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" The 'beach read' has become such a ubiquitous concept in contemporary literature that we assume it has always been around. In fact, the term only emerged in the 1990s, usually in book trade publications such as 'Booklist' and 'Publisher's Weekly.' "

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" It is no secret, of course, that people have strong feelings about fat - feelings that seem only to have been inflamed by the sense, in western countries, that there is an obesity crisis afoot. Concerns about health have mutated into a kind of panic attending any mention of fat people at all. "

Michelle Dean

People

Feelings

Health

" Would we even recognize an Oliver Stone production if it didn't kick up the usual fuss? "

Michelle Dean

Stone

Kick

" Even the best novelists are rarely congratulated on the quality of their observations about contemporary life. "

" For a long time now, movie characters have generally been articulate, even chatty. Call it the influence of Woody Allen, but we have become used to characters who are well able to explain themselves to others. "

" There's no good way to be the center of a media maelstrom you did not choose for yourself. "

" A presidential candidate changing churches is hardly unusual. Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and Rand Paul have all aligned themselves with different faiths throughout their lives. "

" The podcast revolution has taught us that women's voices aren't just pleasurable to listen to, they are essential. "

Michelle Dean

Listen

Women

" Prestige podcasts, like prestige television shows, tend to have an audience that believes itself literate, well-informed, and reasonable. Listening to podcasts, in this model, is a form of virtue. "

" A good novelist pays attention to his characters. A good biographer pays attention to the documents before her. A good critic pays close attention to the thing she's brought to evaluate. "

Michelle Dean

Critic

Attention

" I could be imagining it, but I believe myself to have exchanged sly, understanding nods with other people I see attending movies alone on Christmas Day. "

" When Paul Beatty's 'The Sellout' was first published in America in 2015, it was a small release. It got a rave review in the daily 'New York Times' and one in the weekly 'New York Times Book Review,' too, for good measure. But by and large, it was not a conversation-generating book. "

" Indeed, there has never been any sort of organised movement of people who take their cats into the outdoors. Of course, the navy often took them on ships, but there they performed a function, mousing for the officers. "

" People spend their entire lives trying to construct something to grab onto: a family, a home, a business. Rarely does anyone seem to manage to get much ground under their feet. "

" I read almost no romantic fiction, in part because I barely believe in romance in the age of Tinder. "

" There is nothing wrong with wanting to publish - or read - books that have a wide potential audience. But it does generate a certain plodding sameness of tone and subject matter that plagues a lot of contemporary American fiction. "

" Self-publishing has been a dubious challenge to traditional publishers, at best. "

" When a woman shouts, she isn't usually praised for it. She's condemned as aggressive and coarse. "

" Among journalists, there is a saying: 'If it bleeds, it leads.' This can result in some serious hustling - and some serious sloppiness - whenever a crime occurs. The public's longing to see and hear salacious details is, basically, endless. "

" Book awards - in America, at least - are not like the Oscars. Awards are not cumulative, and in the case of something like the Pulitzers, the jurors often have another goal in mind: sales. They know that the Pulitzer stamp can sell a book. "

" The Festival of Books is indeed a well-oiled machine, one which leaves most of the other literary festivals in America, including vaunted Brooklyn's, in the dust. "

" A lot of people produce podcasts in which they simply ramble on for hours about themselves and their lives. There is something very poignant about the volume of human desire to be heard out there in the Wild West of podcasts. "

" Telling a story about someone has enormous power. People forget a headline. They remember a story. "

" Many people, I've noticed by informally polling friends, are prone to distinguishing a beach read by genre. Some people thought all thrillers are beach reads; others thought all romances are. Some people thought only mass market paperbacks are eligible for beach read standards. "

" The desire to abdicate, to give up - for me, that's primal. "

Michelle Dean

Primal

Desire

" The plot of 'Stranger Things' is so simple that even a brief description risks spoiling it. "

" Bad criticism recites rote arguments. The shame of rote arguments isn't just that they're cliches, though they are, but that they tend to hide from us why a critic is actually thinking what they're thinking. "

" Peak TV has resulted in beautiful shows that have nothing in particular to tell us about humanity. "

" After living in the United States for over 10 years, here is what I have learned about the Fourth of July: it is more of a barbecuing holiday than anything else. "

" Few reporters get to do what Kelly McEvers does in every episode of 'Embedded': go deep into a story and tease out what is really happening. "

Michelle Dean

Out

Happening

" When James Frey's 'A Million Little Pieces' turned out to be largely bunk, critics everywhere secretly rejoiced. They knew it, they said. "