The Writing Desk of Jakebe Rabbit

I am grateful for stories, which seem to be making a comeback in a really big way. Today we went to see Salman Rushdie give a lecture and answer questions from a moderator and then the audience. He was incredibly funny, but also really insightful about the nature of stories and why they're necessary, why people seem to respond to them the way they do. In the end, he decried the act of making stories all about function. "Why do we need Alice in Wonderland?" he asked. "It's main purpose is to be delightful."

We're (presumably) the only species on the planet that seeks to make its existence easier, not by having the most food or territory, but by telling stories. It's social bond, it's a religious experience, it's one of the ways, as Rushdie puts it, we tell the truth. And life would be a lot more meaningless without them.