Reading, Reading, Reading

Hi all,

1. I was interviewed by Daniel Drake for The New York Review of Books, and I was pleased to cover a lot of ground: thoughts on criticism and novels; my new crime fiction ambitions; the difficulty of getting reading done while raising small kids; and Tracks on Tracks, my new music magazine/newsletter.

2. Speaking of which … I launched Tracks on Tracks, my new music magazine/newsletter. Everyone who gets this newsletter should have received a launch notice explaining the idea. But just in case you missed that: Tracks on Tracks delivers short, stylish essays in which a writer (often me, sometimes a guest) examines their relationship to a single song. It’s been up for a week, and I’ve posted three pieces: one about Belle and Sebastian (and moving around a lot, and staying put), one about The Magnetic Fields (and feeling nostalgic for a past you once longed to escape), and one about Paul Simon (and the heady days of Occupy Wall Street). It’s been exciting and gratifying to write and edit these pieces, publish them myself, and watch them find readers. I imagine I’ll write more later about this process — an interesting one for a writer used to the production pipeline of traditional magazines.
   

3. I went on WNYC’s “Small Stakes, Big Opinions” to share my scalding hot take (first published in the New York Times Magazine) that instant coffee is fine. I ended up not talking much (fine by me); it was mostly people calling in sharing their own coffee theories and tips. One guy said he makes cups of instant and then puts in green tea bags! You can listen to the segment online. The most rewarding part was getting them to mention — you guessed it — Tracks on Tracks! Made it feel real …

Thanks for reading,
—Peter