Joel Pinckney
jpinckney.bsky.social
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
A passage that means more to me than just about any other:
November 11, 2025 at 3:31 AM
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
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
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
I look down at my phone for five seconds, I swear, and when I look up my two-year-old’s got a damn apple balanced on her head.
October 7, 2025 at 10:50 PM
Ever since reading this @albertburneko.bsky.social paragraph a while back, I find myself thinking about it, encountering unwelcome exemplars of it, far more often than I wish.
October 3, 2025 at 7:00 PM
“This man wanted to fix strangeness but she was primarily in the business of conveying strangeness.“

From Joshua Wheeler’s really terrific forthcoming novel, THE HIGH HEAVEN.
September 2, 2025 at 12:44 AM
I don't have any words for what reading "deeply human" in this bit made me feel.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/t...
August 26, 2025 at 6:11 PM
“It is one of the inconveniences of convent life that though you may suspect your fellow nun of being a murderess you are obliged to live cheek by jowl with her for the rest of your days, and make the best of it as you may.”
August 6, 2025 at 12:04 PM
This is a hell of a book review.
July 18, 2025 at 8:57 PM
In case you were wondering, my child continues to go extremely hard during "beach week" at daycare.
July 16, 2025 at 5:53 PM
I couldn't tell you what exactly is going on with the vibe at my child's daycare today but the pics we're getting suggest she is going quite hard.
July 14, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Oh it's terrific, one of my favorites of his. Picked it up again after the bill passed last week, specifically going back to this passage in thinking about the ICE expansion that's coming:
July 9, 2025 at 4:50 PM
The books I’ve been spending some time with lately. (I would like more of you to do this.)
July 9, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Less than a year ago. We’ve all lived a few lives since this, huh?
July 7, 2025 at 9:41 PM
July 3, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Real good book.
June 26, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Reading this book right now is a balm.
June 12, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Good morning everybody. May your metaphorical swings be open for you today. (Isla’s very real ones, unfortunately, were not.)
June 8, 2025 at 1:54 PM
“What was it about this place, this huge place, that could produce such a uniformity of political thought and behavior?”

Spending some time today with THE CONSERVATIVE FRONTIER, written toward an answer to that question (publishing with us in October). A real fascinating work of narrative history.
May 22, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Isla saw this fellow, went up and took his hand, and said “sad.”
May 18, 2025 at 2:33 PM
A Pope who actually lived as if these beautiful words had real, grave meaning on what it means to be in the world.
April 21, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Pretty remarkable how quickly Alienated Majesty has become one of the most interesting bookstores in the country. (They have great koozies.)
March 22, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Any time, any place.
March 7, 2025 at 1:24 AM
Find me a better book dedication.

(from Pat Blashill's SOMEDAY ALL THE ADULTS WILL DIE!, on the birth of Texas punk, publishing with us in September.)
February 19, 2025 at 9:06 PM