Picture the trailer of “Eat Pray Love,” and you’ll get some idea of what it’s like to read “An Apprenticeship, or The Book of Pleasures” by Clarice Lispector. I say this because it’s a novel about a woman trying to find herself, but also because Lispector is one of the most accessible writers out there. [...]
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Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel “Klara and the Sun” (2021) and William Blake’s “Milton” (1810) have something unexpected in common: a preoccupation with a flat earth. Ishiguro’s protagonist Klara, an artificially intelligent robot, is obsessed with the sun. She loves watching the sun rise and set, and she is fascinated by the patterns of light on [...]
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In October 2020, indie rock singer Julien Baker released “Faith Healer,” a single that explores the fragile line between belief and disbelief, likening religious experience to a drug: the emptiness of getting clean and the desperation in scrambling to fill the void left behind. “Faith healer, come put your hands on me,” Baker sings. “A [...]
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At an archaeological museum, the unnamed main character of Patricia Lockwood’s newly released “No One Is Talking About This” encounters the petrified remains of a bog body, probably dating from some two thousand years ago. Except, in this novel, the protagonist describes the bog body as having a pointer finger “raised as if to post.” [...]
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Inauguration Day saw Amanda Gorman, the first National Youth Poet Laureate, read her poem “The Hill We Climb” to commemorate President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris being sworn into office. Gorman’s powerful vitality, presence and delivery immediately made her an internet sensation. She has already been immortalized on social media, with countless Instagram [...]
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