In a time of crisis, any decision is better than no decision at all. That line–credited to Theodore Roosevelt–is pop conventional wisdom. An excellent piece at Aeon explores the full implications of the line, and may just convince you that your next impossible choice should be made by a soothsayer, a lottery, or a flipped coin.
“The sanitising effect of augury”
Death of a Library
No matter what you think of the bookish offspring of the OED’s word of the year, you should know that Neil Gaiman gave the term “shelfie” some more press. While moving out of his house, the author took a “tragic shelfie,” aka a picture of his books packed away in boxes. (Related: our own Tess Malone reviewed Gaiman’s latest book.) (h/t The Paris Review)
On Lispector’s Humanity
“If rats then represent terror and chickens innocent striving for something approaching authenticity, humans, for Lispector, are strangely in the middle, often stricken with fear, or handing out terror, but ready also to soar or break loose or achieve some freedom or be fully alert to their fate in a time short enough for one of her stories to be enacted.” Colm Tóibín writes about Clarice Lispector’s The Complete Stories. You could also check out a Year in Reading by Katrina Dodson, translator of the collection and our review of the book.
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Shenandoah Online
After publishing print editions for 60 years, Shenandoah has entered the digital game.
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Poems Come Out
Recommended Reading: Adam Fitzgerald at LitHub interviews Deborah Landau about her newest collection of poetry, The Uses of the Body. Read it with this Leah Falk piece from The Millions about poets reading aloud.
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Highly Recommended
Some kind soul has put the title story from Alvin Levin’s under-appreciated collection Love Is Like Park Avenue online for all to enjoy. That means you.
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