Sebastian: PLAN FOR FRIDAY

A lot of moving pieces today! I thought I'd work to clear up a few loose ends.

On Friday, I will confab with the rest of you (at a faster clip, I hope) to talk about your project plans. 

Then we'll discuss one of my favorite topics: reviews! Book criticism: what's it even for?

Please read these:

—Jessa Crispin's "The Self-Hating Book Critic" in Literary Publishing in the 21st Century

—Christian Lorentzen's just-out Harper's piece Like This or Die: The Fate of the Book Review in the Age of the Algorithm

Supplemental:

I'll also be drawing on this piece for our discussion. But it's a little too obsessive for me to ask you to read the whole thing (I think it's literally 20,000 words).

And, just for fun, this old profile of the once-savage book reviewer Dale Peck (who stopped doing vicious reviews after publishing his own novel, I think?): The Takedown Artist