Truth Matters
Exciting news for e-book readers, Alternative Angles: Creativity, Fast Five, 3 Episodes to Understand Poetry, and Truth Matters: A Conversation with Robert P. George and Cornel West
In this week’s newsletter…
You Can Now Buy E-Books From Your Local Bookstore
Life is filled with trade-offs. When it comes to buying books, customers have often had to choose between the convenience of shopping online and the pleasure of visiting their local bookstores. Bookshop solves this problem by partnering with thousands of small bookstores. When you visit their website to buy a book, you can select the bookstore you want to support with your purchase. Bookshop then delivers your purchase to you, and kicks back the profit to your chosen bookstore. You can also support affiliate booksellers like the New Books Network. Whenever you click on a link in our newsletter or on our website, we send you to Bookshop. If you purchase a book using our affiliate link, we receive 10% commission which helps keep our podcast network up and running. Even when supporting an affiliate like the NBN, 80% of the profit still supports Bookshop’s network of independent bookstores.
Much like our buying habits, the way we read has also evolved over time. Many readers eschew physical books in favor of electronic books. Until now, there has essentially been no way for e-book readers to support local bookstores, too…until now. Bookshop has aimed to augment independent bookstore revenues with e-books for years. According to a New York Times article published on January 28th, their mission is almost complete. As of publication, you can find millions of e-books in their online storefront (with many more available soon). Check out Bookshop’s e-book selection at the dedicated page on their website. All you need is the Bookshop app for Apple or Android, or you can read straight from a web browser.
Bookshop just released their Fifth Anniversary Impact Report. Some of the facts are truly mind-boggling. In the last five years, Bookshop has:
Distributed $40 million to independent bookstores
Partnered with 2,207 independent bookstores in the US
Generated a 380% increase in e-commerce revenue for bookstores
Helped spur a renaissance for bookstores (730 new independent shops in the US since January, 2020)
Interested in learning more about Bookshop? In 2023, we spoke to CEO Andy Hunter about why and how he started Bookshop. To date, it’s one of our best-performing interviews with over 37,000 downloads. The story of Bookshop is not only an inspiring David and Goliath tale but is also required listening for any professionals in the publishing industry who want to learn how the book world is evolving. Write a comment or like this newsletter if you’ve ever purchased a book from Bookshop!
Alternative Angles: Creativity
In this edition we present interviews with a sociologist, a computer scientist, a theoretical physicist, and a human geographer who are grappling with different questions about creativity. What is creativity, how does it work, and who is it for?
Sociologist Hannah Wohl asks “What is creativity?” in her examination of the New York contemporary art scene. In Bound by Creativity: How Contemporary Art Is Created and Judged, she explores how artists develop conceptions of their distinctive creative visions through experimentation and social interactions, and how aesthetic judgment evolves between artist studios, galleries, art fairs, and collectors’ houses.
Curious about the creative process of Artificial Intelligence? Listen to computer science professor, Tuhin Chakrabarty on the High Theory podcast. In this compelling conversation, he discusses creating images from text, generating creative texts such as poetry, and bias in AI language models.
Listen to Tom McLeish try to answer the question, “What human qualities are needed to make scientific discoveries, and which to make great art?” In The Poetry and Music of Science: Comparing Creativity in Science and Art, he challenges the idea that doing science is less creative than art, music, or creative writing by highlighting commonalities in the process of discovery between scientists and artists.
Oli Mould asks, “Can every aspect of society be ‘creative’?” in his book, Against Creativity. He argues for resistance to the ideology of enforced creativity common throughout the world. In this exploration of the contemporary social world, Mould suggests that creativity is a barely hidden form of neoliberal appropriation which prioritizes individual success over collective flourishing. Tune in to hear his radical redefinition of creativity.
Fast Five: Erich Hatala Matthes
A new segment featuring the top 5 books in a scholar’s personal library. Our first feature is Erich Hatala Matthes. He is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wellesley College who researches and teaches the ethics, politics, and aesthetics of cultural heritage, art, and the environment.
Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville
This is a book I first picked up off the shelf at home and then read again in school. I took an amazing class in high school just on Moby-Dick. It offers a special kind of reading experience: first seeing what you see on your own, then returning with a guide. But more importantly, this was a book that my dad and I bonded over. I read from it at his memorial service, "Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being..." It's a comfort to have around.
A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. LeGuin
I first read this as a kid, but I've returned to the book and the whole series at different points in my life, and it always has something new to offer. I reread Tehanu a few years ago and thought, "wow, my teenage self really hadn't lived enough yet to appreciate everything that was happening here." That may still be the case. I look forward to continuing to revisit these books again, and sharing them with my daughter.
A Wizard of Earthsea cover Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown
Aside from the fact that "Goodnight nobody; goodnight mush" is one of the most iconic page spreads in children's literature, this is one of those trans-generational books that my parents read to me and then I read to my kid. Lots of children's books can be torture to reread, but I could read this book aloud every night and never get sick of it. My daughter's in 4th grade now, so we're well-past those days, but I still love stumbling upon this book on the shelf.
Town Crier, by Sarah Matthes
My little sister is a poet, and this is her first collection. The poems are at turns devastating and hilarious. Aside from how much I like the work, this would be one I'd save for the personal connection. I'm so immensely proud of her, and I get the warm fuzzies every time I see this book.
Town Crier cover The Republic, by Plato
As a philosophy professor, I felt like I had to have one philosophy book on my list! I don't specialize in Ancient philosophy, but I've read this book so many times, both as a student and as a teacher. It is wonderfully weird (the Ring of Gyges story is a personal favorite), and contains so much worth puzzling over. A good book to have ready at hand.
This segment is inspired by Erich’s book, What to Save and Why: Identity, Authenticity, and the Ethics of Conservation. What to Save and Why explores the idea of conservation: the practice of preserving things for posterity and fighting against the tides of entropy. What we keep in our personal libraries is our own, small-yet-significant contribution to this fight. Listen to our interview with Erich below.
3 Episodes to Understand: Poetry
Listen to Adam Hanna discuss his book, Poetry, Politics, and the Law in Modern Ireland. He examines how modern Irish poetry has been shaped by, and responded to, the laws, judgments, and constitutions of both of the island’s jurisdictions. Contributing to the burgeoning field of law and literature, Hanna unpacks the legal engagements of both major and non-canonical poets from every decade between the 1920s and the present day. Fans of W.B. Yeats, Julie Morrissy, Seamus Heaney and other poets will be interested to hear more about this compelling research.
Tune in to hear Jessica Romney’s analysis of how Greek poets presented themselves and their social groups to one another in her fascinating book, Lyric Poetry and Social Identity in Archaic Greece. She discusses her close reading of six poems, and a broad survey of martial lyric, exile poetry, political lyric, and sympotic lyric as a whole. Romney explores these men’s construction of identity in martial-themed poetry, the protection of group identities in the face of political exile, and the negotiation between individual and group as seen in political lyric.
Check out Oludamini Ogunnaike’s discussion of Arabic praise poetry in West Africa, which draws from traditional Islamic materials and incorporates patterns and concepts from West African sources. In this interview, Ogunnaike contextualizes these praise poems within Sufi thought as well as in everyday contemporary life. Listen to this interview to learn more about praise poetry as a genre and its functions in practice, Sufi theology, the intellectual heritage of West Africa, translation, and how to use these sources in classrooms. Read Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection: A Study of West African Arabic Madih Poetry and its Precedents to learn more!
Subscribe to our New Books in Poetry channel to learn more about poets and poetry!
Truth Matters: Robert P. George and Cornel West
Listen to “Truth Matters: A Conversation with Robert P. George and Cornel West.” This compelling conversation is the latest episode of Madison's Notes, the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.
Robert P. George and Cornel West are two towering figures in political philosophy and social thought. In this episode they discuss their collaborative work Truth Matters. Through their conversation they model what robust intellectual engagement and civil discourse can look like when addressing divisive issues.
George and West explore the concept of truth and its centrality to our personal and collective lives. They also tackle critical questions surrounding truth’s role in the public square, and how we, as a society, can navigate the growing challenges to free expression and intellectual inquiry.
Check out more episodes from Madison’s Notes and subscribe to the channel to hear more!
