga by Michael jan Friedman — sisko is meeting with the other survivors from the ship jennifer died on. there’s sabotage, intrigue, betrayal and such and then the b plot is that odo has to pretend to be quark. so basically an average ds9 episode lol

there are definitely a lot more good ones but it depends on what characters you like and what kinds of stories you’re looking for ya know? please please message me if you want to talk ab it more!!!!

#star trek books #star trek #ds9 #tos

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nevinslibrary · 1 year ago

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Make It So Friday

Dax is one of the best characters in Star Trek. (I could say, I think, but, I’m not gonna, the I think is baked in since I’m writing this blurb). There’s something about an immortal being who is also not immortal, who dies and yet still lives. And, there’s something about the combination of newness of the host and oldness of the symbionts that is just, really cool to think about.

This is technically a book of short stories by some awesome authors like, Michael Jan Friedman, S.D, Perry, Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, and more. They each take on a story about one of the 9 Dax symbionts, from Lela, to Torias, to Jadzia and Ezri too. My favorites were the one by Susan Wright, "Infinity" about Tobias, and of course, the one about my favorite Dax, Jadzia, “Reflections” by L.A. Graf.

But, honestly, the coolest part of this wasn’t just that we got to learn about all the Dax hosts, but, that so many of the Dax hosts also knew other big characters in the Star Trek universe, like Dr. McCoy and others. Fun.

You may like this book If you Liked: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack, The Autobiography of Jean-Luc Picard by David A. Goodman, or Star Trek by John Byrne

The Lives of Dax by Marco Palmieri, Ed.

#makeitsofriday #nmlRA #nevins memorial library #star trek #star trek novels #star trek novel #star trek fiction #the lives of dax #star trek the lives of dax #ezri dax #jadzia dax #torias dax #curzon dax

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broadwaydivastournament · 4 months ago

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MOVIE MUSICAL DIVAS TOURNAMENT: ROUND 1 MASTERPOST

One-hundred Divas go in, only fifty come out.

All Polls Here

Completed:

Judy Garland vs. Liza Minnelli Asha Bhosle vs. Betty Garrett Jessica Harper vs. Patricia Quinn Lena Horne vs. Doris Day Ellen Greene vs. Twiggy

Pearl Bailey vs. Anita Ellis Ginger Rogers vs. Cyd Charisse Ruby Dee vs. Dolores Grey Nancy Carroll vs. Jo Kennedy Vivian Blaine vs. Esther Williams

Diana Ross vs. Audrey Hepburn Ethel Waters vs. Irene Dunne Lesley Ann Warren vs. Susan Sarandon Helen vs. Lone Hertz Kathryn Grayson vs. Virginia O'Brien

Deborah Kerr vs. Eleanor Powell Whitney Houston vs. Maria Friedman Chita Rivera vs. Jane Powell Kay Thompson vs. Alice Pearce Lata Mangeshkar vs. Zizi Jeanmaire

Natalie Wood vs. Bernadette Peters Maxine Sullivan vs. Ruby Keeler Jane Russell vs. Rosalind Russell Dorothy Dandridge vs. Ann-Margret Rita Moreno vs. Marilyn Monroe

Carol Burnett vs. Lucille Ball Little' Nell Campbell vs. Whoopi Goldberg Shirley Jones vs. Betty Buckley Cuckoo Moray vs. Josephine Baker Debbie Reynolds vs. Marni Nixon

Ethel Merman vs. June Allyson Catherine Deneuve vs. Françoise Dorléac Alice White vs. Lupe Vélez Vyjayanthimala vs. Leslie Caron Helen Kane vs. Jeanette MacDonald

Glynis Johns vs. Julie Andrews Betty Hutton vs. Vera-Ellen Bea Arthur vs. Shirley MacLaine Joan Crawford vs. Rita Hayworth Jessie Matthews vs. Bebe Daniels

