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Jennifer Howard

Writer, editor, journalist.

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Journalism

“A paler shade of white”: HAVING AND BEING HAD by Eula Biss (review)

January 15, 2021 | The Times Literary Supplement

Given my interest in consumer culture and what it does to people, I was glad the TLS asked me to write about Eula Biss's new book about her own vexed relationship to things:

Having and Being Had dwells on Biss’s unease about her participation in a system whose values she does not embrace, even as she savours its rewards. No pleasure can be simple. She evokes the never-satisfied hunger that characterizes life as a consumer under late-stage capitalism: "In the furniture stores we visit, I’m filled with a strange unspecific desire. I want everything and nothing."
  Read More at The Times Literary Supplement »

“Do We Have Victorians to Thank for Consumerism?”

Sept. 2, 2020 | LitHub

Kinda yes, as I argue in this CLUTTER excerpt that ran in LitHub:

“Victorian” has persisted as a convenient if imprecise shorthand for a style that’s heavy in every sense. “Victorian decor” invokes curtains-drawn houses where light goes to die and where rooms are filled with furniture dark, heavy, and overstuffed. Victorian rooms, as we imagine them, were temples (or mausoleums) of things, with every surface— mantels, tabletops, shelves, sideboards—obscured by ceramic figurines and keepsakes, and every inch of wall covered with paintings and portraits.
Read the full essay. Read More at LitHub »

“Books have become the new ‘it’ fashion accessory. Is that such a bad thing?”

March 29, 2019 | The Washington Post

Supermodels Bella and Gigi Hadid made a splash recently when they were photographed toting their current reads. They're hardly the first beautiful people to use books as attention-getters. Think of Eve Arnold's iconic 1955 photo of Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses. I say we should celebrate, not snark. Read More at The Washington Post »

The Art of the Political Cartoon: A Vital, Vanishing Form

March 25, 2019 | Art & Object

Even as traditional outlets for it shrink, socially conscious art and the desire to make it remain as strong as ever. Read More at Art & Object »

“What We Lose by Reading 100,000 Words a Day”

Oct. 4, 2018 | The Washington Post

The ability to re-read long novels might not seem directly relevant to our current political dysfunction, but neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf makes a strong case that it is in her new book, Reader, Come Home. I reviewed the book for The Washington Post. Read More at The Washington Post »

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Recent Writing

  • “A paler shade of white”: HAVING AND BEING HAD by Eula Biss (review)
  • “Do We Have Victorians to Thank for Consumerism?”
  • “The Complicated Role of the Modern Public Library”

Recent Posts

  • Q&A: Virginia Festival of the Book Shelf Life
  • Podcast alert: Disentangling the clutter
  • Book event: Virginia Festival of the Book Shelf Life series

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Jen Howard sitting in front of a brick wall. She is smiling.

Writer, journalist, editor, gadabout. Book- and nature lover. Washingtonian. LLC. Read more »

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  • Q&A: Virginia Festival of the Book Shelf Life
  • Podcast alert: Disentangling the clutter
  • Book event: Virginia Festival of the Book Shelf Life series
  • Interview: “Rising Up With Sonali”
  • Live at East City Bookshop

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