One of the great things about sitting through a week-plus of industrial-strength, weather-induced melancholia is that it will, invariably, drive you straight to the bookshelves. And while Granta just released its 106th issue — a pretty stellar fiction roundup — today we doff our caps to the other 105 issues of the UK-based periodical, one or more of which is currently under a bed or at a yard sale near you. We’re not sure what it is, but old issues of Granta seem to be lying all over the place, like broken printers or pennies, with one crucial difference: Old issues of Granta can fill up whole stretches of wasted hours, and you can read them over and over. And you’re never going to throw them away, because they’re books. You’d throw away CDs before you’d throw away books. (Note to the world: Throw all of your CDs away today. Seriously. Get over it.) Lately, we’ve been especially taken with a few different old Grantas: Granta 80: The Group, Granta 81: Best of Young British Novelists 2003 and Granta 68: Love Stories. We’ve read everything in them at least twice. And we probably will again. After all, it’s going to rain again sooner or later.

Today’s Vibe is a new regular post category on Philebrity, named after our long-lost podcast series, which we really need to dig up and listen to again. In these posts, we will discuss things — songs, people, colors, vibes — that we are into on that particular day. If you feel like you know what today’s vibe is and would like us to consider it, share it with us by emailing tips[at]philebrity[dot]com with “TODAY’S VIBE” in the subject header.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 2:56 pm.