Eileen Brennan vs. Moira Sherer Madeline Kahn vs. Charmian Carr Ann Miller vs. Mitzi Gaynor Barbra Streisand vs. Bette Midler Hermione Gingold vs. Claire Luce

Ann Reinking vs. Gwen Verdon Eleanor Parker vs. Susanna Foster Miss Piggy vs. Eartha Kitt Olivia Newton-John vs. Dolly Parton Angela Lansbury vs. Rosemary Clooney

FAQS

#moviemusicaldivas #moviemusicaltournamentpolls #mmround1

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blueboyluca · 5 months ago

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what inspires me most about Susan Friedman is the way she talks to people. in all the conversations I've listened to her have with others, she is always phrasing things in the most empathetic and assertive ways. she will regularly thank people for asking things, or for giving her opportunities to practice explaining things. she will disagree with points in the most polite and straightforward way while also articulating her position very clearly and strongly. I would love to be able to talk like her one day, to have the advanced skills to be able to engage like that in real time. it's honestly incredible.

#Susan Friedman

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spones-in-my-bones · 2 years ago

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(Other options available at the bottom of the poll!)

If it was a Film, Novel, or Fanwork, go to the Poll Masterpost and click on your poll.

#spones #spock/mccoy #spock #leonard mccoy #star trek #star trek tos #my polls #polls

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photographyartgallery · 2 months ago

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Susan Friedman

#Susan Friedman

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balioc · 2 years ago

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BALIOC’S READING LIST, 2022 EDITION

With one exception, this list counts only published books, consumed in published-book format, that I read for the first time and finished. (There was one serious-seeming book that, as far as I know, exists only in free-floating PDF form.) No rereads, nothing abandoned halfway through, no Internet detritus of any kind apart from the aforementioned, etc. Also no children’s picture books.

1. The Blue Castle, Lucy Maude Montgomery

2. The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, Priya Parker

3. The Girl and the Mountain, Mark Lawrence

4. There Is No Antimemetics Division, qntm

5. Dreamsnake, Vonda N. McIntyre

6. War and State Building in Medieval Japan, Various (ed. John A. Ferejohn and Frances McCall Rosenbluth)

7. Legal Systems Very Different From Ours, David Friedman, Peter T. Leeson, and David Skarbek

8. The Revolutions, Felix Gilman

9. Age of Ash, Daniel Abraham

10. When the Sea Turned to Silver, Grace Lin

11. Summer in Orcus, T. Kingfisher

12. The Thousand Eyes, A. K. Larkwood

13. Kingfall, David Estes

14. Surrogation, Suspended Reason

15. The Hands of the Emperor, Victoria Goddard

16. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro

17. Hakkenden -- Part 1: "An Ill-Considered Jest," Kyokutei Bakin

18. Claws of the Cat, Susan Spann

19. Blade of the Samurai, Susan Spann

20. Flask of the Drunken Master, Susan Spann

21. The Ninja's Daughter, Susan Spann

22. Betrayal at Iga, Susan Spann

23. Trial at Mount Koya, Susan Spann

24. Ghost of the Bamboo Road, Susan Spann

25. Fires of Edo, Susan Spann

26. The Discord of Gods, Jenn Lyons

27. All the Seas of the World, Guy Gavriel Kay

28. Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley, Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany

29. Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success, Ran Abramitzky and Leah Bousyan

30. Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

31. Perhaps the Stars, Ada Palmer

32. Dreadgod, Will Wight

33. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore

34. Manfred, George Gordon, Lord Byron

35. Friend to Mankind: Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), Various (ed. Michael Shepherd)

36. Locklands, Robert Jackson Bennett

37. The Jade Setter of Janloon, Fonda Lee

38. Spring Snow, Yukio Mishima

39. Against All Gods, Miles Cameron

40. Nona the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

41. Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century, J. Bradford DeLong

