Reading Our Way to Better Taste
from my email newsletter | issue no. 19 | October 22, 2024
In July, the New York Times published a comprehensive roundup of “The Best Books of the First Quarter of the 21st Century.” How were these titles agreed upon? Well, they were “voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.” The methodology can be found here. Here’s a gift link to the feature. It was of course published in print, but the online edition has a lot of cool features to toggle around with, so go to it! After this piece had a bit of a run, the NYT allowed readers to cast their votes for their “best books” of the first quarter of the 21st century. That list is here. (Spoiler alert: There is some — but not a lot of — overlap between the two lists.)
Image via the @nytbooks Instagram account.
And totally not related (at first glance), here’s a NYT Opinion piece from a couple of months ago: “There are a Bazillion Starbucks Orders — and it’s Killing the Company.” It starts this way:
“You’re already in line at Starbucks — having failed to order by app — when you spot one of them. That dude who is looking down not at a cellphone but at the Post-it note that holds the orders of his office mates. Which is confirming that you are going to be late for that next meeting, because this person plans to order six coffee beverages, each of which involves some combination of tall venti grande double-pump, one to four shots of espresso, half-caf, oat milk, nonfat milk, soy milk, milk milk, whipped cream, syrup, brown sugar, white sugar, no sugar and mocha drizzle, from the pike position with two and a half twists.”
While I can't say what kind of taste you have if you order 3 of these, your doctor may have an idea.
Choice is great, choice is good. But now, apparently, we are all expert baristas. Judging from the discrepancies between the NYT’s official “best books” list and then the reader-voted list, we are all expert book critics as well.
Are “gatekeepers” (such as literary critics or, say, trained baristas) a good thing or a bad thing?
In the Booker-longlisted novel Choice, by Neel Mukherjee (which I’m currently reading, but am not done with), we read that “The job of gatekeeper is perhaps the only job in which there is the biggest gap between talent and power.” Oooooh, burn. This one’s (partly) about the publishing industry — like I said, I’m not done, so I can’t really give a thorough synopsis here — and protagonist Ayush’s frustration with things that, well, frustrate me too. A common refrain during conversations with a friend who is also in a creative field: Why does everyone like X? I can’t believe that Y is what everyone is going gaga over. We both avoid certain things that we know are supposed “must-dos” when it comes to self-promotion because they feel sort of pandering or not true to who we actually are. But where are all these rules coming from anyway?
The ultimate gatekeeper?
Who in the world is deciding what’s in and what’s out? In other words, who are the gatekeepers? And: What makes them qualified? It's the ultimate paradox: Sometimes my friend and I like the idea of industry-specific gatekeepers because, to be frank, we often feel like their taste better aligns with ours. They possess a breadth of knowledge to give our work context. We like this idea … until we don’t — because maybe we decide our taste is better than some of these gatekeepers. It’s human nature to want to glorify/cozy up to the people and institutions that validate our beliefs. Sometimes this friend and I like the idea of a democratized way for people to find and fine-tune the creative content they consume — because maybe we’re off the radar of the powerful and the influential, but we’ve been able to get our work seen by people who enjoy it just because they like what they like. (And they like us!) Yet other times we think things like Goodreads or Instagram — places that have removed barriers for shouting one’s opinions — are terrible because…everyone seems to be liking (what we think of as) annoying stuff. Is gatekeeping just some weird popularity contest? Or is there some merit to it?
“I like what I like,” so we say. Two nonfiction books that I’ve read in the past few months have highlighted a now-famous interview with NPR darling Ira Glass and his thoughts on “taste.”
In his most recent book, Slow Productivity, Cal Newport references this famous interview, wherein Glass discusses how “following a passion” is great and all, but you don’t get better at something until you learn how good things are out there. Newport’s proposition for “success,” is, yes, hard work — but part of that hard work is improving one’s taste. He writes, “Glass correctly identifies ‘taste’ as critical for achieving quality. The act of creation can be decomposed into a series of spontaneous eruptions of new possibilities, which must then be filtered against some ineffable understanding of what works and what doesn’t—the visceral intuition that we call taste…His success came not only from a drive to meet his own high standards, but also from his efforts to improve those standards over time…In his exposition, Glass focuses on the gap that often exists between taste and ability—especially early on in a creative career. It’s easier to learn to recognize what’s good, he notes, than to master the skills required to meet this standard… The better taste you have, the more you’re going to strive for that…no amount of grinding away at your proverbial radio program or novel manuscript will
lead to brilliance if you don’t yet have a good understanding of what brilliance could mean.” In his fantastic book The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing, Adam Moss interviews Glass (among many, many other famous “creators”) who rehashes the same interview, and in particular what he calls “the zealous pursuit of better” and “a celebration of the art that happens when instinct meets rigor.”
I highly recommend these nonfiction books! Slow Productivity is more of a straightforward social science read whereas The Work of Art is filled with interviews and visual artifacts of each subject's creative process.
