If you are looking to fall in love — or merely sigh with longing about a shamefully underknown literary genius — look no further than David Grossman’s wonderfully wistful and highly personal profile of Bruno Schultz in the June 8 issue of The New Yorker. A Polish author who perished under mysterious circumstances in the Holocaust — Grossman adds his own fascinating investigative reporting to the already-existing varying and heartbreaking stories — Schultz, as Grossman puts it, has “an aura of wonder and mystery [that] hovers ceaselessly over his works and his biography,” inspiring such giants as Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick and Grossman himself to make Schultz a character in their books. I’ve no idea what Roth and Ozick did with Schultz, but Grossman’s treatment makes me swoon. The type of gentle soul who, as a fomer student describes him, “kind of apologizes for their very existence,” Schultz, in Grossman’s fantasy, is smuggled out of wartime Poland and jumps into the sea to join a school of salmon — salmon not only because there is something “very Jewish” about the fish’s lifelong journey from freshwater home to the sea and back, but also because, like salmon, Schultz’s writing is so much about “the primal, naked impulse of life, which salmon seem to sketch in their long journey.” Part murder mystery, part pilgrimage of discovery, Grossman’s introduction (to me) of Bruno Schultz, is all six-pointed stars.

If you are participating in the great soul-searching exercise that has come to define These Insane Times — and that would be basically everybody I know who has lost her job, and then some — you probably couldn’t find a greater source of inspiration than Matthew B. Crawford. A Ph.D. in political philosophy at the University of Chicago, Crawford is now a motorcycle mechanic — not because he had a breakdown, couldn’t make it in the corporate world or, let’s be charitable, because he needed a book subject (though an essay adapted from his book, “Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work,” appears in The New York Times Magazine). Crawford turned to motorcycle repair because cubicle culture was a reason-free, disaffection-spawning sham, while the tangibility of a trade — as well as business ownership — held concrete value that is physical, spiritual and bankable. A trade teaches the value of innovative thinking and the firsthand consequence of failure in a way that a coveted magazine or accounting internship does not. And as my father who held every kind of job — paper boy, Good Humor man, auto-factory worker — before building one of the country’s biggest dental practices frequently pointed out, a trade forces you to deal with the public, and that leads to tolerance and diplomacy. What’s so cool, notes Crawford, is that entrepreneurship makes our economy far more nimble than our current managerial structure. And on an individual level, it’s far more satisfying. I also love his idea that our most gifted students should learn a trade during their summers off. So, guess where the MILFspring and all my future children are spending every July from here on out? Organic farms, fashion factories, lamp-repair shops — anywhere, that is, where they use their hands in a way that is far more useful than, say, texting.

Are you eager to get outta dodge, but finding yourself in need of some stimulation, beyond your dwindling bank account, to move your tuchis onward and upward? Look no further than the 100-year-old example of Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamund Underwood, two privileged young women who temporarily escaped their boring circumstances by answering a random ad for teachers in a Colorado backwater, as told in The New Yorker. The piece is a thrilling look at two gutsy young women, but it is also a story for These Times, when the prospects of so many seem so dim, and yet the opportunity for adventure and inspiration, as the President repeatedly points out, is nearly unprecedented in our lifetimes. Just as it was for Dorothy and Rosamund — who, as class of 1916 at Smith, knew they needed to leave the easy and the expected to become the kind of experienced women they wanted to be — so are we about to embark on an era of great personal and professional innovation. We’re going to see many more fortune-hunters leaving high-gloss trend-centers for entrepreneurial careers, whether as organic farmers, domestic fashion-factory owners or environmental entrepreneurs. It’s the upside of the downturn, and I’m psyched!

Remember when you were a kid, and you’d dream of running away from home to join another family because, say, there was a hot older brother who’d garner you lots of attention from his friends, or there were parents who stocked the pantry with sugar cereals and in later years let you drink their booze and steal their pot? And then you grew up and realized either that your family is awesome or that you really did need to run away and create something new? Well, French Vogue’s tender photo album of seven fashionable families will make you cherish whatever it is that you’ve got — or inspire you to get there. Tied for most adorable is Alber Elbaz & Alex Koo and Ian Schrager & Tania Wahlstedt with their four daughters. Most gorgeous, of course, is Ines de la Fressange and her girls. Oh, the gush!

I had the best time in bed with Jonathan van Meter last night! Mr. MILF was there too! But before you contact the scandal sheets, maybe I should back up for a sec and clarify: Last night I devoured the master profiler’s absorbing pieces on Steven Meisel (in Vogue) and on the marriage of Nan and Gay Talese (in New York Magazine). And I happened to be under the covers while doing it. But that’s just location (and distraction). The point is, as a journalist, each story is envy-inducing. All three subjects are major influentials who rarely speak with the press, especially Meisel who has basically become a recluse (apparently because of weight issues — so fashion!). And the really cool thing is that they’re all fascinating and, unlike just about all celebrities profiled today, they all totally opened up to the reporter about their inner lives and what makes them tick. Nothing canned, nothing that you’ve read anywhere else. Now, I admit, these profiles may not be as physically, well, you know, as other things you can do in bed. But they are guaranteed to stimulate your mind. And for some of us, that gets the other stuff going too. Try it! And let me know how it goes.