Perhaps of Interest Volume 7

Creepy dreams, word games, and more

Photo by Eleanor Brooke on Unsplash

I am kind of a baby when it comes to horror; especially in movies, but in books too. So while I was excited to see “A Haunting of Hill House,” by Shirley Jackson on my spring semester reading list, I was also a little concerned. It’s not that I get scared while reading, but I do sometimes have scary or upsetting dreams after the fact. I knew from the first paragraph of this book, however, that this book was so good, it was going to be worth the nightmares:

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

Good gracious, leave some good words for the rest of us, Shirley! I woke up early this morning, and I immediately started reading, but then I fell back to sleep, and I had a wildly unsettling dream about being stuck in some kind of resort. Worth it. I’m torn between wanting to finish reading it right now and savoring it so it doesn’t end, creepy dreams or not. I’ve heard the show is great too, but the book is only 155 pages, so why not read the book first?

Also perhaps of interest:

• Word puzzles are having a moment, especially over at The New York Times. I enjoyed this Vanity Fair article about The New York Times’s Games editors. I’m a devoted player of Wordle, Connections, Crossword, and The Mini, and it was cool to read how the editor of Connections creates the games.

As one Times staffer puts it: “The half joke that is repeated internally is that The New York Times is now a gaming company that also happens to offer news.”

• It seems like everyone’s been sharing their Spotify Daylists on Instagram. I am always curious about what other people are listening to, so I love seeing what the almight algorhythm chooses for folks. I’m listening to mine as I write, “mellow jazz monk sunday afternoon.”

• I already preordered Leslie Jamison’s upcoming book, and if her recent piece in The New Yorker, “The Birth of My Daughter, the Death of My Marriage,” is any indication, it’s going to be exceptional.