How Amazon is Changing the Books We Read w/ Mark McGurl

Paris Marx is joined by Mark McGurl to discuss how Amazon is reshaping the publishing industry and altering the form of the novel itself.

Mark McGurl is a Professor of Literature at Stanford University. He’s also the author of The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing and Everything and Less: The Novel in the Age of Amazon. Follow Mark on Twitter at @markjamesmcgurl.

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Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

• Jeff Bezos’ valedictorian speech was about space colonization.
• Paris wrote about Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s early days.
• US publishers, authors, and booksellers have written to Congress about Amazon’s effective monopolization of book sales, with more than 50% of the US book market.
• Jane Friedman explains how Amazon shut down many of its writer-oriented programs, makes exclusivity hard to avoid, and dominates Kindle charts.
• Novels and authors mentioned: Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You, Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, Rachel Cusk, and Ben Lerner.

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