{ "item_title" : "No Judgment", "item_author" : [" Lauren Oyler "], "item_description" : "The essay collection everyone's talking about.--New YorkA MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2024: Elle, The Millions, LitHub, Nylon, BookPage, PureWow, and moreFrom the national bestselling novelist and essayist, a groundbreaking collection of brand-new pieces about the role of cultural criticism in our ever-changing world.In her writing for Harper's, the London Review of Books, The New Yorker, and elsewhere, Lauren Oyler has emerged as one of the most trenchant and influential critics of her generation, a talent whose judgments on works of literature--whether celebratory or scarily harsh--have become notorious. But what is the significance of being a critic and consumer of media in today's fraught environment? How do we understand ourselves, and each other, as space between the individual and the world seems to get smaller and smaller, and our opinions on books and movies seem to represent something essential about our souls? And to put it bluntly, why should you care what she--or anyone--thinks?In this, her first collection of essays, Oyler writes with about topics like the role of gossip in our exponentially communicative society, the rise and proliferation of autofiction, why we're all so vulnerable these days, and her own anxiety. In her singular prose--sharp yet addictive, expansive yet personal--she encapsulates the world we live and think in with precision and care, delivering a work of cultural criticism as only she can.Bringing to mind the works of such iconic writers as Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, and Terry Castle, No Judgment is a testament to Lauren Oyler's inimitable wit and her quest to understand how we shape the world through culture. It is a sparkling nonfiction debut from one of today's most inventive thinkers.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/06/323/535/0063235358_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "28.99", "online_price" : "28.99", "our_price" : "28.99", "club_price" : "28.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "28.99" } }

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With bylines in publications that include the London Review of Books, Harper’s and The New Yorker, Lauren Oyler has established herself as a cultural critic whose fresh, and often contrarian, assessments are well worth reading. Her first nonfiction book, No Judgment, comprises eight previously unpublished essays that will please Oyler’s admirers and serve as an excellent introduction to her preoccupations and literary style for those unfamiliar with her work. Whether she’s writing a personal essay, journalism or criticism, Oyler brings to the task evidence of wide reading, thoughtful engagement and vigorous prose. All of those qualities, along with her willingness to confront conventional wisdom, are manifested in “The Power of Vulnerability,” an essay in which she registers her protest against the “tyranny of vulnerability in emotional life” sparked by bestselling author Brené Brown’s wildly popular 2010 TED Talk. The sources that inform Oyler’s blistering critique include Sigmund Freud, the Aeneid and the NBC comedy “Parks and Recreation,” among others. Oyler demonstrates her facility for literary criticism in a lengthy essay discussing autofiction, a subject that’s of interest to her in view of some of the responses to her 2021 novel, Fake Accounts, whose protagonist’s life bears a certain resemblance to her own. When asked, she jokingly tells questioners, the work is 72% autobiographical. As she considers the works of contemporaries like Sally Rooney, Karl Ove Knausgård and Sheila Heti, Oyler deftly navigates the sometimes blurred boundary between fiction and nonfiction and the challenges facing those writing both. The collection’s revealing personal essays include “Why Do You Live Here?”, a lively account of her decision to settle in Berlin in 2021, and “My Anxiety,” Oyler’s exploration of her struggles to cope with everything from bruxism (teeth grinding) to insomnia. Her journalistic explorations of gossip and of online reviews, especially those on Goodreads, are both enlightening and provocative. Oyler is a writer who will have readers nodding in agreement on one page and shaking their heads vigorously on the next. Whatever the reaction at a given moment, one can rest assured that her writing is never dull.