The appeal of cosmopolitanism lies in its assertion of some independence from race and other markers of identity, which, no matter how overbearing, can never wholly define you. And while it would be irresponsible for anyone to forget their ancestors, I doubt that these forebears would have wanted their hardships to weigh so heavily on their sons and daughters. Cole started his career as a high-flier, and not even the most jealous ghost of the past would deny that the sky is where he belongs.
Palmer’s reach transcends his channel. Delve into chat forums—conversation hubs with names like BackcountryPilot.org, SuperCub.org, and, on Facebook, Big Tire Pilots – STOL Pilots – Backcountry Pilots – Mountain Pilots—and you’ll inevitably encounter mentions of Palmer and occasional references to “the Trent Palmer Effect,” which refers to his ability to bring new participants into the recreational bush-flying game, whose presence gooses both demand for planes and their prices.
One of Palmer’s closest friends refers to him as the “Convincer in Chief.” Partly because of Palmer’s charms, the plane he purchased for $39,000 in 2015 is now worth five times that, and people hoping to buy one like it face more than a three-year backlog for a factory-built plane and two years for a DIY kit. “I’m basically flying a plane I can’t afford,” Palmer told me.
Try to imagine baking something you love — a cupcake or a babka, maybe — without butter, dairy, or eggs. It probably presents as an unsolvable logic puzzle. It’s not just that those ingredients have defined what we think of as patisserie in the French sense, which is the foundation on which Western pastry is built. It’s that they’ve done so because they provide not only structure for most of our desserts and baked goods, but also what we identify as the flavor or texture. For instance, we describe things as “buttery” or “creamy” or “custardy.”
So how could you possibly have a croissant without butter? A panna cotta without milk? A custard tart without eggs? And if you could, would they still count as themselves?
Newman hasn’t proved herself a worthy successor to Orwell; she’s outclassed him, both in knowledge of human nature and in character development. “Julia” should be the new required text on those high-school curricula, a stunning look into what happens when a person of strength faces the worst in humanity, as well as a perfect specimen of derivative art that, in standing on another’s shoulders, can reach a higher plane.
Louisa Hall’s novel Reproduction centers on a writing professor who struggles to conceive, give birth to, and then parent a young daughter all while attempting to write a “biographical novel” about Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Hall’s unnamed protagonist, who is also the novel’s narrator, is teaching a course on science fiction and re-reading Frankenstein, and soon, the course and the book begin to seep into her everyday life, which takes on an otherworldly strangeness. When she suffers a miscarriage, she feels as if she is “floating in the coldness of space”; her hospital visit for a D&C, performed by masked doctors in a cold, bare room—like “a capsule sent into space”—is surreal and disorienting.
If there’s one thing that Alexandra Christo – author of the Hundred Kingdoms and Into the Crooked Place books – writes really well, it’s a loveable motley group of characters thrown together for a common cause. And that’s certainly true for her latest immersive romantasy, The Night Hunt, which pits vengeful Gods against an unlikely team-up of monsters and humans. In this novel, the endearing quartet of reluctant heroes consists of a lonely monster, a disgruntled messenger to the Gods, a shunned half-banshee and a curious scholar, who must band together to break a curse and bring down the Gods bent on killing them.
In writing of love, psychology, philosophy — even mathematics — Chung sprinkles in such observations, both highly personal and surprisingly universal. What a treat to spend an afternoon immersed in her world, to better understand her loneliness, to laugh as she indicts "one swipe and you're out" dating culture and feel the pangs of nostalgia for lost time as it rushes forward. Or does time actually rush forward? Matthew McConaughey and Nietszshe would have some thoughts.