Joel Pinckney
@jpinckney.bsky.social
Book worker at University of Texas Press | Formerly a bookseller, at Paris Review | Occasionally writing about books at LARB, Full Stop, The Millions, elsewhere | joelpinckney@gmail.com
Great responses from some of the best booksellers in the land here. Would love to hear yours too.
I’d like to hear: what are your grounding books? What books do you return to when the world is too much? Marilynne Robinson’s HOUSEKEEPING is the one for me—the language, the pace, the voice, all a kind of comfort.
November 11, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Great responses from some of the best booksellers in the land here. Would love to hear yours too.
I’d like to hear: what are your grounding books? What books do you return to when the world is too much? Marilynne Robinson’s HOUSEKEEPING is the one for me—the language, the pace, the voice, all a kind of comfort.
November 11, 2025 at 3:17 AM
I’d like to hear: what are your grounding books? What books do you return to when the world is too much? Marilynne Robinson’s HOUSEKEEPING is the one for me—the language, the pace, the voice, all a kind of comfort.
This is a very fun piece, on the beautifully chaotic mysteries of children's books.
"You’re telling me this ovine climbed a ladder while carrying skis and poles and put them on while balancing at the top of the slide?"
"You’re telling me this ovine climbed a ladder while carrying skis and poles and put them on while balancing at the top of the slide?"
Here Is What Reading To My Child Has Done To My Brain | Defector
As the parent of an 18-month-old, I’ve been reading a lot lately. That is, if your definition of reading includes thumbing through sheets of increasingly careworn and spittle-soaked cardboard, recitin...
defector.com
November 7, 2025 at 5:15 PM
This is a very fun piece, on the beautifully chaotic mysteries of children's books.
"You’re telling me this ovine climbed a ladder while carrying skis and poles and put them on while balancing at the top of the slide?"
"You’re telling me this ovine climbed a ladder while carrying skis and poles and put them on while balancing at the top of the slide?"
Reposted by Joel Pinckney
New York electing its first Muslim mayor 24 years after 9/11 and rejecting the idiotic racism that would connect those events is actually a legit excuse for American triumphalism, but the people who say they love America the most hate all the best things about it.
November 6, 2025 at 10:41 PM
New York electing its first Muslim mayor 24 years after 9/11 and rejecting the idiotic racism that would connect those events is actually a legit excuse for American triumphalism, but the people who say they love America the most hate all the best things about it.
To whom are you beholden? What is the purpose of your politics, and who is it for? I’m grateful that Zohran has really good answers to these questions, grateful that he rightfully sees the job ahead of him as fundamentally one of care. May he help usher in an era where that doesn’t feel so novel.
November 5, 2025 at 2:58 AM
To whom are you beholden? What is the purpose of your politics, and who is it for? I’m grateful that Zohran has really good answers to these questions, grateful that he rightfully sees the job ahead of him as fundamentally one of care. May he help usher in an era where that doesn’t feel so novel.
If you're in Austin, get out and vote for Prop Q today, nearly 50% of which would go to provide housing and support folks experiencing homelessness. Our city has been very cruel to these folks in the past few years. This is one way for us to do something different.
November 4, 2025 at 7:19 PM
If you're in Austin, get out and vote for Prop Q today, nearly 50% of which would go to provide housing and support folks experiencing homelessness. Our city has been very cruel to these folks in the past few years. This is one way for us to do something different.
A wonderful feeling: soaking in a beautiful book, wanting to savor it but also consume it all immediately, not feeling the need to take it slow because you know the words will reverberate with meaning, different and the same, with every visit.
November 3, 2025 at 1:26 AM
A wonderful feeling: soaking in a beautiful book, wanting to savor it but also consume it all immediately, not feeling the need to take it slow because you know the words will reverberate with meaning, different and the same, with every visit.
"It took imagination to build Alligator Alcatraz in five days, and it took imagination to terrorize communities in the way that they are now being terrorized. It’s not about realism versus imagination. It’s about competing versions of an imagined future, an imagined present."
I had such a meaningful night in Chicago with Eve Ewing at the National Public Housing Museum, and I'm grateful to @katieprout.bsky.social for this piece on the event and THERE IS NO PLACE FOR US—about housing, state violence, political imagination, and refusing the myth of dispassionate journalism.
