The Making of McKinsey: A Brief History of Management Consulting in America
Longreads Members not only support our daily service, but their financial support allows us to go out and find stories and book chapters that aren’t already available on the web. As part of our Longreads Member Drive, we’re excited to share our latest Member Pick with everyone—it’s an excerpt from Duff McDonald’s new book, The Firm, on the history of McKinsey. Thanks to McDonald and Simon & Schuster for sharing it with the Longreads community.
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Longreads Member Exclusive: The Anthologist (Excerpt)
This week’s Longreads Member pick is Chapter 1 from Nicholson Baker’s 2009 novel, The Anthologist, published by Simon & Schuster. The excerpt comes recommended by Hilary Armstrong, a literature student at U.C. Santa Barbara and a Longreads intern. She writes:
“Someone I love once told me that they don’t understand poetry. It’s all random line breaks and rhythms she can hear aloud, but not read on paper—and what is a poem other than the observer of something beautiful showing off? What is there to condense in a poem that hasn’t been done already? Why is poetry so highfalutin and important?
“The Anthologist follows a man who loves poetry but is struggling with it, or, more specifically, struggling to write an introduction to a poem anthology. He talks about poems as song lyrics, as logical progressions, and as the backbeat to all art. He answers the common questions surrounding poetry, and clarifies some of the deeper ones. If you are a writer, reading this book has a similar effect that reading High Fidelity does after a breakup.
“In The Anthologist, Nicholson Baker accomplishes something amazing and resonant—reading it feels like having one of those really savory conversations with someone else, someone who ‘gets’ you like no one else at the party does.”
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