Things to share this weekend (12/14/24)

best of books lists, more light, future of teaching writing + notes on what I'm reading

Starry Night over the Rhone, by Vincent Van Gogh 1888

Real quick—this will be the last newsletter (for a while) in this format (probably).

I’d rather go deeper on a few topics and then share. Perhaps I’ll just share what I’ve been reading/watching. If you have any thoughts on this, lmk.

I also started a new job (!!!) which means life has changed. I’ll prob share a few more essay-ish articles this year.

Largeheartedboy’s Essential and Interesting “Best Books of 2024”

• I can remember back in like 2008 reading LargeheartedBoy for MP3s and music and one of the things

  David Gutowski
  has done is compile a list of all the best of-lists for books and music. Here’s the one for books, and it’s a list of lists so find your favorite publication or one you haven’t read in awhile and then see their picks.

• There are *so* many books that there will always be ones you missed and this is a great way to curate

“More Light” zine from Austin Kleon

• As the solstice gets near and it was raining in NYC this week, it def felt dark around 3:30

• He also includes a nice video of how to create and fold it

• Us seasonal depressives have to brace ourselves

6 writers on procrastination at Lit Hub

• George Saunders: I have guitars in my writing room. But I don’t think of it as “procrastinating” but as, you know, “getting ready.” There’s something about goofing around on the guitar for a few minutes that has the effect of priming the pump, sort of. It feels like it reminds the creative mind to try to stay light and free and fun and not take itself too seriously.

Does teaching writing and literature have a future? At Plough

• It turns out that there is some benefit to working in an industry that is clearly contracting but has not yet died. It forces you to think.

Are social media platforms the next dying malls? by Ted Gioia

• I personally love any dying mall metaphor and dying mall videos

• Taco Jehovah (my book!) is set in a dying mall

• Ted’s argument is that all social media platforms are starting to look the same, which not really — YouTube shorts is completely different than Twitter, but yeah people are getting fatigued

• Ok fine, here’s a dying mall video:

Books I Read This Year and what ChatGPT says

• I shared this last week, but I also ran it through ChatGPT to analyze it and here’s what it said:

  • You are drawn to books that experiment with storytelling structure and narrative form. Many of these books feature unusual formats (e.g., oral histories, meta-narrative elements, shifting POVs). This indicates a reader who values both creativity and innovation in fiction.

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Notes on reading/watching

Reading:

Health and Safety by Emily Witt

• This is very druggy and rave-y and Brooklyn and then very uncertain about our political future, from a New Yorker magazine writer, the writing is good but unmemorable tbh

• I had to take my copy back to the library, I’ll prob finish on audiobook b/c the moment she is writing about (2016-2020) is so specific and now seems like a long ago relic that we all still remember

Impossible Owls by Brian Phillips

• This essay collection is a few years ago, by a writer I like from The Ringer and I think I”m supposed to like this book more than I do, but he hits on a bunch of topics I don’t care about — like sci-fi, and nature, though the Iditarod story is very good and then I pushed through one on X-Files which was actually part of a larger essay that should have stayed on its own, I skimmed it and probably won’t read all of them, which is the benefit of reading a book of essays

Watching:

• Still trying to watch The Sopranos, I’m about halfway through season 1 and then I queued up The Detroiters (now streaming on Netflix) and Tim Robinson is so funny, but it’s also a great ode to Detroit and to friendship, it’s a good watch if you like The Office-style commentary

Keep going-

Josh Spilker