great amer novels, classics as clickbait, what indy bookstores sell

7 things worth sharing this week

Here are some things worth sharing:

Most of these are on Substack. Just happened to work out that way!

• What independent bookshops really sell

  • Some interesting points, and I’d be open to bookstores having a wide variety of opinions and voices. But ultimately, bookstores can carry what they want. I’m more concerned with libraries shadow banning or not carrying books from differing viewpoints.

• Great American Novels at The Atlantic

  • The Atlantic put together a list of the best American novels from the modern era so to speak, really the last 100 years. There were a few surprises and then others that I had never heard of. That’s not bad necessarily, I always need to read new stuff, but it seemed like an odd list too, especially when you start tagging on books from the last few years (like the Catherine Lacey book?)

  • Feel like I’ll be writing more about this list soon

• What’s American fiction without the short story? At Counter Craft.

  • Good take on the list by

    Lincoln Michel
    who writes one of the must-read newsletters for literary fiction, asking about where short stories fit on a list like this. They don’t, because as he acknowledges, the list says “novels.” I don’t typically prefer short stories, but still great questions to ask. Novels are more riveting to me, and to be honest, take more…more time, more plotting, and a high-level of writing for a sustained period of time—at least novels at a high level like the ones mentioned on The Atlantic list.

• Literary classics as clickbait. At

  Shades of Greaves

• 7 heretical questions from

  Ted Gioia

  • Yeah these are things we all ask ourselves, but he couches it in great data

• Every reader counts from

  Dan Blank

• The squatters of Beverly Hills at Curbed

  • This was a great piece, good research, and some crazy twists. Fun read.

Book Notes

• Got more into The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith and its grabbed my attention beyond all the rest of the books I have around

Earlier this week:

From the archive:

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Last Thing

“The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected.” — W. Somerset Maugham

Keep going-

Josh Spilker