“Every generation rewrites the book’s epitaph; all that changes is the whodunit.”

Could e-books be one 2012 presidential candidate’s secret weapon? Perhaps. So, too, could a very talented hair stylist.

“Perhaps postcards best capture a nostalgia inherent to the passerby.” Our own Bruna Dantas Lobato writes about literary postcards and how we imbue images with our own meanings for Ploughshares. You could also read about images that inspire authors from another one of our staffers, Edan Lepucki.

“I am lately returned from a pilgrimage, bearing bloodied knees and a holy relic; my destination was a place of love and sacrifice that’s lived long in my heart. No Lourdes for me, though: I went to the Reichenbach Falls.” Sarah Perry makes a pilgrimage to the death place of Sherlock Holmes and writes about it for the Guardian.