This week's podcast features freelance book critic Jacob Silverman, who stirred up a lot of discussion last month when Slate published his piece, "Against Enthusiasm" about "the epidemic of niceness in online book culture." Basically, Jacob argued that online book culture has lead away from legit discussion to a series of endorsements and "+1s." Shortly after he wrote this, William Giraldi trashed Alex Ohlin's recent publications, setting off another Twitter firestorm. And of course, the day we recorded this, Giraldi published a long piece in The Daily Beast explaining his beliefs about book criticism. Anyway, this week we talk about all of that . . . This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit threepercentproblem.substack.com

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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