october 2003

Hundreds of thousands of books are published in the United States each year, and this dramatic influx of titles largely runs the calendars of the publishing and media industries—usually to the detriment of any work that isn’t brand new. Even best sellers or novels by famous authors get lost in the deluge, and books that were beloved on release can fall off readers’ radar quickly. But many were popular or critically acclaimed for good reasons, and they’re worth revisiting.

Here is a list of 15 fiction titles from the past two decades that you may have forgotten about in the years since. Some are from familiar names such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, and Louise Erdrich; others are by authors you may not have heard of at all. These selections include plenty of drama, and there’s an undercurrent of gentle comedy, even in novels with dark themes or plots. Their characters define love in many different ways, and they seek fulfillment across geographies and time periods—contemporary London, Vichy France, Nigeria, North Korea. Ultimately, these stories are bound together by a compassion for their characters’ struggles and shortcomings—a quality that only our finest writers are able to cultivate.

Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market, according to the latest numbers from MRC Data, a music-analytics firm. Those who make a living from new music—especially that endangered species known as the working musician—should look at these figures with fear and trembling. But the news gets worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs.

The 200 most popular new tracks now regularly account for less than 5 percent of total streams. That rate was twice as high just three years ago. The mix of songs actually purchased by consumers is even more tilted toward older music. The current list of most-downloaded tracks on iTunes is filled with the names of bands from the previous century, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Police.

Last Thursday, a group of 20 mothers in Boston met up outside a local high school. Their goal wasn’t to socialize, drink wine, or even share COVID-related tips. They were there for one reason and one reason only: to stand in a circle—socially distanced, of course—and scream.

“I knew that we all needed to come together and support each other in our rage, resistance and disappointment,” Sarah Harmon, the group’s organizer, wrote on Instagram before the gathering. Ironically, some 20 other moms who had RSVP’d “yes” had to cancel at the last minute because they or other family members had COVID, Harmon told me.

When mothers feel there is no more appealing way to spend an evening than to yell into the frigid January darkness, something is very, very wrong. Parents in the United States are living through a universally terrible moment. For two years, we’ve been spending each and every day navigating an ever-changing virus that’s threatening not only our well-being but our livelihoods. The situation has reached a fever pitch during this wave, when we’re expected to function normally even though nothing is normal and none of the puzzle pieces in front of us fit together.

If Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t about to invade Ukraine—or, more accurately, isn’t about to expand his previous invasion—he’s certainly making a good show of it.

Russian military forces have been moving into position for weeks. Russia and Belarus announced snap exercises that will continue for at least a month. President Joe Biden says he is expecting an invasion, and there are reports that the U.S. embassy in Kyiv is planning to evacuate families and nonessential personnel. Some NATO members are stepping up military aid and assistance. The British government says it has outed a Russian scheme to topple the government in Kyiv and replace it with Russian stooges (probably in the hope that exposing the plan will foil it).

Before the former Saturday Night Live cast member Will Forte made his hosting debut on the show yesterday, one of the more memorable moments from his eight-year tenure circulated online. In a 2005 sketch, Forte played a timid, overwhelmed spelling-bee contestant. When asked to spell the word business, he produced a deadpan, 75-letter sequence of consonants. As would so often occur during his time on SNL, Forte bulldozed past absurdity to find fresh hilarity. The current cast member Bowen Yang shared the clip on Instagram with the caption “legend.”

Forte is a champion of eccentricity, adeptly playing awkward, tightly wound characters whose veneer often comes close to shattering—if it hasn’t already. Last night, Forte revisited his version of weird, bringing a playful looseness that generated this season’s strongest night thus far. After the previous particularly bleak episode, Forte’s presence was a welcome shift for SNL. Instead of wrestling with the bizarreness of our present reality, the show leaned into a jubilant zaniness of its own. Forte’s comedy felt like a release—and the cast responded with vigor.