Show & Tell: Scathing Reviews, Punctuation, and BBQ
Unstacked Digest for the week of April 8-14
I went to San Antonio for the first time this weekend to be part of the San Antonio Book Festival and was so impressed by the festival. The lineup was fantastic (Hanif Abdurraqib, Lauren Groff, R. Eric Thomas, Tim O’Brien, Jenny Lawson, Justin Torres), and the event itself was well organized and easy to navigate. Plus San Antonio is cute, I strolled on the riverwalk, I saw friends, and I ate large amounts of queso and BBQ.
Here is my weekend in under a minute!
This Week on Unstacked
I wrote about my love of Dawn Staley and my deep disgust of Emmanuel Acho for Show & Tell.
Here are the books I’m most excited about for April. This month’s installment is free, but moving forward this will be added to the end of my monthly reading power rankings. Be sure to subscribe to get it all.
was featured this week for Read to Know Basis to discuss her debut memoir, Here After, coffee, and brusies.
Books I Read This Week
Creep: Accusations and Confessions by Myriam Gurba
This was a reread for me. I loved this book the first time I read it, I loved it again this second time. The writing is razor sharp and it cuts, too. The last essay is one of my favorite essays of all time. I am such a fan. If you missed it Myriam was on The Stacks when this book first came out, and I loved our conversation so much.
Fave of the week!
Fashion Killa: How Hip-Hop Revolutionized High Fashion by Sowmya Krishnamurthy
I love the idea of this book, but found the execution lacking. Mostly the organization and timeline is confusing and doesn’t help serve the thesis of the book. It is confusing throughout and lacks a strong through line. This is a book where I think the editor failed.
Housekeeping
stopped by The Stacks to discuss his book Victim, satire and audience.
I got my first byline in the Huffington Post for an interview I did with Sarah Ruiz-Grossman.
The Stacks Book Club got a shoutout in this Book Riot piece on April book clubs!
The LA Times Festival of Books aka Bookchella, is this weekend. I’ll be moderating a panel on Sunday April 21st with Hanif Abdurraqib, Morgan Parker, Michael R. Jackson, and Sowmya Krishnamurthy called “Black is Beautiful: The Impact of Black Art and Culture”. You can get tickets for my panel and all the panels now!
I’ll be in conversation with Leila Mottley at Diesel Bookstore in LA on April 30th discussing her new poetry collection Woke Up No Light.
My live show, One for the Books, is back on May 15th with author Amanda Montell (Cultish, The Age of Magical Overthinking) and actor Vella Lovell (Animal Control, My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend).
Nine Things I Love…
Book News
You all know how much I love a negative review, and baby this week we got a quality take down from Bookforum and Ann Manov of Lauren Oyler’s new essay collection No Judgement. I have said for a few years now that talking shit about books is good for books. This review is case and point.
The review is mean. Manov is very much talking shit about Olyer. Manov outlines what she doesn’t like about the book, mimics Olyer’s writing style, and even points out which cursory google searches likely made their way into the book. A full fledged takedown.
And you know what? I know people who have already purchased the book.
The kind of specific critiques Manov lays out are so juicy you can’t help but want to read No Judgement, because it can’t possibly be as bad as Manov says, right?
Not only is talking shit about books good for books, it is good for book culture. This review in Bookforum, a publication that had to shutter a few years back only to revive itself in 2023, went so viral people were sharing screenshots of the print edition of Bookforum before the site put the review up online. It was all over social media. It was all any of the book people I know could talk about. Tell me that’s not great news for the world.
I will die on this hill, talking shit about books is good for books.
Pop Culture
My very goodest friend Wade Allain-Marcus (he did the Friday Black episode on The Stacks) directed the new adaptation of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead and it has come out to rave reviews. It is an NYT’s critics pick and The Guardian said it is “the blueprint” for how remakes should be. It is in theaters, go get your tickets!