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Courtesy Tertulia
Courtesy Tertulia

This New App Gives Readers a Place to Convene and Connect

Julian Shen-Berro

November 1, 2022
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How or when do we talk about the books that move us? Perhaps at a dinner party. With a bookstore clerk or librarian. Maybe on Twitter or Facebook. Raving to a friend.

For those of us hoping for yet another form of book talk—and, connected to that, discovery—additional solace can be found in the form of the new app Tertulia. Inspired by informal salons in Spanish cafés and bars where people gather to exchange ideas and discuss political and artistic nuances, Tertulia condenses recommendations across forms of media and social media in a single space, offering a comprehensive window into book conversations happening around the world.

When first signing up for the app, users are prompted to select three or more genres of books that interest them (I chose Literature & Fiction, Mystery, and New Non-Fiction). Next, they indicate what kind of chatter they hope to hear synthesized in the personalized “book café” (I picked authors, book critics, and journalists). This allows them to include authors, critics, journalists, and even those they follow on Twitter. Based on my selections and data, the app opened on Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout and The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, with recommendations from the likes of musical artist Dua Lipa and author Madeline Miller.

From there, users can browse the Tertulia virtual bookstore’s “shelves,” with selections curated by trusted voices across the literary and media worlds—synthesizing, for example, reviews from notable critics, Twitter chatter from authors and media figures, and even podcast mentions of books within the confines of the app. For Celeste Ng’s Our Missing Hearts, that included a New York Times review, a tweet from writer Dolen Perkins-Valdez, and even an Instagram post from actress Reese Witherspoon.

Various pages of the Tertulia app. (Courtesy Tertulia)
Various pages of the Tertulia app. (Courtesy Tertulia)

Tertulia allows users to purchase books directly from the app, build out personal lists, and scroll through trending stories. It can be difficult to cut through the noise of the hundreds of thousands of books that are published every year, and while community-oriented platforms like Goodreads (which since 2013 has been owned by Amazon) and the Bookly app already exist, Tertulia serves as an alternative, even more helpful and personalized tool for readers attempting to sift through it all. It’s also a way to steer away from the book-buying grip of Amazon.

So if “we tell ourselves stories in order to live,” as Joan Didion once said, then perhaps Tertulia aids us in tackling the next part of that equation. Maybe we tell each other about stories so that they, too, might live as we have. In this new app comes a way for us to draw closer to the books that bind us, inspire us, or even destroy us. For all those emotions that books and words might elicit, here arrives an app that aims to help us in sharing more widely in them.

# Books# Technology

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It’s late August, and I’m walking on Grand Street in Lower Manhattan. It’s one of those summer evenings that’s cooler than expected, a pleasant foreshadowing of fall. I’m on my way to discuss compost with the artist Alex Tatarsky, and as I head east from the subway, I pass through the dense, networked scents of the edge of Chinatown: the briny tang of fish markets, the sweet snatch of a fresh egg waffle from a rolled ice cream shop, the yeasty cloud that floats around the famous bialy shop. Approaching Abrons Art Center, where Tatarsky is doing pick-up rehearsals for an out-of-town run of their show Dirt Trip, this close-packed olfactory landscape opens up into something with more space: a faint vegetal whiff from a small vacant lot, the not unpleasant chemical tang from a passing truck, and beyond these, the smell of a certain rot rolling in from the East River.

Courtesy Blue Note Records

culture

An Album of Cover Songs Honors the Legacy of Leonard Cohen

Though nearly six years have gone by since Leonard Cohen’s passing, the long shadow cast by his legacy as one of the 20th century’s most esteemed and idiosyncratic singer-songwriters shows no signs of lifting from the public’s imagination anytime soon. From the enveloping warmth of “Suzanne,” to the high drama of “Hallelujah,” to the chilling minimalist and gospel juxtaposition of his swansong “You Want it Darker,” Cohen managed to constantly reinvent himself, leaving behind the rare achievement of a musical body of work whose most impressive moments exist across eras.

Courtesy OMA

culture

For a Tiffany & Co. Pop-Up in Paris, OMA Designs a Literal Jewelry Box

Hiring a world-class architecture firm to design a tiny temporary retail space may seem an extravagant choice, but given the high aspirations of Tiffany & Co.—especially now that it’s owned by the French luxury conglomerate LVMH—it makes sense for the American jewelry company’s Paris debut under its new French banner.