There’s a fine line between “I like what I like because I just know I like it and it’s easy on the eyes/ears/tastebuds” and “I like this because I’ve experienced other things and have a broadened frame of reference.” Per the Starbucks example: I understand not everyone likes espresso or plain black coffee. However, in our quest to individuate every single thing, we have diluted the product that actually gave Starbucks its start. The author of the aforementioned opinion piece, Bill Saporito (an editor at Inc.), concludes that “Once corporate growth [as opposed to Starbucks legend Howard Schultz’s original vision for these cafes to be “third place” gathering spaces] becomes the driver, ‘more is more’ always takes the wheel.” The original thing that made something what it is becomes lost in the shuffle and people new to Starbucks (not that I can even imagine who these “new people” would be in 2024?!) might not understand what made Starbucks so desirable and unique in the first place.
So, too, with the books we read. Can we read our way to better taste? Some preferences are innately baked in to who we are. But I think we can better understand — and hone — those preferences if we try to figure out the “taste” of it all.
Here are my tips to cultivate “better taste” without defaulting to a gatekeeper-told-me-to approach.
1) Go to an independent bookstore, where staff members regularly write recommendations that are scattered on cards throughout the shelves. Even better (if you need a virtual version), subscribe to the One Grand Books email newsletter and/or scour the website of this Narrowsburg, NY-based bookstore. (Thank you to my friend Holly for telling me about this jewel in the Catskills.) The gist of this store (which also sells online) is that it curates book recommendations from all sorts of prominent people. I don’t mean like Oprah or Reese Witherspoon and their celebrity book clubs, but more along the lines of journalist Lisa Ling, chef René Redzepi, or novelist (of course novelists have to be included!) Marlon James.
2) Read a “classic” once a year. The Venn diagram for books that become classics includes gatekeeper approval, hearty sales, and “of the moment” content. I do think reading older classics is a good exercise (for our attention spans as well as our ability to tackle linguistic challenges), but modern classics exist. In my opinion, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, published in 1985, has reached classic status.
3) Trade book recommendations with actual, real life people. Several months ago, my husband and I had about 15 people over. It was really just a casual evening with drinks and nibbles, but we did ask guests to bring a book recommendation, which we had people write down on a post-it note. The board of post-its is still on our wall (see below), and I actually think it’s going to be a permanent feature, with new recommendations being continually added.
4) Choose your online “influencers,” aka gatekeepers, judiciously. Goodreads and Instagram are full of nonsense. (Speaking as someone who actually shares about books on Instagram!) I have a relatively small following, but I feel confident that the ones who pay attention to what I post get some good book recommendations and some good food for thought. It’s ok if you don’t like what the person with 200K followers likes. And it’s ok if you don’t like what I like … even if all the cool kids like me. (Just kidding!) If I were younger, the last point would have stung a bit. But with age comes (a little bit of) wisdom and acceptance. Only you get to choose your gatekeepers. (In turn I reserve the right to not like what you may like, but difference is what makes the world go ‘round.)
5) Know what your purpose is for reading. (Or for going to Starbucks for that matter.) In July, the Washington Post published an interesting bit about why humans sometimes like “things so bad that they’re good.” (See: the movie Sharknado.) It mostly has to do with what our goals and motivations are for choosing something. Is the goal entertainment, or is it more utilitarian or practical? We are more apt to choose “so bad it’s good” when entertainment is the goal (and stakes are low) and more apt to choose “actually good” when utility is the goal. Just saying.
So, as the influencers like to say, grab your beverage of choice (drip coffee or something from here?) and curl up with a book the next opportunity you get. All in the name of good taste, of course.
Latest Reads
*** If you're looking for an easy way to come up with ideas for your next read, you can screenshot or save the graphic below. And as always, I share more about the books I read on Instagram; see below for direct links to each post. (PS: Someone is helping me revamp my website, and the majority of my Instagram posts — like 700+ of them — will eventually live there, as well as on Instagram.) ***
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes
Behind the Moon by Madison Smartt Bell
Summerwater by Sarah Moss
Clear by Carys Davies
Absolution by Alice McDermott
Shark Heart: A Love Story by Emily Habeck
Practice by Rosalind Brown
Liars by Sarah Manguso
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Read This! (i.e. some quick links)
< "The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books." This piece from The Atlantic has created quite a bit of buzz — click-bait-y headline notwithstanding. Here is a response from one of the teachers interviewed.
< "Bookselling Out: How the market transformed American bookstores." A book review of a book about bookstores. (Got it?!)
< "TikTok's Owner Already Publishes Digital Books. Now it is Moving to Print." My gut reaction is "ugh," but maybe it's good to be open to change. (I think this might be a matter of taste, though!)
Am Reading
“Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing that so beautifully furnishes a house.”
— Henry Ward Beecher
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