Glitter and guts

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On undoing

Non-fictionI am forty before I visit Europe, still ignorant that a century before me my great-grandfather had walked those same cobblestones. That he had fought in a war that did not reward him with any meaningful welcome on his return home. Now that I know, I yearn to go back and breathe that air, knowing that William was there.

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Anticipating enchantment

Non-fictionWhen an editor works on a book, they balance reader expectations with what they interpret the author’s intentions to be and use their experience to make suggestions. This might mean changing some of the language to ensure the work is comprehensible for general readers, or asking for more detail where a setting has been hastily described. An editor will always be anticipating the market, and their extensive reading of contemporary works makes them well-placed not only to understand the social and political conditions of the day but also trends in publishing and marketing.

James and the Giant BLEEP

Non-fictionCommon sense alone tells us that what we’re capable of thinking and what we’re capable of saying are not the same thing. When we struggle to find the right words, when a word lingers on the tip of our tongue, when words just won’t do something justice, we understand intuitively that thinking takes place independently of expression. It’s in this way that supposedly untranslatable words, for which our language has no exact or close synonym, are often so deeply pleasurable: not because those words reveal something about a worldview that’s unfamiliar or foreign to us but precisely the opposite.

Cinema

Poetry I cry in the cinema Or not cry So hard that my head aches with the holding back Not in the film When those beside me weep Manipulated by...

Interrogating the truth of the past

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