Helen Dewitt's The Last Samurai was just re-policed I just ordered it on Amazon. There are many many many more books which are in this you know a gray zone where if you really dig if you really look you could still pluck them out but because there's so much new work being published it's very difficult for it to rise out of that noise. It had gotten a great deal of potential when it first came out and then through odd series of coincidences sort of fell from view.
Michael Orthofer, one of the world’s most prolific book reviewers, joins Tyler Cowen for a conversation on — what else? — books. Read to discover why Michael believes everyone should read more fiction, how we should choose books, why American popular literature is overrated, what he thinks about authors like Herman Melville, Fyoder Dostoevsky, Goethe, J.K. Rowling, Arno Schmidt, and many others, his recommendations for the best sites for readers, why studying literature at college was such a big disappointment, how much book covers matter, and why his opinion will never be the final word.
Check out the reader Q&A here and the Strand shopping video here.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
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