Letters of Note

Apologies for the blog being a bit quiet this week. Sometimes life gets in the way! Back to normal next week, I promise.

Letters of Note is a great blog that posts correspondence from famous people on any number of subjects. There is a beautiful letter from Helen Keller in response to a doctor who asked her what she really “saw” when she visited the Empire State Building – in it she describes the skyscraper and its environs with a poetic vision that surely silenced that critic. There is a heartbreaking letter from Marilyn Monroe to her doctor on the eve of surgery for her appendix. There is also one of the funniest memos ever from the South Park team in reference to their film Bigger Longer and Uncut.

I particularly love the letter from writer John Steinbeck to his eldest son Thom who had written looking for advice on love – Steinbeck’s reply, which includes the line “nothing good gets away”, is a gorgeous letter written from the point of view of a man who had experienced great love himself.