We all know someone whose significant other isn't a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife -- it's their furry friend. 

So if you're having trouble thinking of Christmas gifts for people who would rather hang out with pals that woof and meow instead of talk and yell, we gotchu. We've rounded up some terruffic products that really drive home the idea that pets rule, humans drool. 

Check them out below! 

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WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealanders know what their new potential national flag will look like, except that they're not quite set on the color.

In a postal ballot, New Zealanders chose from among five designs, and both their favorites feature the country's iconic silver fern next to the stars that make up the Southern Cross constellation. The only difference is, one flag is black and the other is red.

Preliminary results released Friday showed the black option narrowly leading the red in a race that's too close to call since not all votes have been counted. The winner will be announced Tuesday.

Whichever flag wins will then be pitted head-to-head against the current flag in a second vote to be held in March.

The winning design has similarities to the current flag. It retains the four red stars representing the Southern Cross, but ditches the British Union Jack in favor of the fern, which has become a national symbol and is worn by many sports teams including the beloved All Blacks rugby team.

New Zealanders were choosing between five options for an alternative flag. Two were designed by Kyle Lockwood with the color in the top left corner black in one design and red in the other.

Figures from the Electoral Commission indicated it had received 1.53 million votes by Friday, representing 48 percent of eligible voters in the country of 4.6 million people. Some late votes and overseas ballots won't be counted until Tuesday when the official result is announced.

Deputy Prime Minister Bill English said in a statement the results showed there was a strong public interest in the process.

"New Zealanders can now turn their attention to deciding whether to keep the current flag, or replace it," he said. 

But opposition leader Andrew Little said many people had protested the referendum by casting votes that were ineligible to be counted. About 10 percent of all votes were ineligible.

Initially there were only four alternative flag options slated for the ballot, but a popular campaign for a geometric design called "Red Peak" prompted lawmakers to amend the rules to add it to the finalists. But Red Peak ended up finishing a distant third behind the Lockwood designs.

Many in New Zealand consider the current flag to be outdated and too similar to Australia's flag. The Union Jack, or Union Flag, harks back to a colonial past that many New Zealanders are eager to put behind them. New Zealand sometimes comes under the shadow of Australia, its larger neighbor, and having flags that are almost identical only compounds that problem.

However, there are plenty of New Zealanders who want to keep their current flag. Many veterans fought under the flag and feel a special bond to it. Others simply don't see any need for a change, or view the process as an expensive stunt initiated by Prime Minister John Key to distract from more pressing issues.

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If eyes are a window into the soul, writing is a window into an author's mind. And very often, that mind is dizzyingly interesting and contains insights about our world that we didn't quite know how to articulate on our own. 

In a media landscape filled with tweets and "hot takes," it's easy to forget how many beautiful, impactful words are published on the Internet each and every year. So, for thefourthtime, we've curated a list of pieces that stood out to us over the last calendar year. To make the list, an article had to be (1) published in 2015, (2) written by a woman and (3) be available online.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but each piece included hits at something special, and, in our opinions, important. In a world where women are still derided for writing about their personal experiences and taking selfies, where we are still fighting for basic reproductive rights and we still haven't had a female president, elevating women's voices has never felt more crucial. 

Below are 28 pieces that every woman (and man) should read:

"I'm A Hot Mess For Hillary" 

Rebecca Traister, Elle

For many progressive women, Hillary Clinton is both a deeply important and deeply fraught political figure. No one has managed to capture this reality quite like Traister. Her gorgeous piece in Elle outlines the the emotional turmoil Clinton's (second) presidential run brings up and the burden of representation that often falls onto "firsts" in any field. As she writes: "[Hillary Clinton] is the screen upon which all of America's very long-standing, very complicated, fairly unattractive feelings about women will be projected for the next 13 months." Oof. 

* * *

"I'm 15 Years Old And This Is What Love Feels Like"

Anna Koppelman, MTV News

There is a tendency in our society to both fetishize youth and mock it. But what's most heartbreakingly lost when adults argue about "kids these days" is the voices of those actual kids. Koppelman's stirring essay on first love reminds anyone reading just how real and valid and affecting formative relationships can be. We should all be so lucky to feel like we're "throwing up glitter" over the course of our lives.

* * *

"How To Make Friends With Your Country's Enemies"

Mallika Rao, HuffPost Arts & Culture

Rao, the daughter of Indian parents, went to Pakistan on a mission to see, touch and love. Just as the personal is political, diplomacy is oh-so-personal.  

* * *

"Famous Quotes, The Way A Woman Would Have To Say Them During A Meeting"

Alexandra Petri, The Washington Post

Women spend our lives negotiating how we move about and communicate in the world to come off in a way that doesn't upset or threaten the people (read: men) around us. This is especially potent in the workplace. As Petri puts it, "You start with your thought, then you figure out how to say it as though you were offering a groveling apology for an unspecified error." And thus, that is how “I will be heard" becomes “Sorry to interrupt. No, go on, Dave. Finish what you had to say.”

