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The I Index

Everything and Less: The Novel in the Age of Amazon

Maybe someday

34

/100

I Index Overall Rating

Readers

4/100

Critics

2/100

Scholars

96/100

Author:

Mark McGurl

Publisher:

Verso

Date:

October 19, 2021

Critic Mark McGurl explores this new world where writing is no longer categorized as high or lowbrow, literature or popular fiction.

What The Reviewers Say

Dan Sinykin,
Los Angeles Review of Books
Everything and Less, the third of McGurl’s trilogy, accounts for the very contemporary history of the US novel in the 21st century, and embraces, with endearing if possibly embarrassing gusto, genre fiction.
Parul Sehgal,
The New Yorker
McGurl unearths inviting weirdness, surreal experimentation, kinky political utopias, and even sweetness.
Leah Price,
The New York Times Book Review
McGurl doesn’t interview novel readers. Nor does he data-mine customer reviews (as other literature professors like James F. English and Ed Finn have recently done) or pump publishing professionals for industry details.
Robert Weibezahl,
BookPage
His probing new book, Everything and Less, offers an intriguing examination of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) as a tentacle of the larger megabeast that is Amazon and how the digital platform has been shaped by the business ethos of the Everything Store.