Review_NONFICTION94 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ SEPTEMBER 2, 2019
Review_NONFICTION Review_NONFICTIONClearly outlining “the little patch of
light” that he pictures as comprising
human knowledge, Grayling’s superb
work is an indispensable resource for any
“serious student of ideas.” (Nov.)The Moves That Matter: A Chess
Grandmaster on the Game of Life
Jonathan Rowson. Bloomsbury, $27 (352p)
ISBN 978-1-63557-332-9
Chess grandmaster Rowson (The Seven
Deadly Chess Sins) draws on an incredibly
deep well of knowledge in history, philos-
ophy, and the humanities to posit chess as
a “meta-metaphor” for life in this insightful
work. Believing chess to be “the best kind
of freedom” because it involves “choosing
your constraints wisely and claiming
them as your own,” Rowson ably trans-
lates many complex concepts into easily
understood principles. Organized
according to the chessboard’s 64-square
layout, his persuasive analysis is broken
into eight chapters of eight vignettes,
such as “Thinking and Feeling,”
“Winning and Losing,” “Learning and
Unlearning,” and “Cyborgs and
Civilians.” Each chapter begins with an
illustrative memory; for instance, in
“Power and Love,” Rowson recalls how
comparing himself to his profiler, jour-
nalist Hugo Rifkind, caused him to
reflect on his own insignificance with
happy acceptance: “Success, after all, is
not what one has achieved in life, but
what one has overcome to achieve it.”
For Rowson, having combativeness to
what he considers the universal “status
anxiety” provides the deep satisfaction of
“successful underachievement.” Mining
the “meaningful insignificance” and
“insignificant meaningfulness” of chess,
Rowson’s charming work will provide a
pleasing structure for any reader looking
for self-help advice, and will particularly
appeal to chess players. (Nov.)Think, Write, Speak: Uncollected
Essays, Reviews, Interviews, and
Letters to the Editor
Vladimir Nabokov, edited and trans. from the
Russian by Brian Boyd and Anastasia Tolstoy.
Knopf, $30 (576p) ISBN 978-1-101-87491-2
The more than 150 essays, interviews,
and letters collected in this volume, some
translated from the Russian for the first
time, serve as an illuminating comple-Parts of this collection analyze pop
culture. Are you able to enjoy popular
media while still keeping your critical
mask on?
I don’t think you can write about pop
culture without a deep love for pop
culture. It’s one of the more accessible
archaeological objects that we have as
an ongoing record of the present, when
it comes to thinking about mythology,
racial aesthetics, and
American culture. It’s
impossible to watch and
turn your brain off entirely,
so it’s a pragmatic question:
do I want to save this in the
back of my mind to write
about later?How should white con-
sumers of media approach
material that’s accessible to them but
not created for them?
When Beyoncé’s Lemonade came out,
there was a refrain in social media of
“[white people,] this is not for you.” I
get it. It’s intended to preempt the
space that is so often given to white
confusion. But popular culture doesn’t
work like that. When you’re
approaching something that doesn’t
immediately make itself available to
your understanding, the ethical
response should be curiosity. It’s always
okay to be confused. The problem
people run into is when they want to
give their confusion more space than
is actually deserved. But I think being
quietly curious is a good thing and the
best way to approach things cross-cul-
turally. You can do research, whichsounds so formal, but we all have
Google, we have friends, we have
educators.What advice do you have for white
creators who feel inspired by the work
of artists of color, or trends from black
communities, but who don’t want to
be appropriative?
Citation matters. Every discipline has
embedded ways of giving
credit to the people who
came before. There’s a cogni-
zance around being inspired
by, borrowing from, or
building upon the work of
white creators that falls away
when it comes to black art-
ists, creators, and inventors.
It’s not a matter of making
up a practice that wasn’t
there, but of reevaluating the ways in
which you treat sources according to
their cultural background.Do you expect white and black readers
to approach your work differently?
Given the disparity between white life
and black life in America, I expect a
racial division in how people interpret
the words. Black readers might be nod-
ding and thinking, “This totally reso-
nates with me” at some moments when
white readers think, “I’m not sure
about this” or are overly enthusiastic.
The book is not intended to be puni-
tive. I wanted it to be an exploration
and an unfolding of the racial aesthetics
that we often take for granted. I hope
there’s a pedagogical aspect over the
didactic. —Vicki Borah Bloom[Q&A]
PW Talks with Lauren Michele Jackson
Quietly Curious
In White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue... and Other Thoughts on
Cultural Appropriation (Beacon, Nov.; reviewed on p. 95), literature
professor Jackson explores how appropriation manifests in music, art,
memes, and more.© JorgeI. Cotte