The End of Books Coverage at the Washington Post
At the very minimum, they are people who are – in Susan Sontag’s definition of a writer – “interested in everything”.
Today’s pop culture offers few examples of such people. What we get instead is a superficial and unsatisfying churn of short-term celebs and trends. The space vacated by challenging novels, experimental cinema, and difficult... See more
Today’s pop culture offers few examples of such people. What we get instead is a superficial and unsatisfying churn of short-term celebs and trends. The space vacated by challenging novels, experimental cinema, and difficult... See more
Matthew M. Long • Becoming Cultured
What will be the fate of reading? I don’t mean the left-to-right movement of the eyes as we take in information, but the age-old practice of addressing the world by way of this inward faculty of imagination. I mean reading as a filtering of the complexities of the real through artistic narrative, reflection, and orchestration of verbal imagery.
Sven Birkerts • The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age
Mainstream offerings are dominated by sensationalist non-fiction, formulaic and #BookTok-approved YA, and an endless parade of self-help. The few compelling books still being published for mainstream audiences occupy niche spaces, without the broad public engagement they once enjoyed. If intellectuals have always complained about the fragmentation... See more