blog posts by Naomi Kanakia, who continues to fascinate me; she’s a true original.
https://www.woman-of-letters.com/p/if-your-book-has-shallow-lifeless “modern privileged life is meaningless” stories are basically warmed-over Christopher Lasch and there isn’t much point in writing them, if you don’t add some variation, some new value the reader can get out of the lesson.
One thing I like about Kanakia is that she focuses on the value literature can provide. Just because it’s a subjective value (like pleasure or consolation), or an unquantifiable one (like wisdom, practical insight, or spiritual elevation) doesn’t mean you can’t grade books and courses and schools on whether or not they’re providing it. Claims of value shouldn’t be unfalsifiable.
And, Kanakia really believes in practicing what you preach. If you’re going to write about literature at all, or teach it, you damn well should believe in at least some literature and defend its value. Value ought to be possible, in the real world; if some subset of the world really merits utter despair then don’t spend your time there. Say it’s doomed briefly and then move on to something that isn’t.
https://www.woman-of-letters.com/p/highbrow-literature-has-acquired a meditation on how the highbrow literature scene today is disjoint from the ordinary reader. The guy who does read books, including challenging books and classic literature, but not necessarily new litfic, and who has no idea what’s trendy in the “scene” today. I am, pretty much, this “ordinary reader”—contemporary litfic lost me at some point in the early 2000s. I read genre fiction, nonfiction, and old books. I read to learn things and have fun, and I lost faith that contemporary literary fiction even wants to do that for me; and at any rate, there’s hundreds of years’ worth of books that I haven’t read yet and that I know are good. It seems like Kanakia spends a lot of time in a world that assumes the “ordinary reader” is an idiot, and also a lot of time around ordinary readers who have no idea what the “literary world” is like, and is trying to bridge that divide.
https://www.woman-of-letters.com/p/short-stories-used-to-be-very-popular This is the first I learned that O. Henry had a reputation as a bad writer, and was later somewhat rehabilitated. Also a bit of background about the magazine ecosystem in which he, and other short story writers, flourished. People liked short stories then! it was considered a basic element of the sort of information-and-entertainment you went to a magazine for!
https://www.woman-of-letters.com/p/how-to-sell-a-creepy-guy-to-an-audience another “add value to the reader” piece. Nobody wants to read about a dismal man with a dismal life where the whole point of the story is “this sucks.” That doesn’t mean the reader can’t deal with tragedy or flawed characters—but do something with it. Make it mean something. Make an entertaining plot with some absurd or ironic twists. “It bad” is one bit of information; a book needs more!
https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/welcome-to-the-argument Lots of controversy about this new magazine—whether the world needs more essays at all, whether it’s bad for OPP to fund a politically non-neutral magazine, whether the web design sucks. I say, this is great news. I am a liberal, I think liberalism needs a spirited defense*, and I think the people involved will do a great job.
*liberalism also needs a styles section, but that’s another story; the two greatest strengths of liberalism are argument and enticement into a pleasant life, and I don’t think The Argument is focused at all on the latter, but that’s a separate project and I can’t really blame anyone for specializing in their strengths
https://american-innocence.com/p/tyranny-as-tragedy Anna Gat is writing longform now! this one is basically “don’t let America slide into dictatorship; you can do something about it.” plus some thoughts on how tragedy (as in Romeo and Juliet) works at a structural level, the narrowing of options as the characters make avoidable decisions that increasingly commit them to the bad outcome.
it’s very much a Substacker’s thinkpiece, in the way that Naomi Kanakia’s writing never is; Gat doesn’t give us the concretes. in what way shall we resist dictatorship? if it is irresponsible to not search for reliable information sources, what are your recommendations for such sources? I hope subsequent posts will offer those details.
I strongly agree with him about the Vitamix blender (holds up under very heavy use), Celsius (tasty, zero-calorie, ultra-high-caffeine soda), creatine (the only actually-evidence-based workout supplement; it will make you slightly stronger and less fatigued), and Claude (my favorite LLM).
links 8/18/25: https://roamresearch.com/#/app/srcpublic/page/08-18-2025
blog posts by Naomi Kanakia, who continues to fascinate me; she’s a true original.
https://www.woman-of-letters.com/p/if-your-book-has-shallow-lifeless “modern privileged life is meaningless” stories are basically warmed-over Christopher Lasch and there isn’t much point in writing them, if you don’t add some variation, some new value the reader can get out of the lesson.
One thing I like about Kanakia is that she focuses on the value literature can provide. Just because it’s a subjective value (like pleasure or consolation), or an unquantifiable one (like wisdom, practical insight, or spiritual elevation) doesn’t mean you can’t grade books and courses and schools on whether or not they’re providing it. Claims of value shouldn’t be unfalsifiable.
