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In ‘The Midnight Library,’ Books Offer Transport to Different Lives
Credit...Evan M. Cohen
By Karen Joy Fowler
By Matt Haig
Few fantasies are more enduring than the idea that there might be a second chance at a life already lived, some sort of magical reset in which mistakes can be erased, regrets addressed, choices altered. This deep desire for a different life, or for more lives than just the one, is at the heart of any number of stories — movies like “Groundhog Day,” “Sliding Doors” and “It’s a Wonderful Life”; television shows like “Sliders” and “Quantum Leap”; wonderful novels like Kate Atkinson’s “Life After Life,” Andrew Sean Greer’s “The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells,” Jo Walton’s “My Real Children” and many others. Into this ever-popular genre, Matt Haig’s “The Midnight Library” is a welcome addition.

Andrew Sean Greer: The WD Interview
In this March 2020 interview, the Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist weighs in on altering the course of a novel to unfold plot elements more harmoniously and facing rejection from his publisher.
Author:
Andrew Sean Greer, winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for his novel
Less, gave a keynote address at the 2019 Writer’s Digest Novel Writing Conference wearing a bright red suit and angel wings, happily joining in on our Halloween costume party for the evening. What Greer may or may not have realized was that as he spoke about revising that novel and discovering in it symbols like flight and birds, the wings of his own costume silently underscored his point.

Travel Light This Holiday
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By OZY Editors
July5, 2020
It’s July, high summer in much of the world, and most of us are dreaming of getaways and vacations, 2019-style. Many people love big-city adventures with museums, theater and fancy restaurants on the agenda, while others prefer slow, winding drives through the remote countryside. For some, it’s just not a holiday without a stretch of sand and a well-stocked cooler; still others devote their downtime to more rigorous adventures like scuba diving, rock climbing or hiking. The pandemic has rewritten our vacation plans, but that doesn’t mean our minds can’t take a break from the everyday.