Dear Brandon, if you haven't already tried Olivia Laing, you might find her to be just what you're after, as far as writing 'a searching literary and critical study centered on some idea or notion' (her 'Everybody' and 'The Lonely City' in particular).
I live near Hobart, in the southern Australian state of Tasmania, and recently got a book store in a whole other state to order me a copy of Hernan Diaz's 'In the distance' from the US because I preferred the cover. There's no logic to it.
Love this reflection, very excited to read Bonsai. I would also recommend Thriftbooks and Biblio for finding copies of older books (in good condition!). Hope you enjoy P&T Knitwear, not being able to read in a bookstore in NYC seems like a travesty!
I left DC and went to a bookstore in my new mid-size town and the astonishment of finding cushy chairs that people just sit in and read! Like it was Barnes and Noble in the 90s, and you could read the whole book without leaving the store.
I love your writing, it’s bringing me back to how I used to read when I was younger and it was fun to think about these old books somehow still mattering to my life decades and centuries after they were written.
i read this sitting in a walgreens waiting for my flu shot/covid booster and completely forgot where i was for a few minutes, which was an absolute gift, so thank you. (and you probably know about it already, but thriftbooks is my favorite online resource for used books after ebay)
This was beautiful and 100% accurate about New York bookstores.
I’ve never read Zola but I want to (I do like Tolstoy and Turgenev). Where should one start with him? He seems to have written approximately five hundred books.
Very thoughtful reflection, perfect for reading while it's snowing - and as a bookseller, apologies for the one who wouldn't order a book for you! Alibris.com is also a great online used book retailer that pulls from independent stores, though I can't speak for the UK covers. Also excited to read FELLOWSHIP POINT, and thanks for writing!
Bluestockings on the Lower East Side is very purposefully curating a community feel, and is definitely a place where people hang out. Their london fog is pretty delicious. Their books tend toward more frontlist and social justice, but there's a sizable fiction section and some classics. It's not far from P&T Knitwear, so that could be a nice afternoon pairing.
I loved this! I read like crazy, but I couldn’t tell you the first thing about literary theory as I found much of it goofy and speculative in my undergraduate years (probably because the essays I produced on the literature I read were goofy and speculative). But I still have a sort of marvel and respect for the people who really love it. More than anything, though, this piece made me realize how much I miss American bookstores. I live in a different country where the bookstores are mostly all the same - super brightly lit, nowhere to sit, all mass produced stuff and brand new. It’s a bummer. Thanks for sharing.
Nice piece. Brings home (again) that good writing is not simply stringing words together, but capturing an observation worth making. Seeing what the world looks like to other people can be invaluable. Enlarging.
I sympathize with the desire to investigate/observe a 'some idea or notion' closely and carefully. I'm not oriented in a writerly direction, if I can put it that way, but being able to articulate the insights that a theory of language can yield is a worthy labor that motivates me too. I've found what Stanley Cavell does with film to be an inspiration.
re old books: have you tried Powell's Books? A great Portland, OR, store, and online too of course.
Sharing this with my daughter, a Midwesterner and serious reader in school in NYC. And I absolutely believe you will write Great Literary Criticism like Fiedler. As someone reading a lot in the 19th century, I'm drawn to criticism that recognizes the art of fiction and how fiction is being deployed to help an artist make sense of their world and how it can now help us make sense of the world we've inherited, which sounds obvious but so much criticism and scholarship just doesn't seem to bring conscious awareness of the artistic process. Even the great classic writers you write about here - James, Wharton, Tolstoy, Austen - were just artists working things out and showing their work, and it calls to us to interpret and engage with it, and so often we just don't. But you very much do! And that is why your writing is must-read for me. Thank you!
It should be a requirement that every individual who publishes a best-books-of list also include an account of their year in reading, including employment and life events, geographical considerations, and professional and personal aspirations qua books. Otherwise it's just random titles in a row. Once more, thank you for the probingness of your observation, which has enriched my own year-end reflections.
