As a book lover, I was elated by the photo, which I interpreted as a subtle hint that the characters on the new Gossip Girl might have active reading lives in addition to, you know, their sex ones. And then a coworker alerted me to the fact that there were more photos of the Upper East Siders reading on set. Some of those pictures featured Carmen Maria Machado's stellar 2017 short story collection Her Body and Other Parties ($15). Emily Lind is seen reading the book during a scene as Audrey, and her costar, Jordan Alexander, was snapped spending some time in its pages between takes. How happy was I to see a major pop-culture institution like Gossip Girl featuring the work of Machado, a queer, feminist, critically lauded author whose writing melds sex, science fiction, horror, and fairy tales? Extremely.
Image Source: Getty / Gotham