* * *

"Against Chill"

Alana Massey, Matter

Massey decided to wage a verbal war on the pressure to appear "chill" -- "a garbage virtue that will destroy the species" -- specifically in the context of dating and sex. As she writes, "Chill asks us to remove the language of courtship and desire lest we appear invested somehow in other human beings." "Chill" is essentially complete and utter bullshit, and we are eternally grateful to Massey for calling that out.  

* * *

"Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co-Stars?"

Jennifer Lawrence, Lenny

Jennifer Lawrence is one of the most privileged people on the planet. She is fabulously famous and wealthy and publicly adored -- yet the bullshit sexism she has to contend with is familiar to women in any profession. Her essay about being paid less than her male co-stars -- and avoiding being seen as too "aggressive" during negotiations -- is affecting, funny and newsworthy. We can all look forward to a day when we don't need an Oscar winner to speak up to get people to pay attention to workplace sexism.

* * *

"Men Who Kill"

Josie Duffy, Gawker

In a year where mass, public gun violence dominated headlines, Duffy's piece gets to an issue that's at the very core of much of it: masculinity. "Forget terrorism or video games or gangs. Its the bruised ego that’s responsible for a lot of the violence we see," she wrote. We need gun control -- and now. But we also need to examine the ways in which we raise men who see guns as their only way out of hurt and rejection.

* * *

"The Art Of Being Underestimated"

Jessica Roy, New York Magazine

"Maybe the secret to breaking the glass ceiling is to shatter it with our vocal fry and leave the shards glittering like diamonds in our blowouts," writes Roy. This piece is one giant, refreshing f-you to the people who would write women off for their conventional femininity. 

* * *

"Why You Should Never Ask A Pregnant Woman If She’s Going Back To Work"

Lori Fradkin, Cosmopolitan

It's one of those questions that nearly every expectant mother gets, but few expectant fathers ever do. Fradkin gets to the heart of why the double standard is so problematic: "After all, what's the point of encouraging little girls to work hard in school, get good grades, apply for college, and secure a job after graduation if we then turn around and say to them, essentially, 'So, are you still planning to use all that?'"

* * *

"The Prosperity Gospel Of Rihanna"

Doreen St. Felix, Pitchfork

St. Felix argues that Rihanna's overt embrace of cash is far more subversive than many give her credit for. "Black girls with money are financially independent and visually, confrontationally untethered to men or to goods," St. Felix writes. Rihanna's "Bitch Better Have My Money" video is the apex of this "material liberation." Rihanna is a musical genius. And as St. Felix writes: "To be a black woman and genius, is to be perpetually owed."

* * *   

"Justice Ginsburg's Cautious Radicalism"

Irin Carmon, New York Times

Wondering why Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become the Notorious R.B.G., why "young women have tattooed themselves and painted their nails with the justice’s face"? Carmon's profile of the 82-year-old Supreme Court justice paints a picture of a woman who is both pragmatic and radical. Women looking to get shit done should look to RBG.

* * *

"The Bride In Her Head"

Lena Dunham, The New Yorker

"My desire for a wedding predated my ability to imagine any other kind of positive attention for myself, any other moment of triumph in my life," writes Dunham, reflecting on how marriage equality made her think more pointedly about the institution as a whole. "What I was waiting for was not the chance to marry but the chance to think about marriage on an even playing field, in a world where its relevance is a little harder to question and its essence a little harder to reject."

* * *

"'I'm No Longer Afraid': 35 Women Tell Their Stories About Being Assaulted By Bill Cosby, And The Culture That Wouldn't Listen"

Noreen Malone & Amanda Demme, New York Magazine

In the most comprehensive profile of Cosby's accusers to date, 35 women of different ages and backgrounds agreed to share the traumatic stories they'd kept silent about for years. The piece also includes a moving portrait series of all of the women and an empty chair for victims of sexual assault who have yet to speak up. It is tragic that it took decades and 50+ women coming forward for us to start listening to them, but thank goodness we are hearing their accounts now.

* * *

"I Was Told My Lesbian Mother Is A 'Deviant.' Today Is For Both Of Us."

Margaret Wheeler Johnson, Bustle

Wheeler Johnson's reaction to SCOTUS' marriage equality ruling is the best we've seen, both deeply personal and wholly universal. We dare you not to get chills while reading this paragraph: "It turns out that I am a deviant, too. I am such a deviant that we have a baby girl. And today, as the Supreme Court rules that every American is entitled to marry whomever she or he chooses, the streets will fill with deviants celebrating not only their right to participate in the most conventional of institutions but their right to live beyond stigma and shame."

* * *

"The Charleston Shooter Killed Mostly Black Women. This Wasn’t About 'Rape.'"

Rebecca Carroll, The Guardian

"The idea that white women’s bodies represent that which is inviolable while black women’s are disposable hasn’t changed enough since it was first articulated by white men," writes Carroll. The danger of this underlying societal belief has never been clearer than in the wake of death and destruction wrought by Charleston shooter Dylann Roof. Read Carroll's essay. Take in its message. Remember to #SayHerName. 

* * *

"The Unexpected, Exhilarating Freedom Of Being Single At 41"

Glynnis MacNicol, New York Magazine

It's 2015 and there are still very few narratives out there about single women past the age of 30 who are totally god damn happy with their lives. MacNicol offers one and it's insanely refreshing. She reminds us that being single and 41 can be exhilarating and fun and challenging and lonely and sexy and all the other emotions that make up a human life. "No matter how often we imagine marriage as the solution to women's problems," writes MacNicol, "it is simply another way of living."

* * *

"My Wedding Was Perfect -- And I Was Fat As Hell The Whole Time"

Lindy West, The Guardian

Women are constantly told to be smaller, to take up less space, to compress themselves and their desires in order achieve "true" happiness. Well... Fuck. That. "I have never in my life been fatter than I was on my wedding day, I have never shown my body in such an uncompromising way, and I have never felt more at home in that body," writes West. "I was fully myself, and I was happy. We are happy. This life is yours, fat girls. Eat it up." Amen.  

* * *

"On Pandering"

Claire Vaye Watkins, Tin House

Thanks to Watkins must-read essay on patriarchy in the writing world (and beyond), we've found our new mantra: "Let us burn this motherfucking system to the ground and build something better." 

* * *

"Everything Is Yours, Everything Is Not Yours"

Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil, Matter

"Look, you have this one life," says Wamariya, describing what she tells people when they ask her for her advice on easing human suffering. "If you keep being selfish and unkind, it’s going to come back to you. Ask yourself why you’re scared, why you hate." At a time when panic about Syrian refugees has reached an all-time high in this country, Wamariya's stunning, terrifying account of fleeing the Rwandan genocide feels all the more potent, a reminder to embrace compassion and love in the face of fear and hatred.

* * *

"Breaking Uniform"

Roxane Gay, GOOD

Most women can relate to that moment when you look at yourself in the mirror and are absolutely convinced that you have nothing to wear that could make you look -- and feel -- good. "Sometimes, I decide on an outfit and leave my bedroom," writes Gay. "In a matter of moments, it begins to feel like these unfamiliar clothes are strangling me... Sleeves become tourniquets. Slacks become shackles. I start to panic and before I know it, I am back in my closet. I am tearing the bright, beautiful clothes off because I don’t deserve to wear them." As with nearly any subject, Gay has the uncanny ability to write about the beauty and struggle of getting dressed each morning in a way that underscores the deep significance of a seemingly mundane ritual. 

* * *

"I Love Pizza, Which Is Adorable Because I'm Hot"

Margaret Spencer, Reductress

If you've ever been annoyed at the way beautiful women eating pizza has become a weird fetishized meme, read this hilarious parody piece right now and laugh. A lot. 

* * *

"White Debt"

Eula Bliss, New York Times

We've included this piece in a list of required reading for women, but it really should be required reading for any white person. "When we buy into whiteness, we entertain the delusion that we’re business partners with power, not its minions," Bliss writes. "And we forget our debt to ourselves." White people in this country need to get their shit together -- and it starts by interrogating their own whiteness.

* * *

"Instruments Of Oppression"

Laura Bassett, HuffPost Highline 

Bassett's deep dive into the U.S. policy that drives rape victims abroad to seek out unsafe, illegal abortions is as harrowing a read as it is important. "Obama could change this with a single executive action," writes Bassett. "Why hasn't he?"

* * *

"Selfie"

Rachel Syme, Matter

Syme's seven-part essay will not only dissect any selfie panic you have, but also make you want to turn your iPhone onto yourself and take about 100 of them. As Syme eloquently points out: "What selfie-haters fear, deep down, is a growing army of faces they cannot monitor, an army who does not need their approval to march ahead." 

* * *

"Why I Didn't Write Back"

Diana Spechler, The Toast

"Your fanny pack. Your dick pic. Your soul patch. My heart." This piece will hit home (and hard) for anyone who has ever online dated.

* * *

"Monica Lewinsky Is Back, But This Time It's On Her Terms"

Jessica Bennett, New York Times

Monica Lewinsky became famous (or perhaps infamous is the better word) in her early 20s under less-than-ideal circumstances. Now, in her early 40s, Lewinsky is taking back her narrative. Bennett's writing helps capture the current sensibilities of a woman who was once known only as the object of scorn and scandal. 

* * *

"Far Away From Me"

Jenny Zhang, Rookie

Zhang's beautiful reflection on what it means to grapple with the concepts of adolescent love and attractiveness when you're an Asian girl in a sea of whiteness shows just how far-reaching white supremacy is. "For girls of color, internalizing the message that we are inherently inferior and ugly and freakish can happen explicitly and it can happen insidiously and it can happen just by repeated exclusion," writes Zhang.

