November 2023
The big beige books
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The most important unreviewed books of our times, reviewed. On Xi Jinping’s The Governance of China, Volumes I to IV
Trouble at work and home while my son is abroad
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A story about living. « I have a family and I have a job and I have a teaching gig, and these things have me. »
Bad writing advice
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Writing advice is everywhere. Some of it might even be good! But we were interested in the bad.
Europe disenchanted
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A broad cast of characters who almost all speak to a solitary woe. This is Europe?
Forget your darlings
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On memory palaces, medieval and modern. A medieval woman’s life would not have taken the form of a straight line.
Visit the extractocene!
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The Eisenthür silver mine is real; the village below is entirely fictive.
Streuselkuchen
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A story about coolness. « The phone rings. It is Jim Jarmusch, and he asks if I want to come over to his place. »
Corrupted, yet intact
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On the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Europe of European integration.