Archive - Survival by Book of Survival by Book

077: On Writing Letters

a letter to a soldier, Nina Stibbe's "Love, Nina," chat groups as an epistolary form, letters as evidence of human connection + links to Charlie…

Feb 11, 2024 •

January 2024

076: Leave the Raft Behind

On volcanoes, Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey, life-rafts, and the vast gap between dreams and reality

Jan 21, 2024 •

April 2023

075: Maeslantkering

a day trip with friends, a Dutch storm surge barriers, and a passing reference to Marlow Granados's novel, "Happy Hour"

Apr 29, 2023 •

March 2023

074: let go, let fly, forget

cumulonimbus clouds v. small aircraft, childhood best friends, leaving a job + a post-Oscar link and a killer TBR stack + read to the end for a photo of…

Mar 19, 2023 •

February 2023

073: wrestling with the ambivalent angels of our future

AI, cyborgs, Donna Harraway, and Blade Runner

Feb 19, 2023 •

072: without snow, there’s a neverness about the cold

thesauruses, the generosity of tagging in OpenStreetMap, sitting in the sunlight

Feb 5, 2023 •

January 2023

071: the puzzlement in the play is the point

steganography, Hamlet and Infinite Jest, plane trees in Ghent + some really distressing work meetings

Jan 22, 2023 •

070: generations of men with tobacco in their beards squinting at the bridges of Königsberg

isomorphisms, rhodonea topology, rhetorical logic and the writings of Elif Batuman

Jan 8, 2023 •

December 2022

069: diving into the astronomical twilight of our fears

midwinter in Iceland, an insanely huge moon, Beowulf, and of course, monsters and fairies

Dec 24, 2022 •

November 2022

068: On Mimesis

on the putative demise of Twitter, self-representation, Aristotle, Oscar Wilde, and why we all need to be seen + Doodle Dispatches does work emoji and a…

Nov 20, 2022

067: typing on a train to berlin

existential feelings, chat groups and friend groups, missed opportunities, typing on a train to Berlin + T.S. Eliot

Nov 13, 2022 •

October 2022

066: About a Small, Brave, Beautiful Book

Claire Keegan's "Small Things Like These" will shore up your courage and remind you to hope against hope. Plus, the OG SBB essay featuring "Wolf Hall…

Oct 16, 2022

#nojs-banner { position: fixed; bottom: 0; left: 0; padding: 16px 16px 16px 32px; width: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; background: red; color: white; font-family: -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 13px; line-height: 13px; } #nojs-banner a { color: inherit; text-decoration: underline; } This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts