“A book critic working today must contend with a world in which more diverse voices are heard and the traditional gatekeepers have less power to enforce conformity.” LitHub interviewed Kate Tuttle, the president of the National Book Critics Circle, about literary criticism. Read our own Emily St. John Mandel on bad reviews.
Inside the Mind of a Book Critic
“Geoff Dyer saw Stalker thirty years ago and hasn’t stopped returning to it.”
Millions contributor Jacob Mikanowski takes a gander at Geoff Dyer’s Zona, and he invoked both Wittgenstein and Bolaño by the third paragraph of his write-up, so you know things are about to get heady.
There’s Blog in my Magazine. No, There’s Magazine in my Blog.
Which are you currently reading: a magazine that looks like a blog, or a blog that looks like a magazine? It’s getting harder and harder to tell, says Slate‘s Farhad Manjoo.
When We Were Young
Over at the Catapult, Nicole Chung has launched a series on adoption, featuring essays by Megan Galbraith and James Han Mattson. You could also check out Matthew Salesses’s Millions essay on inciting incidents and new beginnings as an adoptee.
Good Grief!
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, and now is as good a time as any to revisit R. Sikoryak’s Good ol’ Gregor Brown. Our own Matt Seidel’s essay on The Metamorphosis is perfect for those craving more Kafka.