And, Kanakia really believes in practicing what you preach. If you’re going to write about literature at all, or teach it, you damn well should believe in at least some literature and defend its value. Value ought to be possible, in the real world; if some subset of the world really merits utter despair then don’t spend your time there. Say it’s doomed briefly and then move on to something that isn’t.
https://www.woman-of-letters.com/p/when-your-leading-intellectuals-gather this is an odd, fictionalized, account of a conference that is almost certainly LessOnline.
https://www.woman-of-letters.com/p/highbrow-literature-has-acquired a meditation on how the highbrow literature scene today is disjoint from the ordinary reader. The guy who does read books, including challenging books and classic literature, but not necessarily new litfic, and who has no idea what’s trendy in the “scene” today. I am, pretty much, this “ordinary reader”—contemporary litfic lost me at some point in the early 2000s. I read genre fiction, nonfiction, and old books. I read to learn things and have fun, and I lost faith that contemporary literary fiction even wants to do that for me; and at any rate, there’s hundreds of years’ worth of books that I haven’t read yet and that I know are good. It seems like Kanakia spends a lot of time in a world that assumes the “ordinary reader” is an idiot, and also a lot of time around ordinary readers who have no idea what the “literary world” is like, and is trying to bridge that divide.
https://www.woman-of-letters.com/p/this-working-class-writer-has-turned What is the deal with Raymond Carver anyway? I wasn’t really familiar with his work and this was a good intro
https://www.woman-of-letters.com/p/its-the-most-powerful-ideology-of what would a world after nationalism look like?
https://www.woman-of-letters.com/p/the-next-great-literary-scene sort-of-a-review of a new book of plays
https://www.woman-of-letters.com/p/short-stories-used-to-be-very-popular This is the first I learned that O. Henry had a reputation as a bad writer, and was later somewhat rehabilitated. Also a bit of background about the magazine ecosystem in which he, and other short story writers, flourished. People liked short stories then! it was considered a basic element of the sort of information-and-entertainment you went to a magazine for!
https://www.woman-of-letters.com/p/how-to-sell-a-creepy-guy-to-an-audience another “add value to the reader” piece. Nobody wants to read about a dismal man with a dismal life where the whole point of the story is “this sucks.” That doesn’t mean the reader can’t deal with tragedy or flawed characters—but do something with it. Make it mean something. Make an entertaining plot with some absurd or ironic twists. “It bad” is one bit of information; a book needs more!
https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/welcome-to-the-argument Lots of controversy about this new magazine—whether the world needs more essays at all, whether it’s bad for OPP to fund a politically non-neutral magazine, whether the web design sucks. I say, this is great news. I am a liberal, I think liberalism needs a spirited defense*, and I think the people involved will do a great job.
*liberalism also needs a styles section, but that’s another story; the two greatest strengths of liberalism are argument and enticement into a pleasant life, and I don’t think The Argument is focused at all on the latter, but that’s a separate project and I can’t really blame anyone for specializing in their strengths
https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/how-ai-reshapes-software-engineering/ Patrick McKenzie interviews Yoav Tzfati on vibecoding. pretty basic takes, all of which I agree with, plus details on how the vibecoding bootcamp worked and what people did.
https://american-innocence.com/p/tyranny-as-tragedy Anna Gat is writing longform now! this one is basically “don’t let America slide into dictatorship; you can do something about it.” plus some thoughts on how tragedy (as in Romeo and Juliet) works at a structural level, the narrowing of options as the characters make avoidable decisions that increasingly commit them to the bad outcome.
it’s very much a Substacker’s thinkpiece, in the way that Naomi Kanakia’s writing never is; Gat doesn’t give us the concretes. in what way shall we resist dictatorship? if it is irresponsible to not search for reliable information sources, what are your recommendations for such sources? I hope subsequent posts will offer those details.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NMoNLfX3ihXSZJwqK/church-planting-when-venture-capital-finds-jesus how new Evangelical churches get founded. fascinating stuff.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/f3zeukxj3Kf5byzHi/underdog-bias-rules-everything-around-me “Underdog bias” (the assumption that your team is always the underdog) is a useful concept, but I wonder what actual problem or frustration in particular motivated this piece by Richard Ngo
https://andymasley.substack.com/p/product-recommendations Andy Masley’s product recommendations. I wish more bloggers (and more women, in particular!) wrote posts like this about their favorite objects.
I strongly agree with him about the Vitamix blender (holds up under very heavy use), Celsius (tasty, zero-calorie, ultra-high-caffeine soda), creatine (the only actually-evidence-based workout supplement; it will make you slightly stronger and less fatigued), and Claude (my favorite LLM).
characters I looked up from Journey to the West:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ao_Guang an ocean dragon
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laozi the legendary author of the Tao Te Ching
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Mother_of_the_West a mother goddess, the one whose peaches bring immortality
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_Shen has three eyes, a spear, and a hunting dog; “associated with water (flood control), justice, warriorhood, hunting, and demon subdual.”
the programming language Erlang is unrelated; it’s short for “Ericsson Language.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nezha a boy warrior who defeats demons
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Jing_(deity) Nezha’s father, who carries a pagoda that can trap any demons
https://pillow.readthedocs.io/en/stable/ a Python library that can do basic image manipulation
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-15/sam-altman-brain-chip-venture-is-mulling-gene-therapy-approach Sam Altman is funding a brain-chip company called Merge Labs, meant to be a rival to Neuralink