Congratulations. I think your timing (and I know this is mostly a matter of luck) is perfect. And I hope people are attracted to the book first and foremost because of your attitude: "I really feel no desire to make other people feel inadequate."
Substack seems to be full of people who push some form of a great books program because "Taking your medicine is good for you: Ignore the taste!" I'm 68: I don't need my mom hectoring me. I prefer just being reminded that The Faerie Queen really isn't impossible to understand and listening to an audiobook version is OK if that's what works. The doors have always been open. Sometimes we just need a little encouragement to step through them.
It’s in my stack, but I have a 35-hour drive to and from Red Cloud, Nebraska coming up and I think I’ll use it for Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, which I had to inhale for an undergrad 18th Century English lit class and will enjoy at leisure this time around.
I always assign a bit of Delany to students in my intro creative writing classes and they get SO MAD at that passage. I try to find an encouraging and welcoming way to say “he’s right tho”
<<Nobody can sympathize more than I do with these problems.
For one thing, I still feel insecure. I write a newsletter about the Great Books, and about every two weeks some commenter with a PhD will imply that I'm a poor reader. They'll say I don't understand the book I've read. They'll say its meaning would be obvious if only I were aware of what F. R. Leavis said about it sixty years ago. Or they'll say that I'm not reading correctly, that I need to embrace the ambiguity of a particular passage, and that its seeming inscrutability is actually a major part of the effect intended by the work's author. You're not supposed to understand.>>
Which one of you is this and what did F. R. Leavis say sixty years ago? Come clean this very moment.
I am 63 and retired in order to start reading the Great Books last year. I just bought your book, using the link below for bookshop.org. I read your Substack every week and feel confident this book will be well enjoyed by many, many of your readers. Congratulations today!
Started reading it yesterday. I subscribe to this Substack and bought your book because I enjoy your authorial voice so much. I think it has even changed the way I write a bit. Congrats on publication!
i confess i’m in entire sympathy with delany (one of my favorite writers) but i don’t agree with the one-size-fits-all reading list. reading is, before anything else, nutrition. therefore what i advocate—& not only for those who “want to become writers” (what a ridiculous aspiration)—is simply to read 500 books, half of them written before you were born.
I ordered your book at the beginning of October, and have been waiting all the long weekend for the Kindle version to drop, and I can't wait to read it! (Before anyone here gets all judgmental about me buying from Amazon and not bookshop, if it weren't for Kindle, I wouldn't be reading it all with my vision). As a possibly amusing piece of trivia, the Kindle version of Donald Barthleme's 60 stories also dropped today, but these are going to have to wait 😉
i confess i’m in entire sympathy with delany (one of my favorite writers) but i don’t agree with the one-size-fits-all reading list. reading is, before anything else, nutrition. therefore what i advocate—& not only for those who “want to become writers” (what a ridiculous aspiration)—is simply to read 500 books, half of them written before you were born.
Oh, I should’ve known it was Delany who inspired that story!
And I’ll be honest, he’s also the one who convinced me that I should start giving classics a closer look. I was raised by a very Soviet multi-generational household, who took it for granted that I’ll be reading Tolstoy in school from as early as … I wanna say third grade equivalent? I definitely read “Taras Bulba” around that age.
The problem is that we then went to the West, and the West can get real weird about Russia and hell, all of the former Soviet Union, Central Asia and Central Asians, and Jews, and so for a long time, I associated the Great Classics with people who thought I should die or convert to Christianity and never speak in their presence because my lingering accent and unplaceable face made them uncomfortable.
Delany years ago, and much more recently, Stephen Greenblatt, as well as going to the theatre to see good productions of Shakespeare and Chekhov, have convinced me to give the classics a second and then third look.
But I reserve the right to be snobby about reading the Russophone authors in the original.
He is so incredible! What Delany does really works. The whole persona is so excellent. I am really glad to have met him and learned from him. He also gave me the greatest lesson of all, which is that your literary heroes inspire you with their work—that’s the real gift. I don’t need them to actually like my work in order to learn from them.
I am curious, what were the political ideas in an earlier draft that you ended up deleting from the book? (Just in general terms.) And how did they convince you to edit them out? I am wondering about this because I've read quite a few books containing political diatribes or biases that were completely extraneous to the main theme of the book, and that needlessly shrank the book's audience.
I forgot the main reason I was going to comment in the first place: as soon as a UK pub date is confirmed, I’ll be getting it! If there’s no UK pub date, I’ll ask my close friend to get it for me and bring it with them when they visit next year.
I have been intrigued by this book ever since I first learned about it on your interview with Henry Oliver. Would you happen to know what the situation is for a UK release? The major UK bookstores (all owned by the same company, alas) don't seem to be carrying it--the websites allow you to order it but delivery takes 8-10 weeks.
If I were feeling truly obnoxious, I'd say "You really need to read the Odyssey in Greek." Which, in fact, I believe--but then I have not yet read any of the great books not in Latin or Greek even in translation, so do as I say, not as I do. Perhaps someday.
I'm a great fan of my man Sam Johnson's line about how a man ought to read just as his inclination leads him, for what he reads as a duty will do him little good. But Johnson goes on to say, in a bit usually left out of that quotation, that a young man ought to read five to six hours a day--which would get in quite a bit, regardless of one's inclination, if only we lived in a world with such affordances.
Congratulations. I think your timing (and I know this is mostly a matter of luck) is perfect. And I hope people are attracted to the book first and foremost because of your attitude: "I really feel no desire to make other people feel inadequate."
Substack seems to be full of people who push some form of a great books program because "Taking your medicine is good for you: Ignore the taste!" I'm 68: I don't need my mom hectoring me. I prefer just being reminded that The Faerie Queen really isn't impossible to understand and listening to an audiobook version is OK if that's what works. The doors have always been open. Sometimes we just need a little encouragement to step through them.
