J. Howard Rosier reviews 6 new must-reads in Vulture, including a new book out from The Song Cave, Bookworm: Conversations with Michael Silverblatt, featuring an interview with John Ashbery…
MUST READS MAR. 10, 2023
6 New Books You Should Read This March
This month’s recommendations will — I hope — encourage readers to reflect on the legacies of individuals and institutions. An already-classic study on eviction was apparently just a warm-up for a bombshell critical study of poverty in general, and who knew that one of America’s most iconic photographers is actually a brilliant filmmaker? Elsewhere, a novelist known for challenging what constitutes literature continues pushing the bounds, and a diligent radio host shows us that there is another way to conduct author interviews.
Bookworm: Conversations with Michael Silverblatt by Michael Silverblatt
$25
Michael Silverblatt, the longtime on-air book critic for KCRW in Los Angeles, is widely read and deeply thoughtful, and as a result his program, Bookworm, is satisfying to both cultish and well-known tastes alike. Grace Paley, Octavia Butler, and David Foster Wallace are joined by the likes of John Ashbery, Toni Morrison, and Susan Sontag. Neither self-conscious about its influence nor overtly critical in its approach, this collection of author interviews is refreshingly deferential — each author’s voice and sensibility commanding the reader’s attention. Chronology is irrelevant, but documented — in one section it’s 1995, and you’re listening to William H. Gass explain The Tunnel; in another, Steven Sondheim and John Weidman are chatting it up about Road Show. The anthology cements Silverblatt’s legacy as a literary steward who’s welcoming and respectful of his listener’s intelligence.
$25 Buy from publisher (The Song Cave)