Sign of the times: My news-addled friends, the ones who used to read three papers a day, have begun tuning out. I’m thinking of two in particular who, over their long careers, contributed deeply to our common wealth. One now says that, if he were starting out, he wouldn’t have kids because the world’s irreparably…

On October 6, 2020, the Swedish Academy announced the year’s Nobel prizes in Physics and, two days later, in Literature. The selection committees may as well have collaborated, so tuned were they to the pulse of a uniquely awful year. Louise Glück, poet of “isolation, betrayal . . . and death” (NYT 10/8/2020), won for…