Of all the demos at this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt, Scoutible’s mobile game for replacing the job interview grabbed my attention. Some of the surrounding demos seemed like awesome tech solutions in search of a problem to solve, but, come on, what doesn’t suck about job interviews? Who wouldn’t rather play a game? Job interviews are…

I just finished Americanah, a wonderful novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the author of Purple Hibiscus, among others. Adichie came to my attention through her non-fiction work, We Should All Be Feminists, but her fiction should not be missed. Americanah tells the story of a Nigerian woman’s years in the US, and her eventual return to Nigeria….

The Swans of Fifth Avenueby Melanie Benjamin, the author of Alice I Have Been, tells the story of Truman Capote and his New York socialite friends, especially highlighting his relationship with Babe Paley. This whole novel is a gossipy delight, especially since I was mostly familiar with Truman Capote through In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s,…

Let’s be honest, it can be hard making adult friends, especially as we get older and our peers are becoming increasingly occupied with keeping tiny humans alive and healthy. Or when work moves us to a new city, away from our usual support networks.  Wouldn’t it be cool if we could skip all the boring…

Menna van Praag’s stories, The House at the End of Hope Street, The Dress Shop of Dreams, and her newest novel, The Witches of Cambridge, all invite readers to a Cambridge where magic lurks around every historical corner. These three novels are not a series, although it makes perfect sense that an enchanted bakery, dress shop,…

Monument Valley. Are you playing this? You probably should be. This mobile game from ustwo has been out for a while, but the description of it as a casual puzzler kept me expecting yet another underwhelming freemium click-and-wait game. I missed out on months and months I could be playing Princess Ida on her beautiful…