Henry's Daily Miscellany: Like The Giant Rat of Sumatra, there are tales for which the world is not yet ready

• Richard Nixon as a supernatural character? It could happen:

Grossman's own impressive narrative gifts are occasionally undermined by slack pacing. And the supernatural elements are often underplayed — most paranormal incursions are delivered as secondhand accounts. We seldom see any monsters, and neither does Nixon, though we do get enticing references to "the Great Worm at Tunguska, and what's at Arkhangel'sk, and the pine men, and that which you tried to put down with the bomb in '49." 

This restraint may be in accordance with Lovecraft's famous dictum that horror is best invoked by a "certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces ... a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost rim." But one yearns for more about the kraken that assisted the British during World War II, yanking Messerschmitts from the sky with its tentacles, and the rival magicians associated with the Democratic Party, who "showed their hand at Woodstock."

• What if the 2016 GOP presidential field was populated by literary characters? The Millions has considered this for you.

• Claire Cameron asked nine writers what they feel like when they finish writing their books, and gets in a nice swing at critics: As I embarked on the project of asking writers how it felt finish a book, I was reminded of what Kurt Vonnegut said about a reviewer who rages about a book, “He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.”