Can you imagine sitting in a café in the near future, among strangers, lovers, and children, the relief of another human lightly touching your wrist? Can you imagine all of the gentleness that is still to come of this world?

I think in all of my work, I am interested in characters who find themselves stranded in moments and in lives that they did not see coming. You wake up one day and suddenly you’re an adult, and all of those choices you didn’t even know you were making have cohered into a life and set of circumstances. How do you negotiate that? How do you navigate the alienness of your own life?

Many are predicting a long, dark winter. We hope this issue keeps you company as the season gives on to spring.

With the end of 2020 nigh, an unconventional holiday season is fast approaching. Our staff rounded up some of our favorites—books, but not just books—that may make a thoughtful gift for someone on your list.

I stand at a juncture in life that is simultaneously retrospective and forward-looking. Are there new kinds of writing to explore? Is there something beyond academic striving?

Winter is upon us, and though the seasons have changed, the times have yet to follow suit. Our staff came together to share some reads varied in subject—Nietzsche, the tragic lives of artists, apocalypse narratives, and pandemic poems—but tethered by theme: imaginative escape and the vitality of hope.

At its heart, the book is an enigmatic work of geopolitical surrealism. Its symbols do not add up; it is full of secrecy without any secret.

How are we going to get out of this?

How are we going to get out of this?

I wondered: After all the time we had spent together, had we been placed on this path to collide unavoidably at the end of her life?