Saturday, January 03, 2026
Nitwittery Update: The Bias Against Novellas
Many agents and publishers won't take on short novels. The minimal word count requirement varies, but it can be as high as 60,000 words.
They will, however, accept short novels by established authors. Stephen King would have no difficulty, but if the writer is not well-known, the door is usually closed.
Translation: The following books, if written by unknown writers, would not be considered by many publishing houses and agents today:
Animal Farm, The Pearl, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Old Man and the Sea, Heart of Darkness, The Metamorphosis, A Christmas Carol, Of Mice and Men, The Stranger, The Little Prince, and The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
All of which brings to mind the great observation by historian Robert Conquest:
"The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies."
Classic
Tell me the tale of a man, Muse, who had so many roundabout ways
To wander, driven off course, after sacking Troy's hallowed keep;
Many the people whose cities he saw and whose way of thinking he learned,
Many the toils he suffered at sea, anguish in his heart
As he struggled to safeguard his life and the homecoming of his companions.
- From The Odyssey by Homer [Daniel Mendelsohn translation]
Friday, January 02, 2026
The Big Bad Apple
Claremont Review of Books: Christopher Caldwell on Mayor Mamdani's New York.
An excerpt:
Thus far, Mamdani has had extraordinary good fortune. With the Democratic Party in disarray last winter, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo looked like he could easily take the party’s nomination away from the scandal-tarred incumbent, the black ex-cop and later Trump ally Eric Adams. Cuomo, it’s true, had resigned the governorship under a cloud of sexual-harassment allegations in 2021. But his followers figured such peccadillos would matter less in the big city. What they hadn’t reckoned with was the way the city’s electorate had changed.
Thursday, January 01, 2026
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