How Amazon is Changing the Books We Read w/ Mark McGurl
11 11 21
or listen on:
How Amazon is Changing the Books We Read
Mark McGurl
Notes
Paris Marx is joined by Mark McGurl to discuss how Amazon is reshaping the publishing industry and altering the form of the novel itself.
Guest
Mark McGurl is a Professor of Literature at Stanford University. He’s also the author of The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing and Everything and Less: The Novel in the Age of Amazon. Follow Mark on Twitter at @markjamesmcgurl.
Support the show
Venture capitalists aren’t funding critical analysis of the tech industry — that’s why the show relies on listener support.
Become a supporter on Patreon to ensure the show can keep promoting critical tech perspectives. That will also get you access to the Discord chat, a shoutout on the show, some stickers, and more!
Links
- Jeff Bezos’ valedictorian speech was about space colonization.
- Paris wrote about Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s early days.
- US publishers, authors, and booksellers have written to Congress about Amazon’s effective monopolization of book sales, with more than 50% of the US book market.
- Jane Friedman explains how Amazon shut down many of its writer-oriented programs, makes exclusivity hard to avoid, and dominates Kindle charts.
- Novels and authors mentioned: Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You, Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, Rachel Cusk, and Ben Lerner.