D. A. Hosek

Author: D. A. Hosek

  • Beautiful Sentences: Harriet Beecher Stowe

    Of course, in a novel, people’s hearts break, and they die, and that is the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life we do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us. There is a most busy and important round of eating, drinking, dressing,…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Alberto Manguel

    Some nights I dream of an entirely anonymous library in which books have no title and boast no author, forming a continuous narrative stream in which all genres, all styles, all stories converge, and all protagonists and all locations are unidentified, a stream into which I can dip at any point of its course. Alberto…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Jeffery Eugenides

    We knew that the girls were our twins, that we existed in space like animals with identical skins, and that they knew everything about us though we couldn’t fathom them at all. We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even deathm and that our job was…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Alberto Manguel

    Every reader exists to ensure for a certain book a modest immortality. Reading is, in this sense, a ritual of rebirth. Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night.

  • “MeTube”: The Story Behind the Story

    The genesis of “MeTube” was an actual YouTube video, “Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out” which initially presented itself as an actual pre-wedding video but was later revealed to be a promotional video for hair care products. Regardless of its veracity, the question that struck me about the video was, What happened after the camera turned…

  • “Q & A”: The Story Behind the Story

    The genesis of “Q & A” was a passing mention in Dava Sobel’s book Galileo’s Daughter, where, when she was discussing the trial of Galileo by the Inquisition, she mentions the surreal effect of the transcript in which all the questions are written in the third person but the answers given are in the first person.…

  • Beautiful Sentences: Jac Jemc

    She filled her clothes the way one fills one’s skin: exactly. Jac Jemc, My Only Wife.

  • Beautiful Sentences: Deborah A. Lott

    In those days my unconscious seemed powerful and mysterious, and I could never tell whether it was moving me towards self-destruction or self-preservation. Deborah A. Lott, “The Daddy Cure.”

  • Beautiful Sentences: Hilary Mantel

    There cannot be new things in England. There can be old things freshly presented, or new things that pretend to be old. To be trusted, new men must forge themselves an ancient pedigree, like Walter’s, or enter into the service of ancient families. Don’t try to go it alone, or they’ll think you’re pirates. Hilary…