The Naxos audiobook of the faerie queene is really superb! Is that the one you’re listening to?
Thanks for your kind words :)
It’s in my stack, but I have a 35-hour drive to and from Red Cloud, Nebraska coming up and I think I’ll use it for Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, which I had to inhale for an undergrad 18th Century English lit class and will enjoy at leisure this time around.
Don’t miss the Willa Cather Memorial Prairie on the outskirts of Red Cloud.
I always assign a bit of Delany to students in my intro creative writing classes and they get SO MAD at that passage. I try to find an encouraging and welcoming way to say “he’s right tho”
From the sample on Amazon:
<<Nobody can sympathize more than I do with these problems.
For one thing, I still feel insecure. I write a newsletter about the Great Books, and about every two weeks some commenter with a PhD will imply that I'm a poor reader. They'll say I don't understand the book I've read. They'll say its meaning would be obvious if only I were aware of what F. R. Leavis said about it sixty years ago. Or they'll say that I'm not reading correctly, that I need to embrace the ambiguity of a particular passage, and that its seeming inscrutability is actually a major part of the effect intended by the work's author. You're not supposed to understand.>>
Which one of you is this and what did F. R. Leavis say sixty years ago? Come clean this very moment.
I am 63 and retired in order to start reading the Great Books last year. I just bought your book, using the link below for bookshop.org. I read your Substack every week and feel confident this book will be well enjoyed by many, many of your readers. Congratulations today!
Started reading it yesterday. I subscribe to this Substack and bought your book because I enjoy your authorial voice so much. I think it has even changed the way I write a bit. Congrats on publication!
Thank you!!! Honored to be an influence :)
i confess i’m in entire sympathy with delany (one of my favorite writers) but i don’t agree with the one-size-fits-all reading list. reading is, before anything else, nutrition. therefore what i advocate—& not only for those who “want to become writers” (what a ridiculous aspiration)—is simply to read 500 books, half of them written before you were born.
Happy pub day Naomi!!! May we all make our cranky teachers' efforts so rewarded.
I ordered your book at the beginning of October, and have been waiting all the long weekend for the Kindle version to drop, and I can't wait to read it! (Before anyone here gets all judgmental about me buying from Amazon and not bookshop, if it weren't for Kindle, I wouldn't be reading it all with my vision). As a possibly amusing piece of trivia, the Kindle version of Donald Barthleme's 60 stories also dropped today, but these are going to have to wait 😉
i confess i’m in entire sympathy with delany (one of my favorite writers) but i don’t agree with the one-size-fits-all reading list. reading is, before anything else, nutrition. therefore what i advocate—& not only for those who “want to become writers” (what a ridiculous aspiration)—is simply to read 500 books, half of them written before you were born.
Oh, I should’ve known it was Delany who inspired that story!
And I’ll be honest, he’s also the one who convinced me that I should start giving classics a closer look. I was raised by a very Soviet multi-generational household, who took it for granted that I’ll be reading Tolstoy in school from as early as … I wanna say third grade equivalent? I definitely read “Taras Bulba” around that age.
The problem is that we then went to the West, and the West can get real weird about Russia and hell, all of the former Soviet Union, Central Asia and Central Asians, and Jews, and so for a long time, I associated the Great Classics with people who thought I should die or convert to Christianity and never speak in their presence because my lingering accent and unplaceable face made them uncomfortable.
Delany years ago, and much more recently, Stephen Greenblatt, as well as going to the theatre to see good productions of Shakespeare and Chekhov, have convinced me to give the classics a second and then third look.
But I reserve the right to be snobby about reading the Russophone authors in the original.
He is so incredible! What Delany does really works. The whole persona is so excellent. I am really glad to have met him and learned from him. He also gave me the greatest lesson of all, which is that your literary heroes inspire you with their work—that’s the real gift. I don’t need them to actually like my work in order to learn from them.
Congratulations Naomi. Your passion helps vitalize an endangered treasure.
Happy book birthday, Naomi!
Congratulations on your book launch!
I am curious, what were the political ideas in an earlier draft that you ended up deleting from the book? (Just in general terms.) And how did they convince you to edit them out? I am wondering about this because I've read quite a few books containing political diatribes or biases that were completely extraneous to the main theme of the book, and that needlessly shrank the book's audience.
Upvote! (And Naomi's answer is probably fascinating enough to be a full post!)
I forgot the main reason I was going to comment in the first place: as soon as a UK pub date is confirmed, I’ll be getting it! If there’s no UK pub date, I’ll ask my close friend to get it for me and bring it with them when they visit next year.
There’s a UK release. July 21. Sorry I should’ve mentioned :)
I have been intrigued by this book ever since I first learned about it on your interview with Henry Oliver. Would you happen to know what the situation is for a UK release? The major UK bookstores (all owned by the same company, alas) don't seem to be carrying it--the websites allow you to order it but delivery takes 8-10 weeks.
Yes! I should’ve mentioned. There will be a UK release on, I believe July 21.
If I were feeling truly obnoxious, I'd say "You really need to read the Odyssey in Greek." Which, in fact, I believe--but then I have not yet read any of the great books not in Latin or Greek even in translation, so do as I say, not as I do. Perhaps someday.
I'm a great fan of my man Sam Johnson's line about how a man ought to read just as his inclination leads him, for what he reads as a duty will do him little good. But Johnson goes on to say, in a bit usually left out of that quotation, that a young man ought to read five to six hours a day--which would get in quite a bit, regardless of one's inclination, if only we lived in a world with such affordances.