Dear Brandon, if you haven't already tried Olivia Laing, you might find her to be just what you're after, as far as writing 'a searching literary and critical study centered on some idea or notion' (her 'Everybody' and 'The Lonely City' in particular).
I live near Hobart, in the southern Australian state of Tasmania, and recently got a book store in a whole other state to order me a copy of Hernan Diaz's 'In the distance' from the US because I preferred the cover. There's no logic to it.
Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism in the first edition, hardback.... ✨ The feels.
Love this reflection, very excited to read Bonsai. I would also recommend Thriftbooks and Biblio for finding copies of older books (in good condition!). Hope you enjoy P&T Knitwear, not being able to read in a bookstore in NYC seems like a travesty!
I left DC and went to a bookstore in my new mid-size town and the astonishment of finding cushy chairs that people just sit in and read! Like it was Barnes and Noble in the 90s, and you could read the whole book without leaving the store.
I love your writing, it’s bringing me back to how I used to read when I was younger and it was fun to think about these old books somehow still mattering to my life decades and centuries after they were written.
As always, stellar observations. Thank you for not using the word “curate.”
i read this sitting in a walgreens waiting for my flu shot/covid booster and completely forgot where i was for a few minutes, which was an absolute gift, so thank you. (and you probably know about it already, but thriftbooks is my favorite online resource for used books after ebay)
This was beautiful and 100% accurate about New York bookstores.
I’ve never read Zola but I want to (I do like Tolstoy and Turgenev). Where should one start with him? He seems to have written approximately five hundred books.
Very thoughtful reflection, perfect for reading while it's snowing - and as a bookseller, apologies for the one who wouldn't order a book for you! Alibris.com is also a great online used book retailer that pulls from independent stores, though I can't speak for the UK covers. Also excited to read FELLOWSHIP POINT, and thanks for writing!
Bluestockings on the Lower East Side is very purposefully curating a community feel, and is definitely a place where people hang out. Their london fog is pretty delicious. Their books tend toward more frontlist and social justice, but there's a sizable fiction section and some classics. It's not far from P&T Knitwear, so that could be a nice afternoon pairing.
I loved this! I read like crazy, but I couldn’t tell you the first thing about literary theory as I found much of it goofy and speculative in my undergraduate years (probably because the essays I produced on the literature I read were goofy and speculative). But I still have a sort of marvel and respect for the people who really love it. More than anything, though, this piece made me realize how much I miss American bookstores. I live in a different country where the bookstores are mostly all the same - super brightly lit, nowhere to sit, all mass produced stuff and brand new. It’s a bummer. Thanks for sharing.
Strand basement <333
Nice piece. Brings home (again) that good writing is not simply stringing words together, but capturing an observation worth making. Seeing what the world looks like to other people can be invaluable. Enlarging.
I sympathize with the desire to investigate/observe a 'some idea or notion' closely and carefully. I'm not oriented in a writerly direction, if I can put it that way, but being able to articulate the insights that a theory of language can yield is a worthy labor that motivates me too. I've found what Stanley Cavell does with film to be an inspiration.
re old books: have you tried Powell's Books? A great Portland, OR, store, and online too of course.
Loved this so much ❤️
The UK covers ARE superior- why is that?!
Sharing this with my daughter, a Midwesterner and serious reader in school in NYC. And I absolutely believe you will write Great Literary Criticism like Fiedler. As someone reading a lot in the 19th century, I'm drawn to criticism that recognizes the art of fiction and how fiction is being deployed to help an artist make sense of their world and how it can now help us make sense of the world we've inherited, which sounds obvious but so much criticism and scholarship just doesn't seem to bring conscious awareness of the artistic process. Even the great classic writers you write about here - James, Wharton, Tolstoy, Austen - were just artists working things out and showing their work, and it calls to us to interpret and engage with it, and so often we just don't. But you very much do! And that is why your writing is must-read for me. Thank you!
It should be a requirement that every individual who publishes a best-books-of list also include an account of their year in reading, including employment and life events, geographical considerations, and professional and personal aspirations qua books. Otherwise it's just random titles in a row. Once more, thank you for the probingness of your observation, which has enriched my own year-end reflections.