42. The Golden Enclaves, Naomi Novik

43. The Rise of the Dragon: An Illustrated History of the Targaryen Dynasty, Vol. I, George R. R. Martin, Elio M. Garcia Jr., and Linda Antonsson

44. A Garter as a Lesser Gift, Aster Glenn Gray

45. The Night-Bird's Feather, Jenna Moran

46. Absolution by Murder, Peter Tremayne

47. The Lost Metal, Brandon Sanderson

48. Shroud for the Archbishop, Peter Tremayne

49. Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter, Richard Parks

50. Yamada Monogatari: To Break the Demon Gate, Richard Parks

51. Yamada Monogatari: The War God's Son, Richard Parks

52. Yamada Monogatari: The Emperor in Shadow, Richard Parks

53. Pulling the Wings off Angels, K. J. Parker

54. Laurus, Eugene Vodolazkin

55. The Ogre's Wife: Fairy Tales for Grownups, Richard Parks

56. The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Plausible works of improving nonfiction consumed in 2021: 7

[“plausible” and “improving” are being defined very liberally here]

Works written by women consumed in 2021: 23

Works written by men consumed in 2021: 29

Works written by both men and women consumed in 2021: 4

Balioc’s Choice Award, Fiction Division: The Remains of the Day

>>>> Honorable Mention: Laurus

Balioc’s Choice Award, Nonfiction Division: Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century

>>>> Honorable Mention: War and State Building in Medieval Japan

Series Award for: A Deeply Flawed Work of Luminescent Genius, No Really, This Thing is Artistically and Intellectually Important and Its Flaws Only Make It More So, Dear God What Were They Thinking Not Giving It the Hugo -- the Terra Ignora books, by Ada Palmer

Series Award for: I Cannot Begin to Articulate How Mad I Am That These Books of All Books Have Become Cultural Touchstones of My Local Social and Artistic Circle -- the Locked Tomb books, by Tamsyn Muir

Series Award for: I Must Give Credit to a Brave Author Who Makes Unexpected Moves and Tries New Things with Every Book, Even if Everything She Tries is Terrible -- the Locked Tomb books, by Tamsyn Muir

**********

Fiction-wise, this was actually a better year than you'd think from just eyeballing the list. The overall numbers are still below par, and there's too much shlocky formulaic mystery-series-type stuff; but there was a lot of real quality in there. I had real trouble deciding on my top two, and I ended up not giving either prize to a book by Jenna Moran writing at her normal level of quality, so that says something. There were a number of books that disappointed by not being amazing but that I'm still glad to have read (e.g. Summer in Orcus, The Hands of the Emperor). Even the shlocky formulaic stuff had more merit than you might expect, in many cases.

Serious contemplatively-emotional litfic is real good, at its best. Turns out.

Non-fiction-wise, this was a shitshow of unparalleled proportions. I read almost nothing, and what I read was uninspiring. (I started s number of things that I failed to finish, which didn't help.) I seriously considered making this a "no award" year. I am once again asking for your recommendations for really good, deeply-informative, blow-your-mind-open non-fiction.

#yearly reading list

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clementinecompendium · 1 year ago

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To Be Read July 2023

The Mind

The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity―and Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race by Daniel Z. Lieberman & Michael E. Long

The Brain: A Very Short Introduction by Michael O'Shea

Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction by Susan Blackmore

The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Hidden Conversation Within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood, Our Choices, and Our Overall Health by Emeran Mayer MD

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino

Sensitive is the New Strong: The Power of Empaths in an Increasingly Harsh World by Anita Moorjani

The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron

Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price Ph.D.

Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind by Scott Barry Kaufman & Carolyn Gregoire

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel A. van der Kolk

Music & The Mind (Art Philosophy, Aesthetics, Neuroaesthetics)

Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting by Mary Gauthier

The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook

This is What it Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You by Ogi Ogas & Susan Rogers

Why You Like It: The Science and Culture of Musical Taste by Nolan Gasser

The Story of Music: From Babylon to the Beatles: How Music Has Shaped Civilization by Howard Goodall

Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World by Nina Kraus

Aesthetics: A Very Short Introduction by Bence Nanay

Equipment for Living: On Poetry and Pop Music by Michael Robbins

How Music Works by David Byrne

General Non-Fiction / History / Science

The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction by S. A. Smith

The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction by William Doyle

Linguistics: A Very Short Introduction by P. H. Matthews

Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction by Timothy Gowers

After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History by Arthur C. Danto

Flappers by Judith Mackrell

Marketing for Dummies, 6th edition by Jeanette McMurty MBA

Sinatra: The Chairman by James Kaplan

Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland by Gerald Clarke

Self-Improvement

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Dr. Kristin Neff

Self Compassion for Dummies by by Steven Hickman PsyD (in progress)

The Nice Girl Syndrome: Stop Being Manipulated and Abused -- and Start Standing Up for Yourself by Beverly Engel

The Assertiveness Guide for Women: How to Communicate Your Needs, Set Healthy Boundaries & Transform Your Relationships by Julie de Azevedo Hanks, PhD, LCSW

Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When it Matters Most by Adam Alter

Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive by Kristin Neff PhD

The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander

Be Angry: The Dalai Lama on What Matters Most by His Holiness the Dalai Lama,

Anger: The Conflicted History of an Emotion by Barbara H. Rosenwein

The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price

In Awe: Rediscover Your Childlike Wonder to Unleash Inspiration, Meaning, and Joy by John O'Leary

Creating a Life That Matters: How to Live and Love with Meaning and Purpose by Manis Friedman & Rivka Goldstein

Fiction

Babel by R. F. Kuang

The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin

A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (narrated by Tim Curry)

In/Spectre #2

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (in progress)

The Poisoner's Handbook ed. Raymond T. Bond

#booklr #book list #tbr list #to be read #dark academia study guide #musicology #neuroscience #self help

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marley-manson · 2 years ago

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Hey Marley, it'd be cool if you would drop a list of the masculinity in film books you're reading. No pressure tho!

Oh yeah for sure, lol sorry I have a tendency to default to vagueness when I'm talking about anything outside of fandom.

There's a lot, I went on a spree for a few weeks lol, so this is under a cut

Only one I've read cover to cover so far is Armed Forces: Masculinity and Sexuality in the American War Film - Robert Eberwein which was both interesting and frustrating in that a lot of it was (mildly defensively lol, as a response to a lot of queer film theory) explaining how a lot of homoerotic shit isn't intended to be interpreted as actually gay, but I'm glad I read it because I was specifically trying to understand how contemporary audiences viewed homoerotic shit.

Books I've read at least a chapter of:

Men, Masculinity, and the Media - Steve Craig

Running Scared: Masculinity and the Representation of the Male Body - Peter Lehman

Masculinity: Bodies, Movies, Culture - Peter Lehman

Masculinity and Popular Television - Rebecca Feasey

Buffoon Men: Classic Hollywood Comedians and Queered Masculinity - Scott Balcerzak

Shadows of Doubt: Negotiations of Masculinity in American Genre Films - Barry Keith Grant

Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema - Steven Cohan

Laughing Matters: Understanding Film, Television, and Radio Comedy - John Mundy, Glyn White

Laughing Hysterically: American Screen Comedy of the 1950s - Ed Sikov (highly recommend just for the essay on Some Like It Hot)

What Made Pistachio Nuts?: Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic - Henry Jenkins

also shoutout to this article

Books I've obtained but haven't looked through yet:

American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations - Lester D. Friedman

Hollywood Androgyny - Rebecca Bell-Metereau

The New Hollywood: What the Movies Did With the New Freedom of the Seventies - James Bernardoni

Manhood in Hollywood: From Bush to Bush - David Greven

Girls Will Be Boys: Crossdressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema - Laura Horak

Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Regan Era - Susan Jeffords

The Remasculinization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War - Susan Jeffords (I've actually read the first Jeffords in uni and parts of the second but they're pretty psychoanalytical so ymmv)

Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies: Sexual Re-orientations in Film and Video - Chris Straayer

Masculinity in Fiction and Film: Representing Men in Popular Cultures 1945-2000 - Brian Baker

Masculinity in the Contemporary Romantic Comedy - John Alberti

Out in Culture: Gay, Lesbian and Queer Essays on Popular Culture - Corey K. Creekmur, Alexander Doty

Flaming Classics: Queering the Film Canon - Alexander Doty

Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture - Alexander Doty

Vested Interests: Crossdressing and Cultual Anxiety - Marjorie Garber

Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian Film in America - Harry M. Benshoff

Ghost Faces: Hollywood and Post-Millennial Masculinity - David Greven

Ethereal Queer: Television, Historicity, Desire - Amy Villarejo

Gender Terrains in African Cinema - Dominica Dipio

Masculinity and Monstrosity in Contemporary Hollywood Films - Kirk Combe and Brenda Boyle

Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928-1998 - David Ehrenstein

Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood From Edison to Stonewall - Richard Barrios

Hollywood from Vietnam to Regan - Robin Wood

In a Lonely Street: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity - Frank Krutnik

Unamerican Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era - Frank Krutnik and others

#text post

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hatingwithfears · 2 years ago

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BOOKS READ IN 2022

Here’s the complete list of books I managed to read in 2022.

168 books. 54,494 pages.

Renata Adler- Speedboat

Kendra Allen- The Collection Plate

Jonathan Alter- His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life

Kenneth Anger- Hollywood Babylon

Jason Bailey- Fun City Cinema: New York City and the Movies That Made It

Peter Baker, Susan Glasser- The Divider: Trump in The White House 2017-2021

JG Ballard- The Atrocity Exhibition

Julien Barnes- Elizabeth Finch

Brit Bennett- The Vanishing Half

Charles M. Blow- The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto

Anthony Bourdain- Medium Raw

Anthony Bourdain, Laurie Woolever- World Travel: An Irreverent Guide

Box Brown- Cannabis: The Illegalization of Weed in America

Mariah Carey, Michaela Angela Davis- The Meaning of Mariah Carey

Nick Cave & Sean O’Hagan- Faith, Hope, and Carnage

David Chang- Eat a Peach

Dan Charnas- Dilla Time

Leonard Cohen- A Ballet of Lepers

Lee Cole- Groundskeeping

Teju Cole- Black Paper

Ray Connolly- Being Elvis: A Lonely Life

Brian Contoir- Practical Alchemy

Antoine Cosse- Metax

Charles R. Cross- Here We Are Now: The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain

Daniele Cybulskie- How To Live Like a Monk

Travis Dandro- King of King Court

John Darnelle- Devil House

Michael Deforge- Heaven No Hell

Rita Dove- Playlist for the Apocalypse

David Duchovny- The Reservoir

Jennifer Egan- The Candy House

Robert Evans- The Kid Stays in The Picture

Scott Eyman- Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise

Nicolas Ferraro- Cruz

Mark Fisher- Ghosts of My Life

Mark Fisher- Capitalist Realism

Johnathan Franzen- Crossroads

Harry Freedman- Leonard Cohen: The Mystical Roots of Genius

Matti Friedman- Who By Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai

James Gavin- George Michael: A Life

Lizzy Goodman- Meet Me in The Bathroom

Andrew Sean Greer- Less

Dave Grohl- The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music

Joseph Hansen- Troublemaker

Joy Harjo- Poet Warrior

Robert Harris- The Ghost Writer

Noah Hawley- Anthem

Wil Haygood- Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Film in a White World

