Pharoah Sanders, RIP

One of the paths leading from Coltrane, not explored by enough great musicians, was taken by Sanders, who then continued beyond with some fellow travelers.

Hilary Mantel, RIP

She wrote two of my all-time favorite novels– specifically, the first two in the Cromwell trilogy. The third installment was, for me at least, a disappointment, but she was clearly still at the peak of her formidable powers as a novelist when it appeared in 2020. 

What makes a great novel? Storytelling, of course. Storytelling is sometimes reduced to plot or, to be fancier, narrative drive. But at least as important is worldbuilding. That term is most often applied to science fiction and fantasy, but it is equally relevant to any good fiction. You the reader must be dropped into a new place and reside there. That place might be a 25th-Century asteroid belt, 1970s Oakland, or 16th-Century England. If you are not transported to an amazing place you have never been, it is not great storytelling. 

Plus: great characters. Real, flawed, heroic humans. Nobody should be (only) a monster or a caricature. Cromwell, More, Boleyn.

Plus: a theme that makes you think about things. 

Plus: Poetry, music. Sentences you want to read over and over again, just to hear them in your mind's ear.

She had it all, in abundance, and died way too young.