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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
Voting Opens for the 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards
Voting is now open for the bookish internet’s annual popularity contest: the Goodreads choice awards. I have never done this, but you could probably win your theoretical office Fall Madness pool (this does not exist) by just looking at which of the nominees have the most rating in each category and picking those. (Maybe I will do that this year?). Because when you ask the internet to vote for things you will get one of two outcomes: regression to the mean or Boaty McBoatface. And since there is really no way to McBoatface this things, mean regression it is. Notably, Goodreads is the only major award to split out historical fiction, which makes it somewhat less predictable in the general fiction categories, as historical fiction comprises so much of the commercial upmarket literary space that tends to win things like this. Also, Romantasy & Horror have their own categories, further cementing them as the fav genres du jour.
Maximizing Time for Reading
This piece by Blake Butler tackles an all-too-familiar topic in the world of books of reading: how and why one might read more. But I link to it here for a couple of reasons. First, Butler does include some of the chestnuts of this genre of essay (“make to to read,” “read what you like”), but these are articulated with uncommon clarity and concision. Second, there are a couple of less commonly expressed ideas and tactics that are worth considering: reading poetry doesn’t take up that much time and tends to be different than prose writing in generative ways; care less about “understanding” everything you read, as that can be its own kind of road block; prospect for things that interest you on course syllabi, which are generally browsable to anyone and serve as tightly curated, topic-specific collections. Again, nothing earth-shattering really, but you are not going to find a better bookmarkable and forwardable piece in this vein.
Artist on How They Find Solace in Art
I am slowly emerging from my post-election funk, though not to the point that I am uninterested in what creative folk have been turning to for solace, inspiration, and even inflammation. Quite a bit of music and books featured here, some I know and much I don’t. Reminds that I still year for the all-in-one cultural log app where I can see what people I am interested in from personal friends to distant celebrities have been into. A Goodboxdcamp mashup would be pretty great, no? Maybe in this day and age we throw in essays and social media posts to boot.