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John Train, a cofounder of The Paris Review and its first managing editor—or “so-called managing editor,” as he often put it—died last month, at age ninety-four. It was Train who coined the Review’s name and, in its early days in Paris, as a member of the Café Tournon crowd, he pushed the magazine away from criticism, writing later that “theories, both literary and political, are the enemy of art.”

Train went on to become “an operator in high finance and world affairs,” as the Times obituary put it today, but many will remember him best for his love of small idiosyncrasies: in the early fifties, while studying for a master’s degree at Harvard in comparative literature, Train noticed in Collier’s magazine a Mr. Katz Meow, which led to an earnest obsession with collecting what he called “remarkable names of real people.” You can find some of these in our Summer 1976 issue, no. 66, which features a fourteen-page list of names Train had unearthed in the records of a very real and now-defunct state department called the Office of Nomenclature Stabilization. (We published an appreciation of “How to Name Your Baby” online in 2015.) Train announced his departure from his post as managing editor, as George Plimpton and Norman Mailer recall, with singularly dry humor:

One day in 1954, after a year of organizing things in the office, he left a note in his In-box stating, “Do not put anything in this box.” By this he meant to tell the rest of the staff that he was moving on to something else.

From the Chelsea office, the staff of the Review are thinking of Train, his legacy and “In-box,” his family and friends. He will be missed.

This week, we remember Hilary Mantel (1952–2022), and bring you recommendations from two of our issue no. 241 contributors. 

On holiday in France, I went to Colmar to see the Isenheim Altarpiece in the Musée Unterlinden. Afterward, wandering through the museum’s collection of medieval and Renaissance art, I came across a small oil painting: part of an altarpiece attributed to Gabriel Mälesskircher, a fifteenth-century German artist from Colmar. Saint Guy Healing a Possessed Man has clear, singing colors, predominantly reds and greens. While Saint Guy looks on, the possessed man in question is being restrained by three other men. His head is thrown back, and the expelled demon, a tiny black humanoid, has just flown out of his gaping mouth. 

I thought at once of Mavis Gallant’s story “In the Tunnel,” which ends with the protagonist, Sarah, writing a jokey, flirtatious invitation to dinner on the back of a postcard that shows a miniature human figure cast out from a man’s body: “This person must have eaten my cooking.” I remembered that another of Gallant’s stories, “Virus X,” is set partly in Colmar, and I felt certain that she knew Mälesskircher’s painting. I imagined her looking at it, taking in its detail as I was, and the thrill of connection ran through me like bright wire. 

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The New York Times has reported on the passing of Hilary Mantel. Mantel, 70, died from a stroke on Thursday.

The British author, two-time winner of the Booker Prize, was a prolific author of literature, including historical fiction, personal memoirs, and short stories. She authored Wolf Hall (Booker Prize winner), Bring Up the Bodies (Booker Prize winner), The Mirror and the Light (Booker Prize longlist), and published a collection of essays, entitled Mantel Pieces: Royal Bodies and Other Writing from the London Review of Books, among many other works.

Find more on Hilary Mantel and her work here.

This week, PEN America released a report on the current state of book bans in the USA. The report discusses the 50+ “parents’ rights” groups operating across the country, both on the national and local levels, and how these groups are responsible or connected to at least half of the book bans that have taken place since July 2021. But who are these groups? Where are they located?

PEN’s report lays out and links to several stories about various groups, including this box exploring some of the nationally-organized groups.

Read the report, particularly this section, to get a sense of what ideas these groups are formed around. For the most part, it’s not just book bans. It’s the broader issue of “parental rights,” which became a movement in 2020 with parents demanding that schools “reopen” during the pandemic (the language here matters, as schools were open but operating virtually). The movement shifted in 2021 to demand that their children be unmasked in schools, and thereafter/simultaneously, to demanding oversight and say in curriculum and materials made available to students in schools.

The database linked here is not comprehensive, but represents a look at the groups who have been connected with or directly linked to book bans or challenges (or other curriculum changes under the guise of “parental rights”). Some are more active than others, and some have changed their names, consolidated, or otherwise reworked their structures even since this list was complied. Some are parent groups and others are political action groups. Many of the groups are linked to either their Facebook or website presence. Not all states are represented, which does not mean there are not groups in those states. There are not national groups or their affiliated chapters included; PEN outlines those nicely above, and the embedded Tweet above shows, in gold, where the biggest organization currently has active chapters.

