Category: Articles
Wired Love
-… — .-.. -. is how we first meet the romantic interest in Ella Cheever Thayer’s 1880 novel Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes. “Just a noise,” claims our lead Nattie, a telegraphist who comes to rely on that noise for daily comfort. We read. She hears. With a moment, Thayer has demonstrated what is special about the game of love.
Trumpular
As I write this, the world is waking to news of Trump’s indictment. It’s a moment many Americans stopped anticipating long ago, attuned as we were to the never ending cycle of outraged media anchors, pontificating legal experts, and promises that this time, things were different. As they were with the Mueller report. As they were on January 6. And so on, and so on… except this time, it was true. Things were – are – different.
A year in Provence, by Peter Mayle
Could anything sound more appealing to those of us ripped away from break and planted in lecture seats? With A Year in Provence, his 1989 memoir about slow living in the south of France, Peter Mayle has this and many more ways to inspire envy in anyone with obligations. For the modern expat crowd, he (…)
Secondhand time, by Svetlana Alexievich
Nearly a year after Russia ramped up its war in Ukraine, the editor-in-chief of RT assuaged viewer confusion over Putin’s aims by claiming that, actually, the end goal of the invasion was “deliberately complicated and vague.” Trying to understand how public support can brush off this patronization boggles the mind. Turn to Western media or (…)
Hot zone, by Richard Preston
Kaede Johnson A distant, mysterious traveler explores a “black shadow under the Milky Way.” Beneath him, a blood red road. He disembarks before an extinct volcano, bushwacks through poisonous forest, cowers while beasts march near. At last: Kitum Cave. It is magnificent. It is horrible. Crystals sprout from fossilized bone. A vibrant green guano paste (…)
Lancelot, by Giles Kristian
There exists a fine line separating historical truth from legend. History, while beautiful, sometimes lacks the ability to bring its main characters to life through facts alone. On the other hand, legends offer romanticized versions of history, envisioning the day-to-day drama our favorite historical characters.
Becoming wild, by Carl Safina
It is a relatively new discovery that of animals having personalities and feelings. It has perhaps taken us so long because they don’t manifest these traits as us humans do. However, it is only since we have stopped seeing animals (or as Carl Safina likes to call them ‘Life companions’) through a strictly scientific lens, that we have begun to understand them more deeply, more holistically. ‘Becoming Wild’ by Carl Safina is an eye opening book that takes what we know about our Life companions far beyond what we are usually told.