Recommended Reading: Can desire thrive without freedom? On the works of Margaret Atwood and Michel Houellebecq in The Atlantic. Our essay on Atwood’s vision of the future and review of Ben Jeffery’s Anti-Matter: Michel Houellebecq and Depressive Realism pair nicely.
Desire and Freedom
New York: It Isn’t All That
Roxane Gay rounded up some of her favorite writers from “Outside of New York City.” (And she’s not talking about Brooklyn.)
The Darker Side of Jack London
“The United States has a startling ability to take its most angry, edgy radicals and turn them into cuddly eunuchs.” Johann Hari reviews James L. Haley’s new biography Wolf: The Lives of Jack London, at Slate.
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“Maybe being mesmerized is the last thing you remember”
“What I didn’t know then was that these decorations evolved from the Jewish menora, the Hebrew festival of lights. I don’t think my mother knew that either, but if she did she never mentioned it. And I certainly never contemplated the resemblance of a sleigh to a cradle. A sleigh is basically a very large cradle.” Mary Ruefle on Christmas trees.