November with Animals
The sunflowers have gone to seed.A squirrel made off with the head of oneHolding it square in his little paws, like a sandwich.The laying hen won’t...
Rehearsal for Genocide
The war in Ukraine has simultaneously forced to the surface and upended the memory of a history that had fallen into oblivion. The past, we see...
‘The Ultimate Asian Woman’
“Envy,” the psychologist Peter van Sommers writes, “concerns what you would like to have but don’t possess,” whereas jealousy “concerns what you have and do not...
A Game of Low Stakes
If you are writing a comedy about imitation, plagiarism, or simply the monotonous sameness of so much contemporary literature, so much contemporary discourse, it makes sense...
Subjects of Considerable Gossip
Greta Garbo was born in 1905 in one of the poorest sections of Stockholm. She lived in a cold-water flat with no indoor toilet. Salka Viertel...
Mothers Under Pressure
In an unusual confluence of transformative historical events, 1984 saw both the debut of the Apple Macintosh, with its monumental impact on personal computing, and the...
Benjamin’s Rival Tempters
In April 1940 Gershom Scholem wrote from Jerusalem to Theodor Adorno in New York about their mutual friend in Paris: “I am very worried about Walter...
The Monsters in Cabinet 13
Un-su Kim’s The Cabinet begins with an account of the peculiar fate of Ludger Sylbaris, one of those historical misfits whose story appears in compendia of...
Great Book Subscription Boxes for Kids
As a kid, there were few things better than getting something just for you in the mail (maybe it’s because kids don’t get bills?). Whether it...
