Kwame Anthony Appiah: evaluation

Transcript context

…How does that work? For example, the column — I almost always work on the column at the weekend in the living room of our house in New Jersey. I work for six or seven hours, maybe, just with a laptop and the questions and occasional cups of coffee, and that’s a very productive space for me. I get that done that way. Here in New York, I almost never get anything done in either of my offices. I have an office in the law school, an office in the philosophy department, but in this very room, too, I also sometimes sit with my laptop, and again, I can sit for six or seven hours and write things. I’ve actually almost never done a column in this space for some reason, so that’s usually writing lectures or articles or reviews. I have a beautiful study in New Jersey, and I’ve never managed to write a single word in it. It somehow doesn’t work for me. I have a lovely desk, and I’m surrounded by a lovely library of books, and there’s a fireplace and so on, but it just doesn’t work. The place that works is sitting in a living room with a laptop on my lap. I love the novel Milkman, by the way. What have you learned from chairing the Booker Prize?…

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