few things i enjoy more than unwinding with a cozy fantasy novel, but as someone who is highly suggestible to vivid descriptions of cinnamon buns i’m beginning to worry they’re bad for my health
More broadly, fiction can act as an antidote to authoritarianism. If authoritarianism thrives when people are isolated, fiction brings people together, she says. “In the most basic way, writing is about opening yourself to another person’s mind. The most intimate thing I do on a daily basis is pick up a book and open myself to another person.” And, while the Trump administration may be forcing one way of life on the world, fiction’s job is, as always, to remind people that there are “other ways of being”.