About this episode
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 . 🚨 T-shirts are now available ! 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. Support the show