My dad’s forebears were glad to tell you about my grandma’s Pre-Revolutionary Virginian ancestor and other lofty relations, but they seemed to suffer from a peculiarly targeted kind of amnesia when you started asking about the Newton line. I always assumed this caginess was limited to my little branch of the family tree, but recently I tracked down my granddad’s cousin, . . .
The New York Public Library has acquired Annie Proulx’s correspondence, early book drafts, notebooks, and sketches.
“We have sat here and consistently called books by women small & books by men large, by no quantifiable metric.” (Via.)
These are great days for the worried well. Hilary Mantel considers hypochondria. (See also.)
The novelist Felipe Alfau suggests that English imposes a stiff and unnatural logic on the Spanish immigrant. “He is a queer bird, the Americaniard … His health never suffered when he was at home, but the moment he learns a little English, he begins to consult the directory for physicians and psychoanalysts.” Meanwhile, Gary Shteyngart, when visiting his native Russia, . . .