What Lois Lowry Remembers

Plus: Zadie Smith on Joan Didion; a linguistic look at Omicron; and Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth.” View in browser | Update your preferences Sunday, December 26, 2021 The New Yorker Interview What Lois Lowry Remembers Lowry, who has lost a sister and a son, has spent decades writing about the pains of memory. For her, literature is “a way that we rehearse life.” By Katy Waldman Postscript Joan Didion and the Opposite of Magical Thinking You didn’t have to agree with her, but you had to submit to her sentences. By Zadie Smith Comma Queen A Linguistic Look at Omicron What is this penchant for using Greek to designate disasters? By Mary Norris Personal History Mayfield, Before and After What was left of a Kentucky town after the tornado? By Bobbie Ann Mason The Year in Review 2021 in Review The Best Books We Read in 2021 The fiction and nonfiction, old and new, that saw us through the year. By The New Yorker 2021 in Review The Best TV Shows of 2021 Including “Love Life,” which gets the award for most improved, and “Real Housewives,” which is morphing into a true-crime hit. By Doreen St. Félix Culture and More The Front Row “The Tragedy of Macbeth”: Joel Coen’s Sanitized Shakespeare The stripped-down adaptation sets out to normalize Shakespearean language, but ends up going too far. By Richard Brody The Theatre The Bad Trip of “Flying Over Sunset” James Lapine’s new musical, at the Vivian Beaumont, sets the LSD hallucinations of three nineteen-fifties celebrities to song. By Vinson Cunningham Fiction “A Lot of Things Have Happened” “Hopefully, I’m not the kindest guy you’ll ever meet.” By Adam Levin This Week in Fiction Adam Levin on Stories About Couples The author discusses “A Lot of Things Have Happened,” his story from the latest issue of the magazine. By Willing Davidson Humor and Games Name Drop Play the Quiz Can you guess the notable person in six clues or fewer? By Will Nediger Cryptic Crossword The Cryptic Puzzle Ultra-dedicated bears worked on Wall Street (6). By Trip Payne Daily Shouts Cleaning the Shower Drain You never know what you’ll find when you unclog it. By Hallie Bateman You’re receiving this e-mail because you signed up for The Daily from The New Yorker. Manage your preferences | View our Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.