* * *

"(Not) All Men"

Nona Willis Aronowitz, Matter

One of the most disturbing things about witnessing sexual assault allegations come out about public figures is when those public figures are supposed to be some of the "good guys," like "boy-next-door" porn star James Deen was. Aronowitz pushes us all to stop distancing ourselves and the men we know and love from misogyny. Because, sometimes -- maybe even often? -- "Our Guys" are as complicit in these systems as "Those Guys." 

To see last year's required reading list, head here.

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The likelihood of a snowy holiday season in most American cities is practically zilch this year (thanks, El Niño), so any festive atmosphere to be enjoyed will have to be the imaginary sort. Luckily, there are books for that.

We're not convinced the ideal wintry read is cloyingly heart-warming, so we've picked out a few chilly books that may best be read while bundled up. 

The Complete Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen

Any reader of fairy tales knows Andersen’s responsible for the oppressively snowy scenes in “The Snow Queen,” the story of children Kai and Gerda, who must confront the goddess-like woman who controls all snowflakes after Kai is kidnapped. But Andersen’s most famous wintry tale isn’t his only story set during the chillier months. “The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep,” and “The Fire-Tree” are great choices for the holiday season.

Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O’Malley

The freezing setting of the popular graphic novel series -- snowy, snowy Toronto -- is offset quickly by its gripping pace and cheeky jokes. Protagonist Scott is a little bit of a slacker, living in a tiny apartment and spending most days practicing with his band, Sex Bob-Omb. He’s bummed and heartbroken over a fellow musician, Envy, but sets his sights on someone new soon enough -- Ramona Flowers, who, suffice it to say, comes with some baggage. The movie is good, but the books are even better. Just don’t forget a parka.

Family Life by Akhil Sharma

It’s a beautiful yet tragic novel about an Indian family immigrating to America, only to face entirely new hardships. Among the Western novelties the narrator is exposed to -- grocery stores are a particular joy -- he’s wowed the most by snow, the slow, sporadic drifts falling on his face. Sharma’s novel isn’t entirely set in the wintertime, but his poetic descriptions of winter weather as lovely yet isolating make it a great choice for a December read.

Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood

In addition to writing ballsy books about the exploitation of women, Margaret Atwood tackles climate change and other environmental themes in her writing, too. A snowy dystopia serves as the setting for one of the stories in Stone Mattress, and the author deftly makes the apocalyptic scene a reality. As a speculative fiction writer, Atwood believes it’s her responsibility to imagine how current realities could worsen, and climate change is among the most dire issues.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Go ahead and forgo the bizarre movie adaptations that’ve been produced recently and read or re-read the classic itself. Bookended by narration by an explorer forging towards the North Pole, it’s a book as suited to wintertime as it is to Halloween. You know the story: a scientist driven by his ambition discovers a method for creating life, and spends two years cobbling together a living creature, who later resents him.

An American Childhood by Annie Dillard

Dillard’s first book is, as its title suggests, about her transition from being a self-centered child to being an adult more concerned with the world around her than with her own personal concerns. Her parents are key figures in the story, making it a fitting selection for those traveling home during the holidays. And, as a former resident of Pittsburgh, she chronicles the occasional snowfall. One notable scene takes place during what the author calls “a big snow,” in 1950. She writes, “The big snow outside, the big snow on the roofs, silenced our words and the scrape of our forks and our chairs.”

Tinkers by Paul Harding

Harding’s novel is peppered with wistful descriptions of “wisps of snow,” “sweet and sharp.” It follows an old man, George Washington Crosby, back to his childhood in Maine, where harsh winters were the norm. George is a practiced clockmaker, and as he lies on his deathbed, he begins hallucinating about his earlier years and his father, who shared his line of work, but suffered from epilepsy. In his final days the two are able to reunite, in a hopeful story about the endurance of the human spirit amid hardships.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The holidays are all about tradition, be it religious practices or goofy family outings. The narrator of The Secret History is obsessed with tradition, too, especially those that serve as identity markers, and those that might help him cover up his middle-class background while trying to get in with a group of students at a college in Vermont. A chunk of the novel is set during a chilly winter break, and the entire book has dramatic, Dionysian themes woven throughout.

The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy by Sofia Tolstoy

If you enjoyed Anna Karenina, that blustery book about a very unhappy family, you might find Sofia Tolstoy’s diaries worth a read. They’re not the coziest musings -- Sofia complains of sacrificing her own happiness for the take of her husband’s genius -- and in fact are pretty bleak at points. Her observations of daily life as a mother aren’t all dark, however: She recalls reading “Grimm’s fairy stories” on a snowy afternoon after sweeping a skating rink, and cuddling up with a Beethoven biography on a frosty evening. 

Dubliners by James Joyce

James Joyce wins the award for most emotionally wrought snowy scene. His longish short story “The Dead” begins with the lighthearted dramas of an annual dinner party thrown by two sisters. There’s dancing, political conversation centered on Irish nationalism, and piano-playing. Afterward, narrator Gabriel is distressed to find that his wife is in a melancholic mood, and the tone of the story shifts swiftly as she recalls a lost loved one. As sad as the story is, it champions the beauty of daily life, too. 

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Warning: This post contains nudity and may not be suitable for work. 

