The Common Reader
Henry OliverNerdy literature newsletter. Helping you make the most of your reading.
| Platform |  | Pricing | Only free issues | Publishes | Daily |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issues | 1247 | Founded | 6 years ago | Last Issue | 6 days ago |
| Active | |||||
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commonreader.co.ukLatest Issues
The 2026 Hyperstition Unslop AI fiction writing contest
You can find the winner and runners-up here. I am just starting to read the results. My impression so far is that this is not slop, but it’s also not especially good. The same is true of much human fiction! Consistent with my earlier predic...
Is an English degree good preparation to become Prime Minister?
In a few weeks, the UK will have (probably) a new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, who will be the first Prime Minister with an English Literature degree. Some people think this is going to give him a real advantage as a leader.1
Blake Morris...
Perpetual Summer in the "feminine middlebrow"
A View of the Harbour was rather an outrageous gap in my reading. I have a minor specialism in the adultery novels of the post-war period, and an associated interest in what is sometimes called—unfairly and inaccurately, in my view—“the fem...
How to write a take-down
So yes, local context matters. When I started writing reviews of novels, there were a number of relics from the postwar decades who were no longer writing their best stuff. So I have written harshly about books by Kundera, Mario Vargas Ll...
Two poets talk about the stock market
In the comments, Dana Gioia says this about meeting A.R. Ammons.
Archie Ammons was not your typical poet. He spent years as a chemical-glass salesman before he got a teaching job. He was a down to earth Southerner.
I was at a litera...
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Writer. Critic. Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center. \Literature, history, liberalism, philosophy.
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