Abstract
Books In Dark Times takes its inspiration from Hannah Arendt's Men in Dark Times, which proposes "That even in the darkest of times we have the right to expect some illumination, and that such illumination may well come less from theories and concepts than from the uncertain, flickering, and often weak light that some men and women, in their lives and their works, will kindle under almost all circumstances and shed over the time span that was given them on earth." At this dark moment, we really want to know what brings people like Alex-and like you, dear listener-comfort or joy in these dark Corona days. Alex Star, brilliant editor at Farrar Straus and Giroux, former editor of Lingua Franca, founding editor of the Boston Globe Ideas section, is the editor of many remarkable prizewinning books including George Packer's The Unwinding and James Forman's Locking Up Our Own.