Listen to Culture Gabfest No.94 with Stephen Metcalf, Jody Rosen, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner by clicking the arrow on the audio player below:

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In this week's Culture Gabfest, our critics Stephen Metcalf, Jody Rosen, Dana Stevens, and Julia Turner discuss the age when novelists hit their prime, the latest single from Liz Phair (she raps!), and the end of music writer Robert Christgau's "Consumer Guide." 

Here are some links to the things we discussed this week:

Sam Tanenhaus' essay on writers who peaked  young  in the New York Times.
The New Yorker's  Summer Fiction Edition.
The op-ed "10 Under 10" in the New York Times.
Slate's "80 Over 80"  list from 2009.
Liz Phair's official  Web site, where you can hear her new track "Bollywood."
Music writer Robert Christgau's take on  The Boss  and an early  Prince  album for his column Consumer Guide.

The Culture Gabfest weekly endorsements:

Dana's pick: Thomas Jefferson's  erasure  in the Washington Post and Dana and June's video endorsement. 
Julia's pick: Rapper J. Cole's video for "Who Dat."
Steve's pick: Mary Lou Lord's song "His Indie World"  and Eliot Coleman's  gardening book.
Jody's pick:  Cartographies of Time  by Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton and "The Glory of Love," Peter Cetera's theme for  Karate Kid II.

Outro: Peter Cetera's "The Glory of Love"

You can e-mail us at  culturefest@slate.com.

Posted on July 7 by Jesse Baker at 11:15 a.m.