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Darling, Come Back, and Other News

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On the Shelf

Taiwan_Alisan_Train

Photo: Jnlin, via Wikimedia Commons

  • In Taiwan, a commemorative Valentine’s Day train ticket sold out in less than an hour: it takes you from “Dalin (大林, pronounced similarly to ‘darling’ in English) station in Chiayi County to Gueilai (歸來, literally: ‘come back’).” A journey any of us should be willing to make after we’ve behaved badly. It’s love on a real train.
  • Voltaire in love: “She understands Newton, she despises superstition and in short she makes me happy.”
  • But we can count on literature to remind us that things are not always so sweet. Here are the ten unhappiest marriages in fiction.
  • Can atrocity be the subject matter of poetry? Our poetry editor, Robyn Creswell, on Carolyn Forché’s new anthology.
  • “I also like to catch dangling modifiers, because we all miss those … I have had authors who say that dangling modifiers are part of their style and don’t want to change them.” An interview with a crackerjack copyeditor.