slop

it's what's for dinner

Here at the beginning of my internet newsletter, I’ll admit I’m more disgruntled than usual (in my bah humbug era) and set for myself a humble goal: I will not drag anyone’s name/profile/content through the mud. Because “book content” creators aren’t the problem, and who am I to judge them anyway¹ — it’s likely that all of us posting about books online are doing so because we like to read.

But much like Frost’s two roads diverging, the kind of book-related slop being funneled into my trough belongs almost exclusively to one of three categories (the Internet Age up and created a New Road for harnessing the already commoditized female form to sell…books….):

• Pastel covers, soft lighting, and manicured nails, like if the eponymous Girl from Christian Autumn slipped on her Uggs and started peddling Mr. Schuster’s pre-ordained bestseller to you

• Bright neon, glitter, acrylic nails, and splashy colors…and again, someone claiming that Mr. Schuster’s most recent major deal shot their grandma dead and then revived her with the sheer wizardry and artistry of the words between the covers of whatever Front List title they’re hawking

• Selfies (sometimes scantily clad) and soft smiles, while peddling – you guessed in – Señor Schuster’s “latest and greatest,” or what I’d more honestly call “mid for the id”: pre-digested temporal-lobe ticklers cast very obviously in the mold of some other successful book² and meant exclusively to mollify and entertain rather than challenge

I like scantily clad women as much as the next guy and think all three of these tactics are likely to get eyes on a title. But what if we want more than just some page views during launch week? As critic Kristen Martin said,

Of course every author writes to be read by readers, and we all want to sell copies of our books so we can make a living. But to assume that the only point of a book review is to encourage a potential reader to buy a copy of the book is profoundly wrongheaded and shortsighted.

Book reviews are not advertisements, and books are not merely products. They are not commodities, and they are not consumables that get used up and thrown away, like face cream or paper towels. We should not judge the worth of book criticism by whether or not it moves book sales. When I review a title, I do not do so with the goal of helping the author make sales, though I do often hope that it will help expose their work to readers who might not otherwise encounter it. I see my job as something much more nuanced and multifaceted.

When I review narrative nonfiction, as I do about 75 percent of the time, I aim to engage in an intellectual conversation about the issues and ideas the book takes up, to assess how the book contributes to a body of knowledge and how it pushes forward a new or different way of understanding the topic at hand, and to contextualize how it fits into the wider landscape of the author’s body of work and/or the wider genre it belongs in

Well put! Also, I’m tired of everything looking and sounding the same and I don’t trust any of these fucking people. Even off-the-beaten-track small outfits like Feminist Press have recently announced “influencer programs,” and based on my (albeit limited) sample size of people posting excitedly about their acceptances, it sure looks like the three above options copy pasted ad infinitum³. If we’re just going to roll over for our algorithmic overlords and treat books exclusively as products promising to evoke certain responses, then we’re hastening our own irrelevance.

Because in truth, when it comes to easily consumable products that tickle the temporal lobe, other forms of media can do it better. Books offer something special and different and hard to define (and therefore market). Are we going to stick with the playbook—social media advertising in the same vein as every other product on the market—or will we fight to create new channels and conversations?

I understand that commerce is an important part of the book world and you won’t catch me making some art-for-art’s-sake purist argument either⁴. But what really pisses me off is when supposed “radical” presses use the language of anticapitalism in their marketing when their actual commitment to its practice is less than skin deep.

Like most dichotomies in our incredibly complex world, the dichotomy between capitalism and anticapitalism is a false one. At the risk of sounding reductive, we live in a society…and this commitment to structures beyond capitalism exists within the market invective. It’s murky terrain in which we all have to use our imaginations to make hard, conscious, imperfect choices—and I’d love to see some more imaginative resistance, especially in the book world.

My brothers in Christ, as someone who actually reads all the books so you don’t have to (and only preaches about the good ones), it’s becoming hard to justify allotting time and free labor to pitching reviews of standout titles to the three (3) magazines that still publish literary criticism. It’s frustrating. It’s sad. But I also think this is where Substack is meeting a need. A few of my favorites:

• Emma Copley Eisenberg’s Frump Feelings (her Notes on Frump totally altered my relationship to fashion and beauty; I feel like she’s earnestly getting at what the short-lived Man Repeller brand not-so-earnestly capitalized on⁵).

