What is a superhero without a supervillain? Not much. Some supervillains, however, are worth a lot more than others. I have therefore decided to spotlight some lesser-known villains. Are they underrated gems or irredeemable losers who deserve to be forgotten? You decide! Today’s subject: the Living Monolith!

Are you one of those people that whenever you go to someone’s house, you say hi to their dog/cat/hamster/any other pet they have before doing anything else? Yeah? Me too. When a dog sneezes, I say bless you. To be honest, animals are literal angels and I am obsessed with them. If you’re like me, you enjoy whenever a cute animal appears in the book you’re currently reading. Animals just make books better, that’s the cold truth. And they will continuously do it every single time. In this next list, I compiled books with pets on the cover, so we can see them front and center!

Some animals have main character energy (MCE), not going to lie. I believe the ones I’m mentioning in this article have a lot of MCE or are beginning to have it. I mean, some of these covers have these cuties before even the protagonists, so you know what? They are clearly the light, the sun, the shining beacon of their own books. Most of the time, whenever I see a pet on the cover, they have a focal part in the story. They either function as matchmakers or helpers for the main human character. Which it’s so fun to see, because they are always chaotic antics happening around them whenever they start getting involved with the plot.

Note: Because we’re mainly talking about book covers, and most of these covers are illustrated, I wanted to include the illustrators and designers who made these beautiful covers. I tried my hardest to find them all, but there are a few that made it impossible for me to do it.

The day has finally come. You’ve been told that you are the only one who can stop what is to come. You must fulfill the prophecy and take up the mantle of the chosen one. You are destined to save everyone from the peril that awaits; to put your life on the line and ultimately triumph in the end. Maybe. If things work out that way. The prophecy gets kind of vague. Everyone is counting on you to play your fated role.

You absolutely refuse.

You didn’t ask for this. No one prepared you to be “the one.” Prophecies aren’t even real, and there are a thousand other people more qualified for the peril and great adventure and brushes with death that no doubt await you. You’d much rather stay at home and live a quiet life, please and thank you. No, no, you will not be persuaded from your decision. Find another chosen one.

This list is dedicated to you, who opted out of answering the call of the chosen one. To all of the prophesied and fated chosen ones who took one look at their future responsibilities and took a hard pass.

Not every anti-chosen one on this list was able to fully turn away; after all, some reasons to answer the call are too compelling to ignore (the death and destruction of everything you love is a difficult one to shrug off), but it took a LOT OF CONVINCING to get you to agree, and by god you weren’t going to make it easy on them for upending your entire life when you did not ask for this, but fine, have it your way I guess.

We’re all too familiar with the age-old saying “so many books, so little time.” And so, many of us listen to audiobooks to make time for reading. But time is oh so precious, and we don’t want to end up with a bad audiobook and a terrible listening experience.

So what really separates a great audiobook from something that is so-so? What makes you pick up something, get overjoyed by it, and then recommend it to your friends or colleagues? Is there a standard formula that goes into the production of audiobooks? Is it all subjective? Is it true that audiobook narrators can make or break the story?

I asked professionals who are directly related to the art of audiobook production what they think makes a great audiobook. Being a former audiobook producer and a reviewer for AudioFile Magazine myself — though I’m on an extended hiatus — I am also going to share what I think.

According to AudioFile, the only magazine in the publishing industry that reviews audiobooks rigorously, the following are the criteria to be considered for an Earphones Award or a starred review. When I was actively reviewing, I was not given descriptions of these criteria, and the explanations below are based from my own experience.

May 14 – June 18, 2022

May 13 – June 18, 2022

The weather in Kassel was gorgeous today, and I spent a lot of time taking in Documenta’s abundant outdoor offerings. Many of them involved living plants, including a greenhouse by the Colombian collective Más Arte Más Acción (MAMA), a compost heap by La Intermundial Holobiente, Nhà Sàn Collective’s Vietnamese garden, and mosquito net-based structures by Cinema Caravan and Takashi Kuribayashi.

ruangrupa, the Indonesian collective behind this year’s edition of documenta, writes that they do not conceive of Kassel as an exhibition venue, but rather, an ecosystem. But this mentality not only informs installations in parks—a chatty barista at a documenta-approved coffee cart told me that, to be an on-site vender, they had to sign an agreement with the organization saying they’d source everything locally and ethically.