You wake up in the morning, kind of groggy, head cloudy, with a weird residual taste in your mouth. You make your way to the bathroom, look in the mirror, wonder when you got that weird dark spot and proceed to poke at it with your finger. Maybe, in the back of your mind, you contemplate getting older, the inevitability of death and the fragility of life -- or maybe you realize you really have to pee. 

While every human experience is unique, there is something about occupying a body that is universal. "We all have bodies, we all live in them," Deb Aaronson explained to The Huffington Post. "That is a unifying thing. It becomes about the universal experience we all share."

Aaronson is the commissioning editor of Phaidon's Body of Art, a new behemoth of an art book chronicling Western representations of the human form, from prehistoric times to present day. Aside from its massive proportions, the book stands out in its unorthodox method of organization. While most art books are ordered according to geography or chronology, Body of Art is structured around 10 themes, which include Beauty, Power, Sex & Gender, and The Body's Limits. Each thematic section contains a mishmash of artists, styles, origins, eras and media, arranged to illuminate new relations between disparate works.

"I had been trying to think about ways to rethink how we approach making art books," Aaronson said. "I realized there had never really been a comprehensive book that addressed not only how the human body has been represented in art over time, but also how it's been and become the canvas on which and through which artists talk about the human experience."

The book features over 400 pages of body-centric artworks, from the 25,000 BCE classic Venus of Willendorf to Hannah Wilke's 1992 "Intra-Venus Triptych," in which Wilke photographs her bruised, post-surgical body during her treatment for lymphoma. As Aaronson explains: "This survey allows thematically related artworks from different places and times to exist in relation to each other, and allow for that dynamic interplay that reanimates images we've seen many times over."

Each juxtaposition of artwork frames a particular argument, sparks a particular conversation. For example, Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" is placed alongside Nikki Lee's 2001 "The Hip Hop Project," in which Korean artist Lee has physically transformed herself to fully assimilate into the posse of black youth around her. Lee's use of blackface mirrors Picasso's appropriation of the traditional African masks adorning his subjects' faces. Lee renders identity as fluid, Picasso as fractured, yet the radically different works both explore aspects of group identity and visual confrontation. 

"You learn more looking at two works together than you would looking at a work on its own in relation to its being from Africa or made in 1703," Aaronson said. "It's hard for us to not be like, 'Oh, there's that Manet again.' By putting them in the context with the contemporary art you can see that artists were addressing and challenging these issues from the very beginning. It's just not contemporary artists who were pushing the foreground. Artists have been doing it all along."

Additionally, Aaronson hopes the unconventional and unacademic structure of this book will encourage a more general audience to engage with the artwork, seeing as it appeals to basically anyone with a body. 

"We publish very specialized books for very niche and devoted fan bases," Aaronson said. "We also have the goal of publishing to a more general audience, people who are not necessarily art historians or art experts but people who are visually curious, interested in learning, want to just tackle a new subject. Part of the idea of the book was to try to make a book that isn't about art really, but uses art to talk about what it really means to be human."

Flip through the vibrant pages of Body of Art for long enough and the informative captions fade out of view. Although there are sweeping differences between life in 1508 and 2008, many of the same fundamental questions persist. Questions about love, power, identity, sex, pain and, of course, death.

"At the end of the day, that's what life is about," Aaronson said. "Living your life, a life is going to end. Our mortality is something that is universal and is always expressed through the body." 

Body of Art isn't just an art book. It's a guide to human life as experienced in the only way we all know how, through the vessel of the human body. Thankfully, many of art history's most gifted minds have thoughtfully created artworks that illustrate the expansive particularities of human existence better than words ever could. 

Body of Art is available through Phaidon.

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The presence of fierce female heroes in comic books is a win for women. Their unrealistic bodies, though, are still a problem. 

To emphasize how impractical many female comic book heroes' poses are, BuzzFeed had women try to recreate them. Before their attempts at channeling superheroes like Wonder Woman and Spider-Woman, many of the women said they were slightly nervous, but ready for the challenge. It turns out the task was quite difficult.

"I'll be fine if I go to the chiropractor later," one woman said. "It's so hard," said another.

After contorting their bodies to look like these fictional characters, the women compared their poses with the original ones and reflected on how the differences between them made them feel. 

"Her spine is a Z and her butt is a bubble, and it’s just not something my body will ever look like," one woman said. 

Many of the women echoed the sentiment that these female characters' bodies are impossible to replicate in real life. Some also pointed out how silly it is for these heroes to fight crime and save the world while also being hypersexualized, with one woman adding she'd rather see Spider-Woman in a "strength pose," not a "sex pose."

To further emphasize the video's message, BuzzFeed later Photoshopped the women's bodies to look exactly like the original comic book heroes. As one woman put it, she ended up not even "look[ing] human." 

Ultimately, the way women's bodies are portrayed in many comic books is just absurd. "I did my best," one woman said. "I’m not going get mad at my body for not being able to do impossible things."

