Reading In Public

I started my newsletter and bookstagram account, Reading in Public, as a way of giving my reading life more structure and to create a forum where I could engage with what I was reading more intentionally. You can subscribe for free by entering your email below — you’ll receive new posts straight to your email (around four to five posts a month). You can also follow @reading.in.public on Instagram for related content.

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Rereading this — one of the classics of memoir/essay criticism! “The situation,” says Gornick, “is the context or circumstance, sometimes the plot; the story is the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer: the insight
“La lecture sous les arbres” (Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1874). Happy spring
The third of five moves I want to steal from Hanif Abdurraqib. This one is simpler than the first two — very easy to steal. He takes the image of the magician’s trick and segments it into two component parts: the coin’s appearance a
Currently reading Caroline Levine’s Forms, which is not so much a craft book as it is a book about how political an act reading can be. It isn’t an easy read — denser and more technical than most books I pick up, it makes me feel li
Lettura in giardino (Pompeo Mariani, 1904/1905)
The second of five moves I want to steal from Columbus writer and poet, Hanif Abdurraqib: The Anaphora Slingshot. Anaphora is the repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of each of a series of lines or clauses. It’s one of the
I’ve barely scratched the surface of this absolute gem, so this is the first of what I’m sure will be many posts singing the praises of Priscilla Long. For several years I’ve been struggling to find enough traction and discipline to
We’re a little ways past the feast of Saint Anthony, but here he is anyway, reading in public. . Saint Anthony Reading, Albrecht Durer, 1519
The first of five moves I want to steal from Columbus writer and poet, Hanif Abdurraqib: The Theatrically Long Transition, from an essay about Whitney Houston. Two things I love about this passage: 1) Even though this commentary is coming to us fro
Craft Book Recommendation: The Art of Time in Memoir by Sven Birkerts (featuring some audio from a work meeting where I tried to describe the book to colleagues)
A Poet Reading, 1430s
Tell me what you’re reading lately!