Rock-a-bye Baby—Africa has had it rough for a long time. Unfortunately, children have borne the brunt of a crisis wrought by war, famine, poverty and AIDS. The U.N. estimates there are more than 48 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

There was a time when Norman Mailer used to talk about the Big Book. It prowled the interviews he gave in the ’50s like a white whale, blasting into view and then diving back down into darkness, where it would lurk until the next publication date.

Love is like fishing. We eye a catch we like, bait the lure, toss out the line and hope what we're offering is to our beloved's liking. Sometimes, the catch takes the bait, whether she'll be eaten whole, thrown back or kept in close stead is up to fate or dumb luck. Other times something else catches our line, perhaps a piece of trash quickly discarded or a fish previously obscured from view—a catch unlike anything we'd ever known. If it weren't for that random snag, it would have slipped past us.