H/T BuzzFeed

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NEW YORK (AP) — Salman Rushdie is this year's recipient of the Mailer Prize for lifetime achievement.

The author of "Midnight's Children," ''The Satanic Verses" and other novels was presented his award by Laurie Anderson at a ceremony Thursday night at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, the New York City borough where Norman Mailer was raised and lived off and on until his death in 2007.

"It's kind of great to be standing here in Norman Mailer's shadow," Rushdie said.

Rushdie, like Mailer, is a former president of the American chapter of PEN, the literary and human rights organization. He said Mailer had inspired him to help found the PEN World Voices Festival, an annual gathering of writers from around the world.

The 68-year-old Rushdie first encountered Mailer in the mid-1980s, when Mailer organized a famously contentious PEN congress. Rushdie said he remembered "how badly everybody behaved" and "how wonderful it was to see writers in the raw."

"To my great disappointment," he added, "writers have changed now and everybody behaves really well."

In her introductory remarks, Anderson read excerpts from Rushdie's current novel, "Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights." She said she has known Rushdie around 25 years, first meeting him at a secret location in London, when he was forced into hiding after "The Satanic Verses" led to Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for his death.

"As a person, Salman is extraordinary. He's a hilarious person of great good cheer — a wonderful, devoted parent, a serious defender of human rights," she said. "But it's really his writing we're talking about now and how he puts words together on a page."

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Once upon a time, there lived a society so enamored of shiny things, its citizens spent their days glued to glimmering gadgets, paying no mind to the things that mattered.

That’s how the story about Internet-era reading habits goes: proliferated with constant information, we need our modes of entertainment to be shorter, quippier, flashier.

But a new survey conducted on FlipSnack and written up on The Guardian offers a different narrative. According to a sampling of over 2,500 bestselling or buzzy titles from 1999 to 2014, about 80 extra pages have been tacked on to the average length of a book. So while our webpage load times are getting shorter, the books we read are actually getting longer.

This is good news for anyone begrudgingly sounding the death knells of good storytelling, amid so much chatter about an emoji being named the word of the year, and a bevy of splendiferous vocabulary words being axed from the SAT list.

Of course, the survey doesn’t necessarily paint a complete picture. That it only dates back to 1999 means it doesn’t include novels published pre-television, an invention as disruptive to our attention spans as the Internet is purported to be. And, the novels surveyed were plucked from The New York Times’ notable books list and bestseller list, plus Google’s survey of most-discussed books. While thorough, this information isn’t completely inclusive, and likely ignores genres such as self-help, which are less prone to racking up saga-like page counts.

The Guardian offers a few possible explanations for the long book trend, including readers wanting to get their money’s worth when shelling out for a new title, which typically costs more than the price of a movie ticket.

The most promising suggestion? That the novel, when stacked up against so many competing modes of entertainment, has “come into its own novel-ness.” In other words, writers and publishers aren’t even trying to compete with fast-paced, episodic TV shows, and are instead propping up the unique qualities a book has to offer: a fully-developed world readers can immerse themselves in when the quick-hit stimuli of the day gets to be too dizzying.

“Nothing can replace the heftiness of a book,” they seem to say. And apparently, readers are listening.

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"Ugly Christmas sweaters" are practically the bread and butter of holiday attire these days. They come in countless styles and sizes for kids, adults, babies and even pets -- so many options in fact, that there are themed parties and competitions dedicated to the tacky... er, festive garment. 

So, it's only natural that there would be a Christmas sweater for breastfeeding moms. 

In honor of the holiday season, the popular Facebook page Beautiful Breastfeeding posted a photo of reindeer sweater that could be convenient for nursing mamas. The post has been shared almost 6,000 times, with many users tagging their breastfeeding friends in the comments. 

"Everyone will be fine with this until you take the nose off and put a baby there haha," commented Hayley Ranson Mullins, highlighting the hypocrisy in many popular attitudes toward breastfeeding.

The sweater comes from an Etsy shop called YourSassyGrandma and is available in multiple colors and patterns. 

While the sweater may not have been intended for nursing moms specifically, the popularity of the Beautiful Breastfeeding post shows it certainly appeals to that demographic. 

YourSassyGrandma also has other great offerings that overworked parents can appreciate, like this Christmas sweater with a convenient wine holder.

Too perfect.

H/T PopSugar

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Does your BFF sleep with a lightsaber by her side? Do you have a friend who eats a second breakfast? Got a buddy who prefers to travel using Floo powder? 

If you've answered yes to one or more of these questions and happen to be looking for a gift for said friends, you've come to the right place. We've gathered some delightfully dorky gifts that'd be perfect for the nerd in your life. 

From a Star Trek onesie, to Darth Vader cufflinks, these gifts are the products your favorite geeks never knew they needed. 

Check them out below! 

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Hello, it's me a mini Adele in the making.

On Dec. 2, Facebook user Ja'Michael A. Murphy posted a video of a little girl singing Adele's instant hit "Hello." The tiny singer, who was identified as Kimber in the caption, bares her soul with the help of what looks like a cardboard guitar during an adorable performance. She even lets out a little yawn in the video, which has been viewed more than 4 million times so far, because feeling that many emotions all at once is just plain exhausting.