• Ezra Kupor’s Galley Brag! He’s illuminating the nooks and crannies of the publishing world like no one else.

• Regan’s Newsletter, full of off-the-beaten track little gems to discover

• Martha’s Monthly, replete with its own sensical and considerate rating system and also responsible for bringing many previously unknown-to-me titles into my life

• Kristen Martin’s American Orphan (quoted above)—she’s the real deal folks, and her reviews never miss

Anyway, the literature is still there, waiting for us. Enough griping and let’s get to the reason for the season: the books themselves.

While we’re being unmarketable as fuck, Ilan Pappé’s richly imagined treatise on what a world post-Israel might look like: it’s pretty darn airtight. His central thesis is that wringing our hands about the improbability of a pluralistic, non-ethnocratic state in historical Palestine is not only unhelpful, but incorrect. Such a state is in fact inevitable: Israel is already caving under its original sin (not to weaponize even more biblical language…) and we have to mobilize to fill the vacuum and prevent further violence as quickly and cohesively as possible.

Selby Wynn Schwartz’s After Sappho is so densely imagined and uplifting and fascinating: historical lesbians unite, cast off your shackles etc. etc. I also loved Rodrigo Hasbún’s The Invisible Years (Deep Vellum; February 2026) and found Adrienne Rich’s musings on teaching in CUNY’s SEEK program during the turbulent ‘60s and ‘70s to be a balm for the soul.

Meg Richardson’s Paradise Pawn (Tin House; July 2026) kept me up all night reading and kvelling over these characters and their one-of-a-kind world. Friendship pangs, Florida beaches, and the deeply painful differentiation process girls go through, all treated with a charming and often hilarious frankness and pathos that only Meg could conjure.

On the film front, Sentimental Value is worth the hype—such a gorgeous movie. The Beaches of Agnès also earns the distinction of “balm for the soul.” Our Hero, Balthazar is Oscar Boyson’s assured and fast-paced debut, featuring two firecracker performances by Asa Butterfield and Jaeden Martell (highly recommend). Promised Sky is another little gem: in Tunis, three sub-Saharan migrants seek safety and community amidst antagonistic anti-immigrant sentiment (again, incredible performances from the leads).

On the duds front: Bugonia bravely asks to what length Yorgos Lanthimos will go to slather Emma Stone in lotion (derogatory). I found The True True Story of Raja the Gullible unevenly paced and plotted, juvenile in an un-fun way, and kind of offensive (so of course it won the National Book Award).

Not to end on a sour note. I kvetch because I care. I complain because I want us all to do better. As usual, this has been an internet newsletter by a disgruntled woman. Vet your sources, kids. Until next time.

BOOKS READ

After Sappho - Selby Wynn Schwartz

“What Are We Part Of”: Teaching at CUNY - Adrienne Rich

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible - Rabih Alameddine

Israel on the Brink - Ilan Pappé

The Invisible Years - Rodrigo Hasbún (trans. Lily Meyer)

Out of Egypt - André Aciman

Paradise Pawn - Meg Richardson

MOVIES WATCHED

Other People’s Children (Zlotowski)

Mustang (Ergüven)

Sentimental Value (Trier)

The Beaches of Agnès (Vardà)

Our Hero, Balthazar (Boyson)

Promised Sky (Sehiri)

Bugonia (Lanthimos)

Oslo, August 31st (Trier)

Remaining Native (Bethmann)

1. so much of my adult life is just begrudgingly repeating to myself that I’m not the arbiter of public life (even though I kind of should be ngl)

2. yes I know about comp titles get off my nuts…I think the comp-ification of contemporary fiction has gone too far

3. admitting here that I’m salty—I wanted free ARCS of their titles as an actual long-form reviewer and they opted not to send them to me :’)

4. I teach Andy Warhol okay?? This semester after a tangent I even got a little jiggy with it and threw Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto on the board without pre-vetting it, which resulted in a student unwittingly volunteering to read a passage in which Solanas advocates for cutting everyone’s dick off (oops). In my defense, it was funny and I’d do it again.

5. everybody’s catching a stray today! who else wants one?