I love cosmic horror. As the world has become increasingly baffling, nonsensical, and outright terrifying, I’ve been drawn to reading cosmic horror stories more and more. There’s something about humans facing overwhelming powers beyond our comprehension that’s…definitely not comforting, but kind of relatable. H. P. Lovecraft may not be the creator of the cosmic horror genre, but he is perhaps the figure that looms largest in its history. While his stories vary wildly in quality, there are some brilliant moments that have influenced media from books and films to video games and TTRPGs for the past century. However, Lovecraft’s literary legacy is tainted by Lovecraft himself.

H. P. Lovecraft is almost as famous for his racism and antisemitism as he is for his cosmic horror fiction. While many problematic authors of the past have been defended by apologists, with the repeated refrain “they were a product of their time,” this already-flimsy defense cannot be applied to Lovecraft. As Jason Sanford notes in a blog post, Lovecraft was virulently racist even by the standards of the 1910s. Lovecraft is long-dead and long-since public domain, meaning that readers can consume his stories without worrying that they’re funding his positions, unlike with living bigoted authors; however, the racism is still deeply unpleasant to read. Fortunately, there are many books inspired by Lovecraft that have done cosmic horror better in every respect.

I’ve always enjoyed what I think of as “Lovecraft Minus Lovecraft”: cosmic horror stories that draw on the interesting and inventive aspects of Lovecraft’s stories, but excise, or actively hit back, against his horrific beliefs. Here are some of the best Lovecraft-minus-Lovecraft stories for all cosmic horror fans.

Recent political events have me considering the way our history shapes the books that writers write and publishers publish. After the summer of protests in 2020, publishers have made an attempt to push forward more books by authors of color and diversify the industry overall. As for recent events, I’m wondering how the overturning of Roe v. Wade will influence book trends.

Women have of course written books throughout history, and the best ones reflected the difficult realities of the time. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë focused on a woman making her way through the world with limited options. The Millstone by Margaret Drabble (published in 1965) follows a woman who decides to raise a baby alone, despite the intense societal pressure to marry. After Roe v. Wade, stories written by women for women became much more common and not all were focused exclusively on marriage and motherhood.

It’s important to understand this basic history and how radically things can change with expanded access to one legal right. Before Roe, women got married and had children at much younger ages. The average age of first-time American mothers in 1970 was under 22. Today, more women are able to choose to wait for marriage until they are ready for it, with the average age of marriage steadily climbing since 1970.

Ready means a variety of different things: financially, socially, but also emotionally. For a lot of women, this meant joining the workforce first and advancing their careers in fields that were previously closed off to women. This was especially important for women becoming lawyers and spearheading cases that gave women even more access to formerly restricted rights.

I’m new to the world of the best word search games. I first started playing mobile apps during quarantine. Before the lockdowns, I had certainly experienced idle time, but never quite so much as I did in April 2020. People I knew played farming simulators and Candy Crush, but I found myself drawn to puzzles. I left the stress of a pandemic behind as I matched colorful dots, found hidden pictures, and dove into word puzzles. Most free games include some time watching ads, and while slightly irritating, I also developed a list of other games I might want to try. My little cache of numbing time fillers grew, and even though my life is busier now, I still turn to mobile games and puzzles daily.

There are numerous reasons why people download word search games. There are people trying to spend less time scrolling their social media feeds. Other people find comfort in language based pursuits and prefer finding words to getting fish to eat each other. Still others recognize that all puzzle games can sharpen your brain while they pass the time. Below I’ve gathered eight of the best word search games available right now. Whatever your reason for playing, I’m sure you’ll find something that catches your eye.

The Nancy Drew PC games were a huge part of my life for years. From the time I discovered them circa 2000 until 2015, two games were released every year, one in winter and one in summer. Since then, there has only been one game released, but I live in hope that more are on the way. And until then, I can replay the thirty-plus existing games whenever the mood strikes.

If you, too, would like to (re)play these wonderfully detailed and educational Nancy Drew games, you could play them in order, or you could shake things up by playing according to season — the games aren’t so tightly connected that you’ll get too confused this way, I promise. The company behind the games, HeR Interactive, encourages this to an extent, making “winter” and “summer” game bundles available for purchase. I did not look at these bundles before making my selections, instead choosing to categorize the games in the way I thought best. And I added categories for spring and autumn, too, so now you can keep playing all year round!

Some of the selections were obvious — the one where you’re snowed in at a castle-turned-ski-resort is clearly winter — while others I categorized based on vibes more than objective evidence. Feel free to arrange the playing order to suit your own taste, perception, and memory, if you like. All that matters is that you have a good time!