Subscribe
Sign in
Home
Notes
Survival by Book
College, a Love Story
001: Survival By Book
Let’s begin with a hypothesis: reading a printed book—cloth-bound or paperback, bought or borrowed—is one of the most disruptive things you can do.
Jul 19, 2020
•
Courtney Cook
15
3
3
087: Make 2026 Your Year of Glamour
Marlowe Granados, style as power and personhood, and yet another way of thinking about how to fight the darkness and win
Jan 19
•
Courtney Cook
4
2
3
86: Letting the strange, cross-gartered parts of ourselves come to the surface
Twelfth Night is for fighting the darkness with love and mayhem
Jan 5
•
Courtney Cook
2
2
2
85: More thoughts on what it means to be brave
Cillian Murphy's new film, "Steve;" how bravery ≠ success; how value ≠ the obvious metrics; Claire Keegan's "Small Things Like These" + Page Count
Oct 19, 2025
6
4
3
84: Cutting through the general din of the world
Ani DiFranco, Gary Stevenson, Greta Thunberg, Zack Polanski, but not Barack Obama + inspiring videos + this week's page count + read to the end for…
Oct 12, 2025
•
Courtney Cook
2
2
Latest
Top
Discussions
83: Maybe try learning from books about walking
Hiking in Wyoming, Cheryl Strayed, Rachel Joyce, Rory Stewart, Geoff Nicholson, Henry David Thoreau, Geoffrey Chaucer and yep, John Bunyan + my latest…
Sep 28, 2025
•
Courtney Cook
10
2
2
82: Who owns our days?
Paolo Sorrentino's "La Grazia," the 2025 Booker Longlist, that same Milosz poem that I come back to over and over + Colum McCann's new novel and a LRB…
Sep 22, 2025
•
Courtney Cook
4
3
81. When did the sinking start?
Vincent Delecroix's "Small Boat" has the courage to ask hard questions + this week's Page Count (a comfort read and another one from the Longlist)
Sep 7, 2025
•
Courtney Cook
2
2
2
Portfolio
Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon & more
Sep 7, 2025
•
Courtney Cook
1
Excerpt
"Love & Empire," in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine
Sep 7, 2025
•
Courtney Cook
2
80: What we need is a natural meander pattern
flood mitigation in TX and VT by John Seabrook, DNRIP James Dobson, an incredibly important reader poll that you *must* answer + my Week 3 page count…
Aug 24, 2025
•
Courtney Cook
8
3
079: Everyone is frazzled and broken and beautiful
Banu Mushtaq's "Heart Lamp", translated by Deepa Bhasthi; short stories as hedonic gateways; suffering is universal; suffering is personal + page count…
Aug 17, 2025
•
Courtney Cook
8
2
See all
Survival by Book
work, love, art & other life-stuff, seen through a bookish lens
Subscribe
Recommendations
View all 35
Books on GIF
Books on GIF
THE LUNAR DISPATCH
Will Dowd
Rule of Five
Tiffanie Darke
To a Green Thought
Garth Greenwell
Noahpinion
Noah Smith
Survival by Book
Subscribe
About
Archive
Recommendations
Sitemap
This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please
turn on JavaScript
or unblock scripts