The Chameleon Machine

- | 8
Digital readers and paper books have little in common. But both objects have considerable merit, and this is why I think we should combine the two.
- | 8

Mold, Gin, and the Apocalypse: Lars Iyer’s Spurious

- | 1
I feel some kinship with Lars, the narrator of Lars Iyer’s Spurious, a debut novel and a meditation on friendship, failure, the apocalypse, messianism, and mold.
- | 1

On Bad Reviews

- | 79
Given all the years you spent writing your book or composing your music or perfecting your play before someone came along and spat on it, it’s extraordinarily difficult to respond to a bad review with grace.
- | 79

Staff Pick: Hannah Pittard’s The Fates Will Find Their Way

- | 5
In her elegant debut novel The Fates Will Find Their Way, Hannah Pittard defies the odds; she takes a story we’ve all read before—a girl disappears, the lives of those left behind are changed forever in the aftermath—and manages to create something entirely original.
- | 5

Take This Waltz: Leonard Cohen’s Tour Comes to an End

- | 12
I have a hard time describing the concerts themselves. I can describe the external details, but the problem is that words fall flat when describing a religious experience.
- | 12

A Year in Reading: Emily St. John Mandel

- | 1
The book opens with a narrow focus, then telescopes outward.
- | 1

Staff Pick: Millen Brand’s The Outward Room

- | 2
A quiet little miracle of a book.
- | 2

Hint Fiction: Brevity is the Soul of What?

- | 9
How short can a story be and still be a complete story, as opposed to, say, a fragment of something that probably should have been longer?
- | 9

Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing To Our Brains

- | 15
I began to realize that after all this time on the Internet, I’d trained my brain to expect a new stimulation every few minutes. After a short period of concentration on a given task, my brain would do what I’d trained it to do: it would turn its attention to something else.
- | 15