Profiting off precarity - Chicago Reader
There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America, by Brian Goldstone, is an account of five Black families forced into homelessness.
chicagoreader.com
October 30, 2025 at 3:41 PM
"It took imagination to build Alligator Alcatraz in five days, and it took imagination to terrorize communities in the way that they are now being terrorized. It’s not about realism versus imagination. It’s about competing versions of an imagined future, an imagined present."
I am here to recommend that you visit tree.fm and just let it play in the background. It will make your workday a bit better.
tree.fm – Tune Into Forests From Around The World 🌳🔈
People around the world recorded the sounds of their forests, so you can escape into nature, while in lockdown or unable to travel. Use this site to chill, meditate or do some digital shinrin-yoku.
tree.fm
October 29, 2025 at 7:34 PM
I am here to recommend that you visit tree.fm and just let it play in the background. It will make your workday a bit better.
Please excuse the laundry and focus on the fact that my child put her bike helmet on, pulled a Vonnegut book off the shelf, and climbed onto the couch to “read.”
October 27, 2025 at 10:59 PM
Please excuse the laundry and focus on the fact that my child put her bike helmet on, pulled a Vonnegut book off the shelf, and climbed onto the couch to “read.”
I did indeed rush to click the link, but man, reading this just made me feel incredibly sad.
October 27, 2025 at 8:58 PM
I did indeed rush to click the link, but man, reading this just made me feel incredibly sad.
Reposted by Joel Pinckney
A way to have a good weekend is to go to a local bookstore this afternoons and buy something random and counterintuitive from the staff picks shelf, and spend the next two days reading it.
October 25, 2025 at 5:50 PM
A way to have a good weekend is to go to a local bookstore this afternoons and buy something random and counterintuitive from the staff picks shelf, and spend the next two days reading it.
Really appreciated this reflection on Wendell Berry. These books have meant a lot to me—my wedding featured readings from two WB passages—and I'm more curious than ever what the totality of his project amounts to, how he'll be remembered, what the long-term legacy of his work will be.
"Marce Catlett: The Force of a Story" is the 15th book in Wendell Berry's Port William series. Its arrival is a good moment to offer appreciation for this author--and, if you haven't yet, to join the membership of his readers. Gift link: www.wsj.com/arts-culture...
Fiction: ‘Marce Catlett’ by Wendell Berry
The author’s family saga unfolds the hardship and beauty of life in a rural corner of Kentucky.
www.wsj.com
October 23, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Really appreciated this reflection on Wendell Berry. These books have meant a lot to me—my wedding featured readings from two WB passages—and I'm more curious than ever what the totality of his project amounts to, how he'll be remembered, what the long-term legacy of his work will be.
Free lede for an essay on what our ubiquitous, therapeutic use of the language of “connection” is doing to us (or revealing about us), brought to you by my Extra peppermint gum.
October 22, 2025 at 10:02 PM
Free lede for an essay on what our ubiquitous, therapeutic use of the language of “connection” is doing to us (or revealing about us), brought to you by my Extra peppermint gum.
"There is an unconscionable industry built around making people decide how much less than what they deserve they are willing to accept."
I wrote about the degrading choices our political system forces on us, the importance of respecting yourself, and the time I experienced a mild Oliver Stone moment at Sammy's Deluxe in Rockland, Maine. defector.com/what-job-is-...
What Job Is A Guy With A Nazi Tattoo Qualified For? | Defector
The man that my wife and I found ourselves talking to at the bar of a restaurant in Rockland, Me. in the summer of 2019 had arrived in town as your fancier visitors do, which is by boat. He told us th...
defector.com
October 22, 2025 at 4:53 PM
"There is an unconscionable industry built around making people decide how much less than what they deserve they are willing to accept."
The divorced-dad energy of owning a Cybertruck was simply not sufficient.
October 22, 2025 at 2:50 PM
The divorced-dad energy of owning a Cybertruck was simply not sufficient.
Thought this was real good.
Also today Zack Budryk writes about what it means to be a man, the impulse to take action during times like these, vigilante justice, One Battle After Another, and being someone that can be trusted. www.welcometohellworld.com/what-does-a-...
What Does A Man Do?
This piece was sent out as part of today's Hell World newsletter which you can find here.
