{"id":1683,"date":"2019-02-19T17:27:07","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T17:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/?p=1683"},"modified":"2019-02-19T17:27:07","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T17:27:07","slug":"pretentiousness-done-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/2019\/02\/19\/pretentiousness-done-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Pretentiousness done right"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/02\/14\/books\/review\/janet-malcolmn-by-the-book.html?emc=edit_bk_20190215&amp;nl=book-review&amp;nlid=6526061820190215&amp;te=1\">God bless Janet Malcolm<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nocontest.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/MalcolmBooks.jpg?resize=640%2C480&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1684\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nocontest.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/MalcolmBooks.jpg?w=640&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nocontest.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/MalcolmBooks.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><strong>What books are on your nightstand?<\/strong><\/p><p>I take it you mean the imaginary Doric column  that supports a teetering pile of current and old books that the interviewee wants to bring to the reader\u2019s attention. My actual nightstand is a small wood table with a box of Kleenex, a two-year-old Garnet Hill catalog and a cough drop on it. When I go to bed I bring with me the book I am reading during the day. Right now it is the British edition of Sally Rooney\u2019s brilliant, enigmatic new novel, \u201cNormal People.\u201d<\/p><p><strong>How do you organize your books?<\/strong><\/p><p>I organize them by genre. The largest section is fiction, which I alphabetize. I also alphabetize poetry. The other sections \u2014 biography, autobiography, theater, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, history, classical literature, literary criticism, art, photography, books by friends \u2014 are not alphabetized. I can find my way around them. I have been doing a lot of rereading in recent years. Why have a large library and not use it? Why keep books, if you are not going to read them more than once? For the d\u00e9cor? The answer isn\u2019t entirely no. A book-lined room looks nice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God bless Janet Malcolm. What books are on your nightstand? I take it you mean the imaginary Doric column that supports a teetering pile of current and old books that the interviewee wants to bring to the reader\u2019s attention. My &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/2019\/02\/19\/pretentiousness-done-right\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[55],"class_list":["post-1683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roberts-posts","tag-journalism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}