The New York Times’s Best Books of the Year So Far

This Old Thing?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a new internet platform focused on writing will give rise to literary experiments…and Substack’s time has come. Folks are publishing fiction, releasing their memoirs one chapter at a time, writing book reviews, and offering commentary on the publishing industry. That the experimentation will happen is predictable in the best of ways and can lead to genuinely innovative work—I’m not knocking any of the folks Nicholas Konrad profiles in the New Yorker piece I’ve linked above. But I’d like to have a word with him about this:

The literary mainstream has always been shaped (for both better and worse) by intermediary institutions like university creative-writing programs, plucky little journals, and newspaper book reviews. Perhaps Substack could have a similar era of influence, becoming a place where people gather for an accessible twenty-first-century version of literary community, collaborate on the formation of new readerly sensibilities, and share their own experiments at high speed and low cost.

The literary mainstream Konrad invokes—shaped by creative writing programs, indie journals, and newspaper book sections—hasn’t existed in any coherent form for at least 20 years. In a total coincidence, it’s been about that long since Web 2.0 kicked off the blogging boom that democratized literary discourse and gave rise to the first wave of indie newsletters. If Substack ends up serving as a new kind of literary institution—one that fosters community, cultivates sensibility, and rewards experimentation at speed and low cost—great. But let’s not pretend we haven’t seen this before. Don’t talk to me of the old magic, child. I was there when it was written.

I missed Mother’s Day, but honestly, it’s never too late for a round-up of books about complicated mothers. Whatever “complicated” means to you, there’s a rec on this list to ring your bells and give you plenty to talk about in therapy.

The Pulitzer Drama Was Real

On the latest episode of the Book Riot Podcast, Jeff and I get into the drama around James‘s Pulitzer win, John Lithgow’s disappointing response to learning of J.K. Rowling’s transphobia, and more book news. Plus, Sharifah Williams joins us for a mini-book club convo about Kevin Wilson’s new novel, Run for the Hills. Listen wherever you get your pods.