Novelist Kate Christensen, who’s been in Tuscany this fall, sends holiday greetings, and a recipe for persimmon pudding. Hello from Tuscany, which contrary to all the books and movies turns out to be a gated-community-type suburban enclave, staggeringly beautiful as advertised, but very quiet except for the madly honking, bat-out-of-hell drivers on the narrow walled roads. Life here is calm . . .
Regarding the death of Oral Roberts, whose camp meetings in Tulsa I was dragged to for many years as a child: what Lindsay Robertson said. Shall we mark the occasion with a little Holy Laughter? (Yes, this is a real thing.)
A previously unpublished letter by Mark Twain on the failure of civilization appears in the December Harper’s.