Declaratives never work. There is always an exception for, or an argument against whatever hardened rule someone creates. Always. But what happens to Pinocchio’s nose when he says, “I’m lying”? We don’t always have the answers, and when talking about pop culture, those untrustworthy declaratives remain perpetually flawed, but they also become incredibly interesting. To Kill a Mockingbird is about to turn 50 and we’ll be inundated with wonderfully nostalgic rants about the book being the best novel of the 20th century, or the most important American book ever, or the first “this”, and the last “that”. The book deserves high praise, but I’m launching a pre-emptive strike. Other than being the best book Harper Lee ever wrote, it’s not the best anything. And despite being, possibly, the most read American novel of the 20th century, it can’t touch the upper echelon of American literature. You should read To Kill a Mockingbird, everybody should read it, but lets not overstate its place in history. That being said, hyperbole is also fun. So I’ve come up with some hyperbolic declaratives that are absolutely, positively, 100 percent true, and are beyond brilliant. Watch out James Wood.

Ah, summertime. To me, that means pretty much one thing: summer reading. If only my boss would hand me a stapled list of titles in June with SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER across the top, right? Le sigh. Summer means freedom. Even if you don’t have time off, there’s something about these months—the sheer length of the days, the sweltering heat, and the way barefoot-summer-night-fun is offset by the dull endlessness of a July afternoon—there’s something about summer that just begs you to do nothing. Or better, as my friend Albert Camus puts it, “The hardest time was summer, when the heat killed even the sweet sensation of boredom.” Okay, Albert is talking about the heat in Algeria, but it sounds an awful lot like summer in Texas to me. Sometimes the A/C just doesn’t cut it.

I love lists. If someone writes a list of their favorite styles of pickle, I’ll check it out, test their conclusions, and develop my own theories of pickle. A colossal waste of time, but I don’t care, nor do I think I’m alone. So, when the New Yorker came out with their list of 20 American writers under 40 that will become, or already are the key writers of their generation, I was intrigued.