funniest novels, safety net, pseudo-intellectualism, haslam's bookstore

7 things worth sharing this week

Here are some things worth sharing this week, as I’m freezing in the late charge of northeastern winter weather…

1. 22 of the funniest novels since Catch-22

   • It’s insane that there is no Sam Lipsyte book on this, whose probably the funniest novelist IMO. Gotta add Homeland or The Ask to this. Just go get those right away. Good novels on here, but more like “interesting commentary” rather than funny.

2. Safety Net: These days, when you work as a librarian in America, there is no lack of emergencies.

   • If you ever go to the library, you aren’t surprised at its evolution into a social services center. This is one of the few first-person essays that I’ve seen dive into this. It really is a line of first defense for the well-being of so many.

3. How Pseudo-Intellectualism Ruined Journalism by

   William Deresiewicz

   The main thing that I learned in journalism school was that I didn’t belong in journalism school. The other thing I learned was that journalists were deeply anti-intellectual. They were suspicious of ideas; they regarded theories as pretentious; they recoiled at big words (or had never heard of them). For a long time, I had contempt for the profession on that score. In recent years, though, this has yielded to a measure of respect. For notice that I didn’t say that journalists are anti-intellectual. I said they were. Now they’re something else: pseudo-intellectual. And that is much worse.

4. What happened to Haslam’s bookstore? At St. Pete Times.

   • Haslam’s is a 30,000 foot bookstore in the middle of downtown St. Petersburg, FL that’s been closed since March 2020. This is my kinda sorta hometown, and I liked going to Haslam’s, it was kind of like The Strand in NYC—a mix of used and new books, but so much space you would get lost every single time.

   • I’ve driven by a few times and always wonder what happened.

   • Apparently, all the books are still just sitting there and the owners have no immediate plans to re-open. It was started in 1933.

   • And you gotta love the old school website

5. The paradox of productivity by Scott Young

   • Slow productivity =

     • do fewer things

     • work at a natural pace

     • obsess over quality

6. Bookstores can sell whatever they want

   • From earlier this week!

7. What was the English major?

   • From the archive!

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Book & TV Notes:

• nothing new, still reading The Talented Mr. Ripley

• may start the 3 Body Problem on Netflix soon even though I ripped it for how many tech-bro-ish people were reading it (scroll to the bottom)

• otherwise, I’ve been watching March Madness

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Last Thing

“Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” - Frances of Assisi

Keep going-

Josh Spilker

PS: here’s a writing kit I put together on Notion if you need another way to organize your writing