Finished: Straws and Prayer-Books, by James Branch Cabell 📚. This is one of the later volumes in the massive Biography of Manuel, and it’s a commentary on why writers write with only incidental reflections on the Biography itself. Cabell’s main argument is that writers only do it to divert themselves by writing perfectly of beautiful happenings. But he makes this argument over 250n pages of lovely language and enjoyable craft. Well, enjoyable if you’re not completely addicted to airport reading I suppose.