My dear Editors,
This weekend is slated for sun. I would like to celebrate out on my fire escape, with a cocktail and a mean read. For the optimistic lush, what combination is best?

Sincerely,
Sauced

I mean, if you want drinking without considering consequences—which is to say, not The Lost Weekend or Under the Volcano—I guess you can’t top the beats: Big Sur, On the Road, any Bukowski. If you want your whiskey straight up, try The Long Goodbye. How can you go wrong with a novel that begins, “The first time I laid eyes on Terry Lennox, he was drunk.” That said, the only story I can think of that deals specifically with a warm-weather drink is Roald Dahl’s Pimm’s-featuring “Georgy Porgy,” which no one could call soothing.

How is one to live in a post-Revel world?

Why, with the stacks of past Paris Review and New York Review of Books issues the event celebrated, of course! (A few vitamin C tablets and gallons of water never hurt, either.)

What should I give my seven-year-old daughter to read for Passover?

The Carp in the Bathtub. But NB: she will never eat gefilte fish again.

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