Chris Jackson co-founded the bookstore McNally Jackson, edited Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and is making the stupidly white world of literary publishing a little more diverse: “The lens that we have is a way in which we can claim the entire world.”

How an old Philip Roth remark sort of predicted Donald Trump: “The American writer in the middle of the twentieth century has his hands full trying to understand, describe, and then make credible much of American reality.”

And speaking of the absurdity of American reality: “Amazon is planning to open hundreds of physical bookstores.”

Nathan Heller on airplanes: “Flight is the best metaphor for writing that I know.”

Saudi Arabia almost executes a poet: “The pen has yet to be proven mightier than the sword.”

Photo of Chris Jackson by Shaniqwa Jarvis for the New York Times