Clinton Heylin- The Double Life of Bob Dylan

Andrew Holleran- The Kingdom of Sand

Michel Houellebecq- Serotonin

Sean Howe- Marvel Comics: The Untold Story

Dorthy B Hughes- In a Lonely Place

John Irving- The Fourth Hand

Walter Isaacson- Leonardo Da Vinci

Kazuo Ishiguro- Klara and The Sun

Junji Ito- No Longer Human

Robert Jones Jr- The Prophets

Saeed Jones- Alive at The End of the World

Stephen Graham Jones- My Heart is a Chainsaw

Rax King- Tacky

Stephen King- Billy Summers

Katie Kitamura- Intimacies

Chuck Klosterman- The Nineties

TJ Klune- Under The Whispering Door

Karl Ove Knausgaard- The Morning Star

Hideo Kojima- The Creative Dream

Milan Kundera- Slowness

Wally Lamb- I Know This Much is True

Yiyun Li- Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life

Thomas Ligotti- The Conspiracy Against The Human Race

Roger Lipsey- Make Peace Before the Sun Goes Down

Patricia Lockwood- No One is Talking About This

Ling Ma- Bliss Montage

Stuart B MacBride- Halfhead

Michael Mann & Meg Gardiner- Heat 2

Greil Marcus- Dead Elvis

Mike McCormack- Solar Bones

Jennette McCurdy- I’m Glad My Mom Died

Janelle Monae- The Memory Librarian

Ottessa Moshfegh- Lapvona

Leila Mottley- Nightcrawling

Alan Moore, Melinda Gebbie- Lost Girls

Grant Morrison- The Invisibles

Mannie Murphy- I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Sequoia Nagamatsu- How High We Go in The Dark

Joyce Carol Oates- Blonde

Joyce Carol Oates- American Melancholy

John O’Connell- Bowie’s Bookshelf

Ryan O’Connell- Just By Looking at Him

Jenny Offill- Weather

Paul Ortiz- An African American and Latinx History of The United States

Hiroko Oyamada- The Factory

Hiroko Oyamada- The Hole

Helen Oyeymi- What is Not Yours is Not Yours

James Patterson- Hear No Evil

Larissa Pham- Pop Song

Brian Phillips- Impossible Owls

Stephanie Phillips- Why Solange Matters

Keith Phipps- Age of Cage

Michael Pollan- This Is Your Mind on Plants

Richard Powers- Bewilderment

Questlove- Music is History

Kristen Radtke- Seek You

Sue Rainsford- Follow Me to Ground

Claudia Rankine- Just Us: An American Conversation

George A Romero, Daniel Kraus- The Living Dead

Karen Russell- Orange World

George Saunders- A Swim in a Pond in The Rain

George Saunders- Liberation Day

Samantha Schweblin— Fever Dream

Leonardo Sciascia- Equal Danger

Mark Seal- Leave The Gun, Take The Cannoli

Seth- Clyde Fans

Alan Sepinwall- Breaking Bad 101

Zadie Smith- Feel Free

Won-Pyung Sohn- Almond

Bob Spitz- Led Zeppelin: The Biography

Elizabeth Strout- Oh William!

J Randy Taraborrelli- The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Herve Le Tellier- The Anomaly

Manjit Thapp- Feelings

Olga Tokarczuk- The Books of Jacob

Jia Tolentino- Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self Delusion

Leo Trezenick- The Confession of a Mad Man

Stanley Tucci- Taste

Una- Becoming Unbecoming

Ocean Vuong- Time is a Mother

Chris Ware- Rusty Brown

WC Ware- Jimmy Corrigan

John Waters- Liarmouth

Peter Weiss- The Shadow of The Coachman’s Body

Missouri Williams- The Doloriad

Antoine Wilson- Mouth to Mouth

Sarah Winman- Still Life

Laurie Wollever- Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography

Kenneth Womack- Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and The End of The Beatles

Hanya Yanagihara- To Paradise

Ed. Jelani Cobb & David Remnick- The Matter of Black Lives

Ed. Sinead Gleeson & Kim Gordon- This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music

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