Another way to look at it is that not all books are literature. Literature is its own special category because it’s a tool for building culture. The 10k latte-

Another way to look at it is that not all books are literature. Literature is its own special category because it’s a tool for building culture. The 10k latte-sipping moneys banging on their MacBooks at the local co-work hub will never make literature because intent matters. You have a job to do. That job is to be a truth teller. to tell society the bitter truths they’d rather not hear. That’s why you have to hide it under a story. Salman Rushdie for example. The satanic verses. A book may be very well written, so much so that it can be said it had artistic merit, but for a book to have literary merit, it needs to play a part in the culture wars.