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THE POWER OF HOPE

Rebecca Solnit:
Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists.

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REMEMBERING MY MOTHER

There’s a photo sitting on the chest in our bedroom of my mother and me. We’re sitting side by side, probably at our dining room table.

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LIVING WITHOUT A HOME

Yesterday I read two different reviews of Claire Messud’s new novel This Strange Eventful History. I’ve added the book to my way-too-tall to-be-read pile.

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TOO MANY DETAILS, NOT ENOUGH STORY

Facing yet again a long silence from one blog post to the next, I stumbled on this passage from Amit Chaudhuri’s first novel A Strange and Sublime Address.

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MISSING THE STORY FOR THE DETAILS

Amit Chaudhuri:
… why did these houses seem to suggest that an infinitely interesting story might be woven around them?

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LIVE AND LET LIVE

William James:
The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours.

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