I know its been a few weeks since I’ve sent out a “Week in Reading”—my bad. As you may remember from some other newsletters, I had a few pressing deadlines and was wrapped in those (as well as sending off some pages of this book to my editor so she doesn’t think I’m neglecting it). But I’m back now, with a good amount of reading material for you:
Thomas Chatterton Williams is impossible to disagree with. That’s not a good thing. (One of the things I was working on, a review of Thomas Chatterton Williams’s new book. It’s not good. In fact, it’s very bad. He is a bad writer and bad thinker.)
Zero Tolerance (Andrea Long Chu also reviewed Williams’s book, but she had a few thousand more words to go in than I did)
The Evolution of a Beloved Postcolonial Critic and Literary Giant (But my work life hasn’t been all bad! I got to write about Jamaica Kincaid’s new collection)
Anas al-Sharif Was My Friend. Here’s Why Israel Feared Him So Much. (And still the elite wing of our Fourth Estate finds ways to avoid what is happening in Gaza)
What Happens to Public Media Now? (This regime knows an informed public is one that will never support them, they’re destroying our public media as fast as they can)
Nobody Wins on “Surrounded” (I hate this series so much)
‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Is Worse Than You Realize (But call it what it really is—a concentration camp)
The United States vs. Sean Combs (“This is the first phase of Combs’s redemption arc. I’m convinced he’ll spend it on the same antics we now understand in exhaustive detail, but with a messianic, faux-Zen twist; reminders that he still knows where the tapes are vaulted; and more unintelligible declarations of what he calls love.”)
Why Do We Have to Be Ourselves Online?
Watching the “King of the Hill” Revival from Texas
Why the world needs a pop-punk Superman
Is It Time to Move On From Dr. Seuss? (Might be worth it just so I don’t have to trip over Fox in Socks ever again)
The Betrayal of Light (“Sometimes I close my eyes and picture a sunrise that implies coffee rather than fear. I dream of mindlessly opening a window to feel the breeze, of reading a book without the sound of drones overhead. I dream of nights in Gaza as they once were: lovers walking along moonlit streets, children playing. But I do not believe these dreams.”)