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Thursday, September 16, 2021

Now That You’ve Read ‘The Midnight Library,’ Let’s Talk About The Ending, by Angela Haupt, Washington Post

Maybe you already knew that regret is a waste of time; I hear it constantly. But it’s easier to buy when you recognize that all those other outcomes would have come with their own problems. That’s what Haig so beautifully demonstrates. We tend to romanticize other variations of our lives — we would have no cares in the world, if only we had done this and that differently. Haig’s response: Of course we would. Different packaging; same us. The only thing we truly need to change is the one thing we have complete control over: our outlook.

This Thoughtful, Profound Thriller Centers On Identity And Its Many Layers, by Swapna Krishna, NPR

My Sweet Girl excels on so many fronts: It's a well-written psychological thriller that kept me hooked from beginning to end (no small feat right now, as my attention span is severely limited, thanks to world events). It's also surprisingly funny — Jayatissa has a great sense of humor that serves Paloma well as she slowly reveals her full self to the reader. But the exploration of Paloma's identity and character is what really drew me to this book and has me thinking about it long after I turned the final page.

Virginia Woolf’s Novels Once Left Me Cold. A New Book About ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ Changed My Mind., by Michael Dirda, Washington Post

Like similar volumes, “The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway” provides a scholarly and biographical introduction, lots of illustrations and extensive marginal notes that explain obscurities, identify people and places, and provide interpretive comment. Emre, however, isn’t critically neutral; she draws mainly on the work of her teachers and contemporaries, while pretty much ignoring older Woolf scholarship.

Why Does Every Company Now Want To Be A Platform?, by Reeves Wiedeman, New York Times

Knee believes that investors, and many of his students, are fooling themselves into thinking that building a globe-spanning platform is a viable goal. Platforms are successful not because they are platforms, but because they exploit the same kinds of advantages that successful businesses have enjoyed for decades. It’s a boring realization, but one that Knee hopes will save his students not only from pursuing bad ideas, but from ruining their lives.