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This is Defector, a new sports blog and media company. We made this place together, we own it together, we run it together. Without access, without favor, without discretion, and without interference.

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Books

Defector At The Movies

Music

Arts And Culture

Patrick Redford

China Miéville Is Back

Defector Reads A Book Is Ending The Summer With Janet Malcolm

Heather Chen is a former Defector intern and the managing editor at the Columbia Daily Spectator. She loves hockey, photography, and the good ol’ state of Michigan.

Heather Wei-Xi Chen

bookstore window display for 'Fourth Wing'

Wings Week

I Love Trashy Fantasy Books, But I Cannot Condone TikTok’s Obsession With ‘Fourth Wing’

Tom Ley

The Great Cattle drive Giddy up Australia In Australia- As part of the Great Australien Outback Cattle Drive, tourists join with seasoned stockmen to drive 600 head of cattle down the Birdsville track, experiencing the magic of the Australien interior along the way.

It’s Time For You To Read ‘Lonesome Dove’

Maitreyi Anantharaman

Brandy Jensen

Kelsey McKinney

David Roth

Close-up of northern goshawk of prey perching on branch,Spain

Let Loose The Jesses And Come Discuss ‘H Is For Hawk’ With Us

Who Are These Big Book Lists For?

DRAB:H Is For Defector Reads A Bird: ‘H Is For Hawk’

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 06: Donte DiVincenzo #0, Jalen Brunson #11, and Josh Hart #3 of the New York Knicks react against the Indiana Pacers during Game One of the Eastern Conference Second Round Playoffs at Madison Square Garden on May 06, 2024 in New York City. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. ()

Mods Asleep

Vinson Cunningham On The Knicks, Art, And How Basketball Can Help You Live Nobly

Barry Petchesky

SHAOYANG, CHINA - FEBRUARY 16: People read books at Songpo bookstore during the Spring Festival holiday on February 16, 2021 in Shaoyang, Hunan Province of China. (Photo by Teng Zhizhong/VCG via Getty Images)

Life Lessons

Buy Yourself A Gift Card

A photographer of author James Baldwin smoking a cigarette.

Defector Reads A Book Returns With ‘The Fire Next Time’

charismatic megafauna (they/them)

Sabrina Imbler

Kate Schapira sits at her climate anxiety booth in a public park in Providence, Rhode Island

Interviews

What Do We Do With Our Climate Anxiety?

Felix Kent

Why Can’t I Turn Off The Game?

Danny Sullivan writes <a href="https://theunderline.substack.com/">The Underline</a>, a newsletter covering books, movies, and ideas. He lives in Santa Fe.

Danny Sullivan

‘Dune’ Novels, Ranked By Unfilmability

Nicholas Russell is a writer from Las Vegas.

Nicholas Russell

Englishmen in Paris gathered in Galignani’s library, 1820. English gentlemen read books, newspapers and periodicals. Doctor Syntax discovered by his wife in a bookshop. Handcoloured copperplate drawn and engraved by Charles Williams from Doctor Syntax in Paris; or a Tour in Search of the Grotesque, W. Wright, London, 1820.

“It Really Matters If Somebody Has Bad Taste”: An Interview With Book Critic Becca Rothfeld

Jared Goff #16 of the Detroit Lions warms up prior to the NFC Championship NFL football game against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi's Stadium on January 28, 2024 in Santa Clara, California.

Podcasts

Lessons Of Collapse And The Christian Version Of Limp Bizkit, With Jason Kirk

Defector Staff

Shoppers in Paris flock to buy the new edition of the grammar book 'Grammaire de l'Academie Francaise', 1932.

Year In Review

The Best Things We Read In 2023

Antique print of whalers harpooning a sperm whale off New Bedford, Massachusetts. The print is from 1910.

A Year In Pursuit Of Moby Dick

Whale stranded at Winterton, 1857. 'This fine specimen of the whale tribe was driven ashore at Winterton by the gales which visited the coast of Norfolk...When the whale found himself upon land he roared loudly, and he struggled most lustily to regain the deep...The colour of the outer coat is dark brown on the back, vanishing off towards the body of a bluish grey. The body is white; also about two feet of the nose and baleen is white; the rest of the outer part is black. We understand that the skin, head, and tail were removed from the carcase for exhibition. The whale is stated to weigh about 25 tons'. From &quot;Illustrated London News&quot;, 1857.

Defector Reads A Book Is Gonna Kiss That White Whale

Jackie Charniga is a writer, reporter, and bookseller based in Michigan.

Jackie Charniga

A woman stands behind an oversized book with "#BookTok" on the cover in a colorful exhibit on BookTok at the Frankfurt Book Fair, October 2023

If BookTok Convinces Teens They’re Ready For Erotica, Is It My Job To Stop Them?

a woman in a dress sits on a library ladder

How The Defector Staff Organizes Their Books

The cover of Esther Yi's novel Y/N, featuring a woman dancing near a mirror.

Defector Reads A Book Is Getting Low-Key Parasocial With It

Samuel Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of FTX, testifies during a Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry hearing about "Examining Digital Assets: Risks, Regulation, and Innovation," on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on February 9, 2022. The photo is stylized. His big poofy hair is mostly what the photo is of, plus the top half of his face. The canvas behind him is ugly and Brown, kind of in a gradient.

Michael Lewis’s ‘Going Infinite’ Goes In Circles

1975: Jehovah's Witnesses singing at their convention at Twickenham Rugby Ground. (Photo by Angela Deane-Drummond/Evening Standard/Getty Images)

The Best Things We Read In 2022

Carl von Clausewitz (1780 -1831); Prussian general and military theorician. (Photo by: Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)