The history of the genre is problematic at best. "Any writer writing a Western—even a literary Western—knows that they stand on the threshold of creating something that’s equally capable of rocking backward as it is of propelling forward." - LitHub
MacKenzie Scott's billions of Amazon dollars worth of donations came at a seriously good time. Why is her focus a surprise? Because "museums, musicals and violin lessons aren’t usually top of mind for donors in times of crisis, when so many other pressing needs crowd the landscape." - Washington Post
"The students are very fearful about their future - not just of their education and their programme, but also about their life. They do not feel safe in Afghanistan." - BBC
The political leaders and famous personages that tower over our imaginations are condensed to life-size. They make grubby, horrid choices; they bumble, fumble, and scheme their way through moments of import. - The New Republic
In a show whose segments are punctuated by dollar amounts, there’s actually a quiet, persistent suggestion to direct our aspirations somewhere else: history, family, sentiment, even love. - The Atlantic
“Scientists have searched fruitlessly for brain boundaries between thinking, feeling, deciding, remembering, moving and other everyday experiences." But these "are poor guides for understanding how brains are structured or how they work.” - Quanta
It’s a truism that high culture, as it used to be known, has been steadily losing its authority since the rise of mass culture in the early twentieth century. - New Criterion
"Like Marcel, we've spent decades building our models of the world, and like him we're starting to see them for the gimcrack that they are. We're beginning to sense just how much effort is involved in holding a person together." - Literary Hub
Most authors have day jobs, which is nothing new; Herman Melville worked as a customs inspector. The difference in 2021 is that traditional side careers are less viable and also less “side.” - Vanity Fair
Certainly one encounters more kissing, bare skin, and profanity today than when there was a single, state-owned channel. (More high-quality scripts, too.) Studios like to claim that today's groundbreaking shows deal provocatively with difficult social issues — but some of the ground has been broken before. - BBC
If you want to summarize the changes in family structure over the past century, the truest thing to say is this: We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families. - The Atlantic
From the first Nocturne ever published (by John Field in 1814), to Chopin and Debussy and Britten, on to Max Richter's "eight-hour lullaby" Sleep, Anna Meredith's Four Tributes To 4am, and Craig Armstrong's new Nocturnes for two pianos, here are suggested soporifics for the stressed-out. - BBC