Yesterday, I wrote that the white cube context felt sort of irrelevant to the show. Today, I hardly went in any buildings. I found myself more impressed—and more tired. The day felt something like a scavenger hunt, and to see La Intermundial Holobiente’s compost heap alone, I walked an hour roundtrip.

I was struck by the Nest Collective’s Return to Sender, which featured giant bundles of the e-waste that often ends up on the African continent. Placed prominently in a park, the work didn’t attempt to expose a shocking truth. It didn’t have to, either—we all know we live on a trash planet, and that the effects of this reality are experienced unequally. The work was accompanied by a video in which residents in Nairobi, the city where the Nest Collective is based, discuss their relationship to secondhand clothes, which are abundant in the city and often imported from the Global North. They talked about the challenge of crafting their own unique styles and identities with these materials. The work is indicative of a recent trend in which artists position themselves as figures who might help us wade through the trash and industrial materials we are slowly drowning in.

Archaeologists from Stockholm University discovered the remains of a Viking Age shipyard, the university announced Wednesday, while excavating at Birka, known as Sweden’s first town. The find sheds light on the organization of the Viking’s maritime activities.

Established during the mid-8th century C.E., Birka is one of the best examples of city-like trading posts set up by Vikings for long-distance maritime trade. Located on the present-day island of Björkö, the ancient site, named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993, would have been a major trading hub for merchants and tradesmen across Europe.

Birka had a rampart surrounding the city for defense and legal, economic, and social boundaries. The shipyard, however, as well as a boat landing site currently undergoing research, are both located outside of the rampart. Until this point, efforts have been focused within the rampart.

Archaeologists from Stockholm University conducted a systematic survey of the shipyard using mapping and drone investigations. Along the shore, the team uncovered a stone-lined depression with a wooden boat slop at the bottom, where boats would have been serviced. They also found large quantities of unused and used boat rivets, whetstones made from slate, and woodworking tools.

“A site like this has never been found before, it is the first of its kind, but the finds convincingly show that it was a shipyard,” said Sven Isaksson, professor of archaeological science at Stockholm University, in a press release.

Earlier this year, Netflix debuted Inventing Anna, a miniseries that offered a fictionalized account of Anna Delvey’s attempts to scam the rich and famous, some of whom were in the art world. Now, there is “Reinventing Anna,” a series of NFTs minted by none other than Delvey herself, who is currently behind bars.

The NFTs are images of prints that Delvey, an artist in her own right, has created. The three prints minted so far offer stylized versions of episodes from Delvey’s own life. Each is available for just 0.08 ETH, or around $90.

In one print, Delvey pictures the time she spent in ICE custody. (Her deportation to Germany is reportedly still pending.) Shown facing the viewer in a field of ICE detainees turned away, Delvey stands over a text in cursive that reads “White privilege application: denied.”

The NFTs come with what the project termed “access to Anna” by way of “exclusive live streams and other online and metaverse events.” It also promised personal calls with Delvey, sketches by her, and more to “a select group of top holders.”

It’s not clear which platform the NFTs exist on, based on the “Reinventing Anna” website, but there is a link to a Delvey-run page where users can mint their own NFTs.

We were sitting at a long table, images and diagrams projected onto the wall behind us, while the audience faced us in silence. I was part of a panel on hoarding, along with another psychoanalyst and a memoirist. As I gave my presentation, audience members went about their business as though they were invisible, like people in cars sometimes do. One person directly in front of me scrolled and typed on her iPhone. Another stood up, walked to the back of the room to get a drink, then returned to his seat and rummaged through his bag. I became aware of my attempt to block out these actions, to pretend not to see what I was seeing.

At one point, I must have turned my head in the direction of my lapel mic because suddenly the volume shot up. I was explaining the concept of horror vacui, or the fear of emptiness, pointing to the part it played in the aesthetics of the Victorian era, causing every surface to be covered with tchotchkes, and in sex, leading some men to dread a sense of post-coital emptiness so much that they stave off—and this is when it happened—ejacuLATION.

That got really loud for a second, I observed matter-of-factly, then burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. I attempted to compose myself, apologize—Sorry, I just had a juvenile moment—and return to the passage, but when I reached the word ejaculation again, I lost it, doubled over, eventually putting my head on the table. 

Seconds felt like hours as I tried, with little success, to pull myself together. I had no idea why I was laughing, but the more I laughed, the more others in the room laughed with me. Attacks of laughter are contagious: another person’s laughter—even if nonsensical—is enough of a stimulus to provoke your own.