“Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away. And though hope can be an act of defiance, defiance isn’t enough reason to hope. But there are good reasons.” Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things To Me, on maintaining hope and resisting defeatism.
Wild Possibilities
Old Last Words
Last Friday was T.S. Eliot’s birthday, and to mark the occasion, Sadie Stein looked back on his 1965 Times obituary. As it turns out, it uses a phrase -- now obscure -- that was popularized by Nancy Mitford in the anthology Noblesse Oblige.
New Sherlock Holmes Story
The last few weeks have been all about rediscovered works by beloved authors, first Harper Lee's upcoming sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, then Dr. Seuss's What Pet Should I Get? Now Arthur Conan Doyle joins the trend with a rediscovered Sherlock Holmes short story, available online from Vulture.
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New Lethem
Did you know Jonathan Lethem's a really good essayist? Thought so. Did you know he has a 450-page collection, The Ecstasy of Influence, coming out in November? Me neither. An amuse-bouche, on Norman Mailer, is up at the L.A. Review of Books.
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Best Illustrated Children’s Books
Look, we know it's nice to read highbrow literary fiction all the time, but sometimes you need a break. Luckily, here is a helpful list of the best illustrated children's books of 2016 from the folks over at The New York Times.
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Should I stay or should I god-OH?
How do you pronounce the name of the titular character from Samuel Beckett’s play, Waiting for Godot? Is it GOD-oh or is it god-OH? Or is it a third variant altogether? While investigating the question for The New York Times, Dave Itzkoff has found that there may not be a correct answer, after all.
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Tanenhaus—author, critic, masochist
Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times Book Review, talks to Noah Charney about his life, his work, and his taste in books. Answers are typical but insightful, with one incredibly colorful exception: Tanenhaus’s ideal workplace is bizarre. (Hint: The atmosphere falls somewhere between a nuclear fallout shelter and the kind of place you would keep a hostage and it’s nothing like where we write.)
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New from Diane Williams
In the most recent issue of Pank, read new fiction from Diane Williams. We review her collection Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty.
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