Lost and Wanted
Nell Freudenberger
"In the first few months after Charlie died, I began hearing from her much more frequently. This was even more surprising than it might have been, since Charlie wasn’t a good correspondent even when she was alive."
Home Archive by category Excerpts (Page 73)
Excerpts
Crossing
Pajtim Statovci, translated by David Hackston
"When I think about my own death, the moment it happens is always the same. I’m wearing a plain, colored shirt and a matching pair of pants, cut from thin material that’s easy to pull on. It’s early in the morning and I am happy, I feel the same sense of contentment and satisfaction as I do at the first mouthfuls of my favorite meal. There are certain people around me, I don’t know them yet, but one day I will, and I’m in a certain place, lying on my hospital bed in my own room, nobody is dying around me, outside the day is slowly struggling to its feet like a rheumatic old man, I hear certain words from the mouths of my loved ones, a certain touch on my hand, and the kiss on my cheek feels like the home I have built around me like a shrine."
The Republic
Joost de Vries, translated by Jane Hedley-Prôle
"Moments after arriving in Chile I slipped on the aircraft steps, and although my fall was broken by various items of hand luggage and the elderly couple in front of me, I still hit the tarmac with considerable force. I mostly felt embarrassed. A stewardess hurried over and took me to a first-aid post at the terminal, where a young doctor cleaned and bandaged the graze on my upper arm. Sorted. A mere ten minutes later I was in a taxi."
Olive Schreiner: Charlotte Brontë of South Africa, 19th-Century Celebrity
On Compassion and Dissent in an Outpost of Empire
The Old Drift
Namwali Serpell
"Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Over the past year, Thandiwe had developed an internal clock for when the seat-belt sign would go off. As the plane’s steep climb slowly tilted forward and evened out, she counted. Tick. Tick. DING."
A Change of Time
Ida Jessen, translated by Martin Aitken
"January 3, 1904. I am on my way now. Everything is packed. I haven’t even the time to write this. I shall continue later."
Meet the Reclusive Woman Who Became a Pioneer of Science Fiction
The Amazing Stories of Clare Winger Harris
Did Seneca Write a Treatise on Anger in Response to Unstable Leaders?
"Your anger is a kind of madness." The Ancients Talking About Twitter, Probably
Deep Time and an Uncertain Futureon the Orkney Islands
Considering Energy Solutions in Remote Communities
The Quest to Acquire the Oldest, Most Expensive Book on the Planet
Unwrapping the Most Beautiful Gutenberg of Them All
Arturo’s Island
Elsa Morante, translated by Ann Goldstein
"Seeing her again now, I was ashamed that the day before I’d been so intimate with her, going so far as to tell her my secrets! On the bench, forgotten, was my book of Great Leaders: and that sight increased my shame. Angrily I opened the French door, and then finally she saw me."
Barry Lopez on the Hard Question of Humanity’s Survival
Thoughts on Life from a Remote Arctic Island
Make Me a City
Jonathan Carr
"The very title of Mr. Winship’s rambling, labyrinthine tome about Chicago in the nineteenth century hints at the confusion that lies in store for the unsuspecting reader. His opus, claims the author, is both 'Alternative' and a 'History.' An 'Alternative,' one wonders, to what? Any attempt to compare Mr. Winship’s book with the work of serious historians who have addressed key periods of the century gone by would soon founder. For a text to be categorized as 'history' implies, does it not, that attention has been paid to historical truth and accuracy? Anyone, then, who ignores facts or, even worse, blithely distorts facts for his own 'Alternative' purposes has no right to attach the label of 'History' to his offering."
Memories of the Future
Siri Hustvedt
"Years ago I left the wide, flat fields of rural Minnesota for the island of Manhattan to find the hero of my first novel. When I arrived in August of 1978, he was not a character so much as a rhythmic possibility, an embryonic creature of my imagination, which I felt as a series of metrical beats that quickened and slowed with my steps as I navigated the streets of the city. I think I was hoping to discover myself in him, to prove that he and I were worthy of whatever story came our way. I wasn’t looking for happiness or comfort in New York City. I was looking for adventure, and I knew the adventurer must suffer before he arrives home after countless trials on land and sea or is finally snuffed out by the gods. I didn’t know then what I know now: As I wrote, I was also being written. The book had been started long before I left the plains. Multiple drafts of a mystery had already been inscribed in my brain, but that didn’t mean I knew how it would turn out. My unformed hero and I were headed for a place that was little more than a gleaming fiction: the future."
Oksana, Behave!
Maria Kuznetsova
"Papa had been the USSR Math Olympics champion when he was sixteen, but all he’d managed to achieve was working for Goldman Sachs. He had competed all over the Soviet Union, from Tallinn to Vladivostok, and had even gotten to shake Brezhnev’s hand in a big ceremony when he won. But nobody cared about the Math Olympics in America. Mama loved to remind me of all of Papa’s sacrifices for our family and told me to go easy on him, especially when he did things that were “good for his soul,” like blasting classical music in his car as loud as humanly possible without caring about his passengers—namely, me. That morning, I massaged my temples, hoping Papa would get the picture, amazed that even classical music could be offensive at a high volume."
James Joyce’s Dublin, a Microcosm of the World
The Streets in Ulysses Are the Streets of the Everyman
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