• The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde

I started reading this because I am interested in self-help books, and while this is not really a self-help book, it is kind-of sold as one. I am trying to parse out if it does or doesn’t fit into that world.

• The Last Gentleman (New York Mag)

Profile of George W.S. Trow

• “It’s All Interesting”: George W.S. Trow by Alec WIlkinson (The New Yorker)

A complicated reminiscence of Trow.

• Harvard Black Rock Forest by George W.S. Trow

Not the most interesting thing he ever wrote. It is about the Harvard Corp failing to live up to its agreement to protect the Black Rock Forest in New York.

• “The Shit-Kickers of Madison Avenue” by Lillian Ross

Lillian Ross died recently at the age of ninety-nine. Read this piece out loud to friends to experience the pure gleeful magic of life.

I also read her famous piece “The Yellow Bus,” which is profile of a group of high-schoolers from Indiana visiting New York City in 1956. It captures how defensive Middle Americans are when they vacation in Manhattan, how judged they feel, and how some of them come around.