Illustration by Joaquin Kunkel/Edited by Koh Terai

Here at The Gazelle, we work hard to bring you interesting, informative content that you can enjoy and engage with. But what do we read when we aren’t in production every Saturday, working late into the night? The Weekly Graze is a series in which The Gazelle’s staff members pick their favorite written pieces from the past week, in the hope that you might discover some interesting reads too.

Grega Ulen Copy Chief

Parallax: Exile as Metaphor, André Aciman

Using the metaphor of parallax, that is, displacement of an object depending on a viewer's standpoint, Aciman reflects on exile and the possibility of memory when the past and the present mutually distort each other. In fact, he argues that the present proper does not exist in so far as it is "caught between remembrance and memory anticipated." We can only experience the present through transposition, projecting forward the remembrance of a past imagined life. In this beautifully written essay, displacement turns out to be a foundational metaphor for writing itself: in order to write, Aciman asserts, "I need to work my way back out of one home, consider another, and find the no-man's-land in between." A short, but rewarding read.

Sebastian Rojas Cabal Managing Editor

The Lion's Grave, Jon Lee Anderson

The book is a collection of pieces written by Jon Lee for the New Yorker, during the first four months of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. His is a unique perspective of how events unfolded on the ground; he had spent four months in Afghanistan, more than most journalists working for other publications. He constantly connects whatever he sees with memories of his visit to the country in the late ‘80s, when he was working on a book about guerrillas. All the pieces are preambled by email exchanges between him and his editor in New York, providing a glimpse of the challenges of being a war correspondent.

Supriya Kamath Head Deputy Copy Chief

The House at Pooh Corner, A. A. Milne

"What do you say, Pooh?" Pooh opened his eyes with a jerk and said, "Extremely." "Extremely what?" asked Rabbit. "What you were saying," said Pooh. "Undoubtedly."

Winnie-the-Pooh is a literary masterpiece. It's easy to dismiss it offhand as a children's book, but that would be a grave injustice to its comic and philosophical genius. A re-exploration of Pooh as an adult serves to show that most of it is, in fact, inaccessible to children. Winnie-the-Pooh is a satirical take on the ills of modern society, a prophetic tale about life in a hedonistic world, a visionary account of a global social order based on harmony, co-operation and the booming international honey trade. I urge everyone to reread this book as an adult, and to discover everything they missed as a kid. If you're still not satisfied, read Benjamin Hoff's The Tao of Pooh and John Tyerman Williams' Pooh and the Psychologists for more.

Cole Tanigawa-Lau Research Editor

In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan

Pollan is probably best known for his controversial and influential first book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. In his second commercially successful—if not so commonly cited—work, Pollan outlines the continual failures of nutrition science to explain the complexities of food and nourishment that disparate cuisines have managed for generations. Pollan introduces his manifesto: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Keeping to this mantra is not as easy as it might seem, Pollan argues, in a world supermarkets packed with ersatz "food-like substances." His recommendations are solid, but I appreciate most Pollan's holistic approach to eating. Choosing healthier, tastier food goes hand in hand with eating more sustainably, since the best ingredients are those grown in healthy soil and picked at their ripest.

Megan Eloise Editor-In-Chief

Out of My Mouth Comes Unimpeachable Manly Truth, Gary Shteyngart My Accidental Career as a Russian Screenwriter, Michael Idov

This week, I’ve revisited two of my favourite articles about Russian television. Out of My Mouth Comes Unimpeachable Manly Truth is the brief diary of Gary Shteyngart, a journalist of unusual bravery who embarks on the task of watching nothing but state-controlled Russian television for an entire week while holed up in the Four Seasons hotel. The piece is unbearably funny; Shteyngart writes with a caustic wit that makes me wish I could have properly appreciated the television I caught during my recent stay in Moscow.

For those wanting to read more about the fascinating world of Russian television, I also recommend Michael Idov’s fantastic piece, My Accidental Career as a Russian Screenwriter. Political insight and amusing quip aplenty.