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Greetings from Public Books, your fellow laborers in the media! Our corner of that space may be a bit different from yours, but still, you may know us—we’ve been mentioned from time to time for the work we do in bringing writers and ideas from within the academy to a general audience.
We could not help but notice that in your April 17 issue, you tasked author Michael Cunningham with listing “his favorite less-famous books by famous writers,” in a piece titled “The Great Literary B-Sides.” Allow us to mention some salient facts that came to our minds, at least, when this article was brought to our attention. First, since 2016 we have published a series we call B-Sides, conceived by founding editor Sharon Marcus, its name coined by former digital director Liz Maynes-Aminzade, and its decade of installments commissioned and curated by our longtime editor John Plotz, which aims to, in our words, “celebrate great books that time forgot”— often, in fact usually, great books by writers that time has not yet entirely forgot. Some writers of note that have written for our series includeUrsula K. Le Guin,Caleb Crain,Merve Emre,Timothy Bewes,Toril Moi; you likely recognize some of these names. We draw these names from a roster of scholars, critics, and creative writers who have contributed to a series that extends to over 80 such pieces. Second, this series has been so beloved by our readership that in 2021 Columbia University Press published many of these pieces, along with some written specifically for the volume, asB-Side Books: Essays on Forgotten Favorites. We can’t resist mentioning that one of the pieces in that book, by Kate Marshall, was about Solaris, which Michael Cunningham also singled out in his piece.
We here at Public Books are not averse to receiving homage; far from it. In fact we are proud of “B-Sides” and feel it deserves its readership. Let a thousand literary reevaluations bloom, we say! But we do tend to prefer that the homage be less tacit. Perhaps in the future your magazine might consider acknowledging Public Books as having pioneered the literary B-Side name and concept that you have found so congenial as to imitate?
Geraldo Cadava, Co-Editor in Chief
Nicholas Dames, Co-Editor in Chief
John Plotz, Series Editor, “B-Sides” 
