Poor dude's just sitting on the porch, reading his book, when his hilarious girlfriend slaps him with her bloody tampon. Ha-ha! But she was just joking! Honey? Well, suffice to say honey's not laughing.

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The Best Links:

1. Tampon Prank Gone Wrong!

Here's Barbie and her second chin reading BuzzFeed in bed. But don't feel bad for her! She's not real - the ad's just promoting childhood obesity awareness.

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The Best Links:

1. Good Lord, Barbie is Really Letting Herself Go
2. Fat Barbie (Large Size)
3. Active Life Movement: Barbie
4. BarbieFeed

CULTURE BUZZ: A website that simulates a Windows XP desktop and loads a selection of literary works disguised as technical PowerPoint presentations. This website is one of the coolest I’ve come across lately. Now I just need a site that lets me actually read a Tolstoy novel while pretending to read Gawker.

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The Best Links:

1. Read at Work - The Website
2. Developed by the New Zealand Book Council, Fool Your Boss While Reading Emily Dickinson
3. “A Truly Ingenious Way to Read More at Work”
4. Bored at Work? Site Disguises Classic Lit
5. Can We Get a Windows Vista Version?
6. Today’s Terribly Amusing Website

CULTURE BUZZ: Michiko Kakutani calls it “the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we’ve yet had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell” in a New York Times book review. All the rave reviews mean this book will be appearing on a lot of summer reading lists. I’m intrigued by The Great Gatsby -like romantic male friendship that the novel is centered around.

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The Best Links:

1. “How Long Before Hipsters Start Playing Cricket?”
2. Michiko’s Glowing Review in the NY Times
3. Booker Prize Long List Announced; Can Anything Beat ‘Netherland’?
4. Rave Review Actually Made Me Not Want to Read This Book
5. It’s “The Great Gatsby” but with Cricket
6. Book Review in the New York Times
7. Amazon.com: Netherland

CULTURE BUZZ: For an undisclosed amount, Harvard University purchased sordid details of Norman Mailer’s sex life from his former mistress. In an era when homemade porno is a crucial element in achieving undeserved stardom, news of an ideologue’s indecencies recorded on actual paper is a welcome change. Stay sexy, Norm, wherever you are.

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The Best Links:

1. From “Cherubic” To “Monstrous,” Carole Mallory Spilled All To The Harvard Crimson
2. Harvard Buys Ideologue’s Smut Diaries
3. Mailer’s Mistress: “Norman Was a Real Man and He Knew What He Was Doing”
4. WTF, Harvard?
5. Carole Mallory, Mailer’s Mistress, Sure Got Around

SPORTS BUZZ: A book by former Jane contributor Kate Torgovnick that follows three elite college cheerleading teams for a grueling competition season. It explores the dark side of cheerleading that never gets touched upon in Bring It On . We could see it having the Friday Night Lights effect - riveting even if you don’t really care about cheerleading or sports in general.

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The Best Links:

1. Review: a “Fascinating, Empathy-inducing Portrait”
2. Kate Torgovnick Lists the Soundtrack to Cheer! (Songs Inspired by or That Appear In)
3. CHEER! The Official Site
4. Review: This Book Is Worth Reading, Even If You Don’t Care for Cheerleading
5. Buy Cheer! on Amazon.com
6. Kate Torgovnick Writes for This Blog
7. Kate Torgovnick Writes an Article on why Public Access Remains Vital for The Huffington Post
8. Kate’s On a Book Tour This Week