I was a horrible book thief when I was small, mainly for my mother and my booming in my family had these incredible libraries full of books that we weren't allowed to touch. And so it was like a really a delightful game for all of us to sort of steal and pass around these books. But yeah, that's the whole thing that it's always felt illicit. It's always felt like that's something that it's like a crazy parenting move. You want your kids to read, ban the books? Yeah, it's very effective.
Parul Sehgal is a book critic for The New York Times.
“I write about books, I review books, but in a sense, to do my job at a newspaper also puts that pressure on a piece to say: why should you read or care about this? You’re trying to tweeze out what is newsworthy, what is interesting, what is vital about this book….My job is I think to be honest with the reader and to keep surfacing new ways for me and for other people to think about books. New vocabularies of pleasure and disgust.”
Thanks to Mailchimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode.
parulsehgal.com
@parul_sehgal
Sehgal's archive at the New York Times
[17:11] “Mothers of Invention: A Group of Authors Finds New Narrative Possibilities in Parenthood” (Bookforum • 2015)
[17:20] “In Letters to the World, a New Wave of Memoirs Draws on the Intimate” (New York Times • 2019)
[17:33] “#MeToo Is All Too Real. But to Better Understand it, Turn to Fiction.” (New York Times • 2019)
[24:18] Longform Podcast #354: Jia Tolentino
[41:39] “Peter Luger Used to Sizzle. Now It Sputters.” (New York Times • 2019)
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