We feel ya, Kimber.

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Firefighters are known for having bodies that look like they were chiseled from stone and belong on display in The Louvre. On September 23 a special few French firemen that belong to France’s Firefighters Without Borders, or Pompiers Sans Frontières, proved that they are also gorgeous on the inside with the release of a 2016 calendar. Proceeds from the sales of the calendars go to Pompiers Sans Frontières, which provides humanitarian aid all over the world.

French fashion photographer Fred Goudon shot the photos and selected each man featured in the calendar himself.

 “Someone had to do the job -- but I’m not complaining about it!” Goudon told The Huffington Post of the project that took him nearly a year to complete. As to how he chose each man, Goudon admitted that the first qualification is that “he has to be beautiful” but they also need a certain je ne sais quoi. 

“French firefighters are incredibly sexy and maybe it’s the uniform, or their bodies, but they’re also very friendly,” he said. “Someone can be photographic, but there has to be something more to them, something deeper about their soul. They need to have a beautiful mind.”

This internal beauty is something that Goudon believes every firefighter needs to  have in order to do the heroic yet emotionally draining work they do on a daily basis.

 “They have a certain pride in what they do, but I understand it,” he said. “They see horrible, crazy things every day that most of us never see.” 

 Yet he also notes that despite this, most of the firefighters he met and shot are still very levelheaded, and quite charming, he adds.

“I think it’s because they lean on each other for support, because they all know how to have fun.”

If the pictures or GIF below are any indication, they certainly do.

If you want to stay hot all year long, you can buy a 2016 French Firefighter Calendar at Pompiers Sans Frontières's website or follow Goudon's blog where he's already casting and writing about new men for a 2017 calendar. 

Pompiers Sans Frontières's YouTube channel is also full of behind-the-scenes videos that are worth a watch -- or a thousand watches. Here's a small taste:

Check out more images from the 2016 calendar below.

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Welcome to For Your Consideration, The Huffington Post's breakdown of all things Oscars. Between now and February 28, 2016, entertainment editors Matthew Jacobs and Joe Satran will pore over awards season and discuss which films will make the most noise at the 88th annual Academy Awards.

We've now handicapped the Best Actress, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress races, and it's quite possible that Best Supporting Actor is the most bonkers of them all. Michael Keaton was the purported front-runner at the start of the week, but the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations threw a wrench in the whole damn thing. Keaton and his "Spotlight" co-star Mark Ruffalo were shut out from both prizes, while second-tier contenders like Michael Shannon and Paul Dano got major boosts. We don't mind the confusion, though, because awards-season wrenches are the best kind.

What bearing will all this have on the Oscar race? With about a month until the nominations are announced, it's all about momentum at this point. Let's rank the contenders.

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Schvrmmmmmmm!

Kwishuuuuuuuuuu!

Do you hear that? That’s the sound of the halcyon days of childhood, at least for those raised on the wholesome lessons of Luke Skywalker and his scoundrelly friend Han Solo. Warding off the Dark Side is what they do best, but it’s not always easy, and often involves flinging lethal beams of energy, also known as lightsabers.

Vrummmummmmm FVISH!

Today on Reddit, fans are debating how exactly to spell the sound a lightsaber makes, as Redditors are wont to do. Responses to the thread were marked by variation;  puzzlingly, no one seemed to agree on the spelling of the noise made when slicing the air with a controlled plasma blade powered by a Kyber crystal.

Hoping to close the case, or at least guide it towards some kind of agreed-upon set of vowels, I asked Dr. Ellen Broselow, a professor of linguistics specializing in phonology, how she’d tackle the question. Her response explained why there is so much room for interpretation when it comes to the spelling of non-human sounds.

When translating sounds to written language, Broselow and linguists like her use the International Phonetic Alphabet, a guide to spelling out the pronunciation of all human sounds.

“But that’s meant to represent speech sounds, so for things like wsshh! or buzzing noises, there’s no symbol,” Broselow said. “There’s not going to be any perfect equivilent. There’s no right answer.”

There are, however, some universal trends in the meanings we apply to certain sounds. The idea that noises can convey specific meaning across cultures is called sound symbolism. Broselow explained, “Words with ‘eeee’ often refer to little things, and words with ‘ahhhh,’ where your mouth is more open, refer to bigger things. ‘Glimmer,’ ‘glow,’ and other ‘gl’ words have to do with shininess or light.”

Similarly, there are letters that lend themselves to sounds conveying movement, and letters that are more likely to be used to convey stillness. The sound of a lightsaber whipping through the air is likely to be spelled with an "h" or "m" -- “sounds that you can continue,” Broselow said. “Some sounds like "b" or "d" you can’t continue, you’re completely stopping the air flow.”

