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The sorry state of everything: The June 2026 Bibliofiles
Lately I’ve been reading about the sorry state of:
- tech
- books coverage
- the World Cup
- weird lit
- publishing tax credits
- and dead gods
That’s what passes for summer reading with me!
Fiction
Godfall by Bruno Lombardi
Imagine a whalefall, only with the body of a god.
When a god falls screaming from the sky and comes to rest in the depths of the sea, creatures of all sorts come to scavenge its body — including the people that live nearby. But giving up the fishing life to scavenge the remains of a god comes at a price.
Link: https://magazine.trollbreath.com/godfall/
Non-fiction
Enshittification by Cory Doctorow
We’ve all had a feeling that the Internet and other new technologies have been getting worse for some time, perhaps even since the moment they were launched. Cory Doctrow has given this a name — enshittification — and says it is intentional.
Doctorow lists case after case of tech companies that offered a useful product, then slowly made it worse for users to extract the maximum value possible, until the product itself has been transformed into something terrible and often bad for its once enthusiastic fan base. Apple, Facebook, Netflix, X (formerly known as Twitter) — they’re all indicted here and rightfully so. Doctorow isn’t wrong in his claims.
This isn’t just a catalog of companies gone bad, however. Doctorow suggests much more is at stake if we don’t take action to push back against such enshittification. Once again, he’s correct. If the companies know we’ll roll over and take whatever abuse they have to offer, then why would they change their ways?
Doctorow pushes for a number of actions, all of which prioritize consumer rights. But really, the best action may be to rethink our relationships with tech altogether, such as many are trying to do with AI at the moment. It’s useful here to consider the proposals of another thinker on the subject, Cal Newport, who in his book Digital Minimalism argues we have become subservient to new technologies and we need to reverse that relationship. To do so, we must consciously determine what we need from such products and use them only in ways that serve us rather than the other way around.
Both Doctorow and Newport may be unrealistically hopeful in their views that we can prevent or at least navigate the enshittification of well, everything, but where will we end up if we don’t at least try?
Comedy Sex God by Pete Holmes
Pete Holmes takes you through the history of his life in Comedy Sex God, and the title pretty much reflects it all. Holmes grapples with faith in God when his marriage falls apart, then finds a path toward a new sort of spiritualism and love as his comedy career takes off. It’s a thoughtful — and yes, comic — account of his struggle to make meaning of his life. While it may mainly be for fans of his comedy, it’s also an intriguing read for anyone who is looking for ways to find God in the world itself outside of the traditional dogma of religions.
Related reads would include Nick Cave’s Faith, Hope and Carnage and Christian Wiman’s My Bright Abyss.
While others downsize literary coverage into oblivion, we’re launching a books section by Carmine Starnino
The Walrus is trying to resurrect the books section of opinion and literary feuding.
“I want the section to not just point to the latest interesting reads. I want it to be the spearpoint of a broader return to a kind of consensus-testing commentary that is harder and harder to find. I want more reassessments, more polemics, more manifestos, more feuding. I want the spectacle of people publicly wrestling with ideas they care about too much. I want everyone, at some point, to end up a bit offended.”
I’m not one for literary feuds but I do like a good manifesto! We’ll see how this turns out.
The World Cup is an economic sinkhole by Moshe Lander
I’ve somehow found myself to be a middle-aged soccer dad despite never being an athlete in my life, so I was initially excited about the World Cup coming to Vancouver.
Until I saw the ticket prices, of course. And realized how much it was costing the city and country.
Is the World Cup a good investment? Maclean’s certainly doesn’t think so.
Time will tell, I suppose.
Link: https://macleans.ca/economy/the-world-cup-is-an-economic-sinkhole/
Bored of the Swords: The Rebirth of Sword & Sorcery and the Death of the Weird by Cynthia Ward
Make sword & sorcery weird again.
“I began reading and writing S&S mid-century because, damn, was it weird! S&S prose and comics had barbarians and Amazons and nomads. Sorcerers and witches and priests. Mercenaries and pirates and thieves. Demons and gods and dinosaurs. Peasants and princesses and kings. Elves and dwarves and mer-folk. Bards and spear-women and serial killers. The disabled and the maimed and the accursed. And any of these characters could have a starring role, and many of the stars occupied more than one category (most famously, Elric of Melniboné, the disabled nonhuman prince granted strength by a demonic sword, and Conan of Cimmeria, barbarian, thief, mercenary, pirate, king, and more).”
Link: https://reactormag.com/the-rebirth-of-sword-and-sorcery-and-the-death-of-the-weird/
The case for a federal publishing tax credit by Marc Cote
Does Canada need a federal tax credit program to support Canadian book publishers? If Canadians want to read Canadian stories, then something needs to be done.
Link: https://quillandquire.com/omni/opinion-the-case-for-a-federal-publishing-tax-credit/
peter darbyshire 