“The first stage of television grief is rejection: when a favorite character is killed off, the desire to distance yourself from a show you love, to disown it, even, is powerful. ‘I’m done,’ you declare firmly.’ I’ve had enough of this crap. They’ve gone too far this time.’ I’ve seen it in a lot of fan communities; I’ve said it (half-heartedly) myself. In the past decade or so, I’ve developed a bad habit of falling in love with a certain type of BBC series, whose writers seem to be collectively united by slim budgets and streaks of cruelty: on one of my favorite shows, three of the five major characters are killed in the span of five episodes; on another, the entire cast of four kicks it in under a season — and it might be worth noting that most of them go violently, too.” Stages of Television Grief: On the Decline of Downton Abbey by Elizabeth Minkel
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“The first stage of television grief is rejection: when a favorite character is killed off, the desire to distance yourself from a show you love, to disown it, even, is powerful. ‘I’m done,’ you declare firmly.’ I’ve had enough of this crap. They’ve gone too far this time.’ I’ve seen it in a lot of fan communities; I’ve said it (half-heartedly) myself. In the past decade or so, I’ve developed a bad habit of falling in love with a certain type of BBC series, whose writers seem to be collectively united by slim budgets and streaks of cruelty: on one of my favorite shows, three of the five major characters are killed in the span of five episodes; on another, the entire cast of four kicks it in under a season — and it might be worth noting that most of them go violently, too.”

Stages of Television Grief: On the Decline of Downton Abbey by Elizabeth Minkel

“And then there was my favorite book this year, hands-down — Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, published elsewhere as Chinaman, a reference to the left-armed bowl for which Mathew, the elusive cricketer at the heart of the story, is known. It’s the sort of book that turns you into an evangelist, in an almost embarrassing way, like, reaching into your purse to wave a copy in peoples’ faces when someone casually mentions, ‘I hear you’re writing about cricket?’” - A Year in Reading: Elizabeth Minkel
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“And then there was my favorite book this year, hands-down — Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, published elsewhere as Chinaman, a reference to the left-armed bowl for which Mathew, the elusive cricketer at the heart of the story, is known. It’s the sort of book that turns you into an evangelist, in an almost embarrassing way, like, reaching into your purse to wave a copy in peoples’ faces when someone casually mentions, ‘I hear you’re writing about cricket?’”

- A Year in Reading: Elizabeth Minkel

My year in reading has been a lesson in letting go. It began with the physical: when my apartment building was sold in January, I began a series of culls of my unwieldy book collection, of a set of shelves I’d so carefully organized when I moved in, now obscured by random stacks of cheap paperbacks, uncorrected proofs, impulse purchases, unwanted offerings from friends — so many books I’d never read, would never read, and simply couldn’t bring myself to pack up and unpack again somewhere else.
A Year in Reading: Elizabeth Minkel
“The book is notable, too, because to some degree, it’s forced erotica into the mainstream conversation. Much of the coverage of Fifty Shades of Grey has focused on sex: women are passing around the novels at spin classes and telling the Times how nice it is to be able to read porn and talk about it with friends. (‘It’s relighting a fire under a lot of marriages,’ one woman said.) But then there are the books’ origins: the trilogy started on FanFiction.net, as a story entitled ‘Master of the Universe,’ in which James’ main characters, Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, were called Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. It was Twilight AU, or Alternate Universe fan fiction, wherein Stephenie Meyer’s innocent girl and vampire were re-imagined as innocent girl and manipulative billionaire.” - Fifty Shades of Fan Fiction by Elizabeth Minkel
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“The book is notable, too, because to some degree, it’s forced erotica into the mainstream conversation. Much of the coverage of Fifty Shades of Grey has focused on sex: women are passing around the novels at spin classes and telling the Times how nice it is to be able to read porn and talk about it with friends. (‘It’s relighting a fire under a lot of marriages,’ one woman said.) But then there are the books’ origins: the trilogy started on FanFiction.net, as a story entitled ‘Master of the Universe,’ in which James’ main characters, Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, were called Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. It was Twilight AU, or Alternate Universe fan fiction, wherein Stephenie Meyer’s innocent girl and vampire were re-imagined as innocent girl and manipulative billionaire.”

- Fifty Shades of Fan Fiction by Elizabeth Minkel