After a year reading Zadie Smith, book columnist Anna Solomon PZ ’23 concludes that Smith’s writing, in forcing readers to take up another’s perspective, is mandatory quarantine reading.
Books
Assorted novelties: Ocean Vuong wants to let books live
Book columnist Anna Solomon PZ ’23 praises Ocean Vuong’s “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” for its regeneration of language.
Assorted novelties: Iconoclasm, admiration and Patti Smith
Book columnist Anna Solomon PZ ’23 reflects on reading Patti Smith’s “Just Kids” and when admiration becomes a desire to emulate.
Assorted novelties: Between the Zoom bookshelves
Book columnist Anna Solomon PZ ’23 discusses how Zoom bookshelf backgrounds have become status symbols in the coronavirus pandemic.
Assorted novelties: A literary reflection on Beston’s ‘The Outermost House’
Book columnist Anna Solomon ’23 reflects on Henry Beston’s “The Outermost House” and how it gave her a better sense of place in quarantine.
Read it and weep: The paradox of illness narratives
Nina Potischman PO ’21 critiques Sarah Manguso’s “The Two Kinds of Decay” and the need to extract meaning from experiences of chronic illness.
Read it and weep: On the limits of journaling and capturing adolescence
Nina Potischman PO ’21 reflects on journaling her adolescence alongside messages from Sarah Manguso’s “Ongoingness: The End of a Diary.”
In my book: The lovely fantasyland of bookstagram
Is it really so awful for a group of mostly female book-lovers to appreciate not just content, but also form?
In My Book: Knowing when to move on
There is a sad truth that all readers must, at some point, acknowledge: It’s impossible to read everything.
In My Book: The burnout blaze spreads to reading
Book burnout occurs when we let optimization tools such as speed reading bleed into the activity of reading books purely for personal enjoyment.