Celebrate the pop icon’s 60th birthday by diving into the rich archives of all about Madonna, where you’ll find news, interviews, magazine stories, and other materials going back decades. 

Librarian Deb Baker rejects a recent op-ed calling for Amazon to replace public libraries: “Libraries are often the only egalitarian spaces in American communities, radically welcoming of everyone who comes through their doors.”

Wonder Woman was filled with beautiful, powerful costuming, and a rich, detailed culture for the Amazons — and it all came from Lynda Carter and her 1970’s leotard.

“If film should only be for stories which tell a complete picture across two or three films, then is cinema not restricting itself?” Pop-culture critic Tony Black defends the ambitiously hermetic Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Phenderson Djèlí Clark on getting political in sci-fi/fantasy: “It informs my writing. It informs my characters. It informs my imagination. It informs my very reason for creating. I guess I’ve always known I was a political writer of SFF. Because there are no ‘non-sci-fi/fantasy issues.’”

At For the Love of Nike, Jennifer takes us on a photographic tour of Hobbiton — the land of the hobbits as filmed in The Lord of the Rings — in Matamata, New Zealand.

“I will always be an album guy. . . . there simply is no musical experience quite like a brilliant album listened to from start to finish.” At N.B.G.V, Eóin Donnelly offers his thorough, passionate take on his favorite albums, including Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN., Cigarettes After Sex’s eponymous debut, and dvsn’s Morning After.

Discover some of the most exciting, under-the-radar music of the past year, lovingly curated by the Bandcamp Daily team.

Justice League flopped, while truly original films like Get Out and Lady Bird are critically and financially successful. So what’s up with all the reboots?

“Now I may be but a simple commoner, a man not all that familiar with aerial sleigh travel and the visibility restrictions that may or may not come with it, but I’d think that if a reindeer were born with a built in headlight, that reindeer would be one heck of a catch.”

“As much as I’d love to say that I hated the show and wish I hadn’t gone… it was, in fact, entertaining.” Where do we draw the line between politics and entertainment?

From the archives of J. S. Graboyes’ Duck Pie blog, a look into the origins of an unnecessary-yet-fascinating 20th-century invention.

Elizabeth cried watching Wonder Woman. Why? “I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie where a woman character kicked ass and all of us didn’t have to pay the price for that by first watching at least one woman be violently dehumanized before us.”

“Fantasy worlds are defined by limits: much is unknown in these worlds, and the unknown either resists being known, or it is left in peace.” A longread on losing oneself in the geography of fantasy worlds, from Middle Earth to Westeros.