Ultimately, though, there are myriad ways to awaken the force on the page. Because the answer to this timeless question is essentially whatever we want it to be, we asked a few Huffington Post staffers to share their light-fuelled onomatopoeias:

• bzuhzzzzzzzuhzzzzzuhzzzz


• brrrruunnggzzzzz


• wwwwOOWWwww...WOOOOwwwwwwwOOOWwwww and then BJJJJJJJZZZZHKKHKJZJJJJJJJZZZZZZZvvvwwommmmm

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He's no terrorist. He's Steve Jobs.

And he stars in a piece of street art that appeared recently at an informal refugee camp in Calais, France, and has been attributed to the British artist known as Banksy.

The encampment, nicknamed "the Jungle" for its chaotic, squalid living conditions, is home to some 7,000 predominantly Middle Eastern refugees hoping to migrate to Britain.

As the Paris attacks have led to fear-mongering that terrorists may hide among the streams of refugees, Banksy's work is a reminder not to let fear steer policy. Steve Jobs was himself the son of a Syrian refugee who immigrated to the U.S. from Homs.

According to the BBC, Banksy issued a statement saying, "Apple is the world's most profitable company, it pays over $7bn (£4.6bn) a year in taxes - and it only exists because they allowed in a young man from Homs."

A second stencil in the Calais town center shows a boat full of distressed and drowning people desperately waving for help. A yacht passes by on the horizon, apparently oblivious to the plight of those nearby. The piece was clearly inspired by “The Raft of the Medusa,” a famous French Romantic painting that depicts the aftermath of a 19th-century shipwreck. 

The image caption online explains: "We're not all in the same boat."

Lazarides, a former agent for Banksy, could not be reached for comment on the authenticity of the Calais works. 

The works also appears on the website Banksy.co.uk. 

In September, the artist shut down "Dismaland," a parody amusement park in England, and announced the building materials would be shipped to Calais to be repurposed as refugee shelters.

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Who said you need to spend big bucks on beautiful wall art? Some of our favorite pieces of décor, from prints and paintings to sketches, cost under $50. Go ahead, treat yourself. Treat your home.

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“I wanted a giant, giant number of snowflakes, but I thought, ‘Why are snowflakes women?’ I’m not sure. Once you’re frozen, it doesn’t matter what your sex is.” 

That's how choreographer Mark Morris recalled his inspiration for "The Hard Nut," his edgy, gender-bending take on "The Nutcracker," which returns to the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in New York Dec. 12 after a five-year absence. The Mark Morris Dance Group's production, which has become a holiday tradition in its own right, breaks from the traditional "Nutcracker" mold by transporting the yuletide coming-of-age story from Europe to mid-20^th century American suburbia.

Along the way, many of the famous “Nutcracker” scenes get edgy and occasionally naughty makeovers: a Christmas Eve ball, for example, becomes a bacchanal of booze-swilling suburbanites. But the biggest surprise of "The Hard Nut," which premiered at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels in 1991, remains its unconventional casting. Male dancers are cast in the roles of Mrs. Stahlbaum (the mother of the show’s winsome heroine, Marie) and a sassy maid, while a woman portrays the mischievous tween, Fritz.

Still, the effect is anything but camp, and while these choices seem forward-thinking, Morris told The Huffington Post that they’re both “practical” and a bit of a throwback, owing a debut to the cross-gender casting of English pantomime.

“I didn’t intend for it to be a drag show in any way,” he said. “But it’s the very, very old tradition of men playing women’s roles and vice versa.”

Other scenes toy further with gender roles. An Act I pas de deux normally danced by the Nutcracker Prince and Marie is here given to the Prince and a delightfully swishy Drosselmeier, who gifts the toy nutcracker to Marie at the start of the show. The visual is intended to establish the characters’ familial connection, even if the male-on-male visual is striking. The aforementioned snowflakes pop up, appropriately, in “Waltz of the Snowflakes,” which features both men and women in midriff-baring silver tutus who give the illusion of a blizzard by tossing handfuls of confetti “snow” as they twirl and leap across the stage. 

Although Morris doesn’t deny the queer subtext of “The Hard Nut,” he shrugs off the idea that these scenes were created with that aim. The greatest compliment, he says, is when audiences aren’t able to determine the gender-swapped characters even after repeat viewings.

“To present ‘The Nutcracker’ as a lovely, Faberge egg antique is not for me,” he said. “But it’s not like this a crazy, anti-‘Nutcracker,’ but a fun, fabulous, vaudeville pantomime where everybody’s imagination is being used all the time.”

“The Hard Nut” plays the Brooklyn Academy of Music from Dec. 12 through Dec. 20. Head here for more details. 

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Elvin Snowdin, a little Lego elf, is done with Santa Claus.

He's fed up with spying for Kris Kringle and the Northern Surveillance Agency in this stop-motion animated video -- which contains curse words -- posted to YouTube.

So he leaks the jolly gift-giver's top-secret naughty list, with serious consequences.

Alisha Brophy and Scott Miles created the comedic clip, which is going viral online.

The main character's name and the organization he works for are a nod to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, who leaked classified documents in 2013.

H/T Mashable

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