I cannot believe we’re losing this badly to these peopleBooking a reading tour sucks so bad dude. The good ne...
www.welcometohellworld.com
October 17, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Thought this was real good.
Differences in type notwithstanding, in the world of recent notable disagreeing-dudes-podcasting-it-out, TNC/Ezra Klein would’ve been well-served by a bit more of today’s Pablo Torre/Mark Cuban energy.
October 14, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Differences in type notwithstanding, in the world of recent notable disagreeing-dudes-podcasting-it-out, TNC/Ezra Klein would’ve been well-served by a bit more of today’s Pablo Torre/Mark Cuban energy.
Books smell good.
What's your totally ordinary opinion about books that you nonetheless find compelled to share when asked on a social media site such as this one for your most extreme/unhinged/hottest takes?
I'll go first: manga is popular among young people because manga often features young people.
I'll go first: manga is popular among young people because manga often features young people.
October 14, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Books smell good.
I dare you to read the "About" section here and not feel desperately-needed optimism and heart-racing excitement about the possibilities of a literary publication truly in and of a place. Follow the work of these good folks, and subscribe if you can.
We have a new website! It's a monster eating buildings! Hopefully it's friendly! www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org
(scroll down and check out the "Oakland in Books" feature! we have fun.)
(scroll down and check out the "Oakland in Books" feature! we have fun.)
October 14, 2025 at 3:19 PM
I dare you to read the "About" section here and not feel desperately-needed optimism and heart-racing excitement about the possibilities of a literary publication truly in and of a place. Follow the work of these good folks, and subscribe if you can.
Never trust someone who says that they love "books." What an insane thing to say! Vibes-based book culture makes people very silly. I do not love "books"—I love writing that is beautiful, that is true, that is doing something interesting and new. As such, I hate many books. Many are also good.
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
October 13, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Never trust someone who says that they love "books." What an insane thing to say! Vibes-based book culture makes people very silly. I do not love "books"—I love writing that is beautiful, that is true, that is doing something interesting and new. As such, I hate many books. Many are also good.
The soundtrack in my head to this novel was the Drive-By Truckers’ “Putting People on the Moon”, which I consider to be very high praise. This is a playful, viscerally descriptive, morally serious novel from the great folks at @graywolfpress.bsky.social that is well worth your time and attention.
October 12, 2025 at 6:29 PM
The soundtrack in my head to this novel was the Drive-By Truckers’ “Putting People on the Moon”, which I consider to be very high praise. This is a playful, viscerally descriptive, morally serious novel from the great folks at @graywolfpress.bsky.social that is well worth your time and attention.
It's Friday afternoon! If there's a sentence or a paragraph in something you read recently that really stopped you in your tracks, whether because of the beauty of the prose, the clarity of the mind at work, or anything else, I'd love to read it.
October 10, 2025 at 9:05 PM
It's Friday afternoon! If there's a sentence or a paragraph in something you read recently that really stopped you in your tracks, whether because of the beauty of the prose, the clarity of the mind at work, or anything else, I'd love to read it.
Something I did not anticipate about becoming a parent is that I now actually love hearing other parents talk about their kids (inspired by listening to this).
So great to finally have @minakimes.bsky.social — our first guest, back in the pre-launch days of 2023! — in the @pablotorrefindsout.bsky.social studio:
Bad Bunny Super Bowl Reactions (and Smelling Salts!) with Mina Kimes | PTFO
YouTube video by PABLO TORRE FINDS OUT
youtu.be
October 10, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Something I did not anticipate about becoming a parent is that I now actually love hearing other parents talk about their kids (inspired by listening to this).
Krasznahorkai! One of my first tasks as an intern at the Paris Review in 2017 was transcribing portions of his Art of Fiction interview, which was a beautifully disorienting experience. I love thinking about all the imminently-disoriented readers out there.
László Krasznahorkai, The Art of Fiction No. 240
László Krasznahorkai was born in 1954 in Gyula, a provincial town in Hungary, in the Soviet era. He published his first novel, Satantango, in 1985, then The Melancholy of Resistance (1989), War and Wa...
www.theparisreview.org
October 9, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Krasznahorkai! One of my first tasks as an intern at the Paris Review in 2017 was transcribing portions of his Art of Fiction interview, which was a beautifully disorienting experience. I love thinking about all the imminently-disoriented readers out there.