7 things worth sharing this weekend

5/11/24

It’s been raining here, and I think I saw Malcolm Gladwell in a coffeeshop the other day. Here are a few things worth checking out over the weekend…

1. What makes writing more readable? At The Pudding.

   • You can toggle back and forth between “plain” language and more “flowery” language

   • Obviously, not everything should be written so “plainly” that takes the art out of it. It depends on what you’re trying to communicate, see the next link…

2. On the joy of writing unpublishable books. At Literary Hub.

   • “It’s important to remember that style is not some kind of glaze or varnish that one applies late in the day to the writing of a book, just to give it a nice shine, to throw in a few more interesting adjectives.”

3. Past lives of the paragraph. At Hedgehog Review.

   • What is a paragraph really?

   • Faced with the task of assembling their own paragraphs, students find nearly every word in the formula problematic. How many sentences belong in the “group?” Somewhere along the way, many were taught that five or six will do. But then out there in the world, they have seen (or heard rumors of) bulkier and slimmer specimens, some spilling over pages, some consisting of a single sentence. And how does one go about “developing” a central idea?

4. How 2014 changed the Internet. At The Ringer.

5. How Curb Your Enthusiasm is the great interpreter of American manners. At NY Times.

   • It’s a supreme comedy of manners. How, it asks, do we share a meal, a drive, a party, a meeting, a bathroom, an office pantry, a city — how do we courteously enforce norms and, with modesty, uphold standards? Are courtesy and modesty necessary?

6. More publishing facts you may not know from Lincoln Michel

7. My 2nd screen is a book (by me!)

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Notes on reading/watching/listening

• Slow week television-wise! Only NBA playoffs lol.

• Just started “The Maniac” by Benjamin Labatut. It’s been on my list for awhile, it’s kinda math-y lol

• I really liked this podcast episode from Search Engine about the scammy text messages. It goes to an unexpected place.

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Last Thing

“For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.” — Paul Auster

Keep going,

-Josh Spilker