{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1", "title": "Books on Lombard Street", "icon": "https://avatars.micro.blog/avatars/2026/35/8639.jpg", "home_page_url": "https://genegualtieri.com/", "feed_url": "https://genegualtieri.com/feed.json", "items": [ { "id": "http://genegualtieri.micro.blog/2021/02/13/ursula-k-leguin.html", "title": "Ursula K Leguin", "content_html": "

aspiringwarriorlibrarian:

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I’ve seen the Ursula K LeGuin quote about capitalism going around, but to really appreciate it you have to know the context.

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The year is 2014. She has been given a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Awards. Neil Gaiman puts it on her neck in front of a crowd of booksellers who bankrolled the event, and it’s time to make a standard “thank you for this award, insert story here, something about diversity, blah blah blah” speech. She starts off doing just that, thanking her friends and fellow authors. All is well.

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Then this old lady from Oregon looks her audience of executives dead in the eye, and says “Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.”

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She rails against the reduction of her art to a commodity produced only for profit. She denounces publishers who overcharge libraries for their products and censor writers in favor of something “more profitable”. She specifically denounces Amazon and its business practices, knowing full well that her audience is filled with Amazon employees. And to cap it off, she warns them: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”

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Ursula K LeGuin got up in front of an audience of some of the most powerful people in publishing, was expected to give a trite and politically safe argument about literature, and instead told them directly “Your empire will fall. And I will help it along.”
\nvia Tumblr

\n", "date_published": "2021-02-13T13:27:27-04:00", "url": "https://genegualtieri.com/2021/02/13/ursula-k-leguin.html", "tags": ["Tumblr","Books","Text","Authors"] }, { "id": "http://genegualtieri.micro.blog/2020/12/20/john-le-carr.html", "title": "John le Carré, 1931-2020", "content_html": "
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maedior:John le Carré, 1931-2020.\n via Tumblr
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\n", "date_published": "2020-12-20T21:16:34-04:00", "url": "https://genegualtieri.com/2020/12/20/john-le-carr.html", "tags": ["Tumblr","Movies","Books","literature","Film","Photo","rip","john le carre"] }, { "id": "http://genegualtieri.micro.blog/2020/11/22/happy-st-marjane.html", "title": "Happy 51st, Marjane Satrapi", "content_html": "
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davidhudson:

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Happy 51st, Marjane Satrapi.\n via Tumblr

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\n", "date_published": "2020-11-22T09:04:16-04:00", "url": "https://genegualtieri.com/2020/11/22/happy-st-marjane.html", "tags": ["Tumblr","Comics","Books","Photo","marjane satrapi"] }, { "id": "http://genegualtieri.micro.blog/2020/08/14/hgttg.html", "title": "HGTTG", "content_html": "
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lactoseinfuriated:\n
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Everyone should try reading hitchhikers guide to the galaxy\n
via Tumblr\n
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\n", "date_published": "2020-08-14T13:04:08-04:00", "url": "https://genegualtieri.com/2020/08/14/hgttg.html", "tags": ["Tumblr","Books","Photo","douglas adams","hgttg","life the universe and everything"] }, { "id": "http://genegualtieri.micro.blog/2020/08/11/slaughterhouse.html", "title": "Slaughterhouse 5", "content_html": "
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via Tumblr
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\n", "date_published": "2020-08-11T21:15:13-04:00", "url": "https://genegualtieri.com/2020/08/11/slaughterhouse.html", "tags": ["Tumblr","Books","literature","Photo","kurt vonnegut","slaughterhouse five"] }, { "id": "http://genegualtieri.micro.blog/2020/08/11/the-heart-is.html", "title": "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter", "content_html": "\n

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Carson McCullers. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1940. Oatmeal linen, original dust jacket. First edition.

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“The Heart is a lonely hunter with only one desire! To find some lasting comfort in the arms of anothers fire…driven by a desperate hunger to the arms of a neon light, the heart is a lonely hunter when there’s no sign of love in sight!” ― Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.\n books0977: via Tumblr
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\n", "date_published": "2020-08-11T15:40:37-04:00", "url": "https://genegualtieri.com/2020/08/11/the-heart-is.html", "tags": ["Tumblr","Books","Photo","carson mccullers","the heart is a lonely hunter"] }, { "id": "http://genegualtieri.micro.blog/2020/07/19/the-best-thing.html", "content_html": "

“The best thing for being sad,“ replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

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— T.H. White\n(via mythologyofblue)

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snortleme: from Tumblr ift.tt/30lmocf\nvia IFTTT ift.tt/eA8V8J

\n", "date_published": "2020-07-19T00:46:07-04:00", "url": "https://genegualtieri.com/2020/07/19/the-best-thing.html", "tags": ["Tumblr","IFTTT","Books","literature"] }, { "id": "http://genegualtieri.micro.blog/2019/07/27/how-to-read.html", "title": "How to Read “Infinite Jest” | The New Yorker", "content_html": "

Shouts & Murmurs by Claire Friedman: “Take a selfie with book ‘accidentally’ in background. Post on social media.”\n— Read on www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/05/how-to-read-infinite-jest

\n", "date_published": "2019-07-27T13:27:09-04:00", "url": "https://genegualtieri.com/2019/07/27/how-to-read.html", "tags": ["Wordpress","Books"] }, { "id": "http://genegualtieri.micro.blog/2019/02/01/jd-salingers-unseen.html", "title": "JD Salinger's unseen writings to be published, family confirms", "content_html": "

Exclusive: The Catcher in the Rye author’s son tells the Guardian estate will publish ‘all of what he wrote’ over next decade

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www.reddit.com/r/literature/comments/am7dtb/jd_salingers_unseen_writings_to_be_published/

\n", "date_published": "2019-02-01T21:17:58-04:00", "url": "https://genegualtieri.com/2019/02/01/jd-salingers-unseen.html", "tags": ["Wordpress","Books"] } ] }