Sign of the Apocalypse

“It is all bricolage for personal identity building,” says Rob Horning of N+1, providing a somewhat bleak image of the “fast fashion” industry and social media, and what can be expected from the future.

The Fortnightly Review has English-language translations of poems by Homero Pumarol and Frank Báez, two Dominican poets you should really check out.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find a book that was at once so bold in style and ambitious in structure and so much fun to read.” The Guardian asks indie publishers about the books that made their year, including Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue (whose own Year in Reading you can find here).

The best way to celebrate May Day? Read Tennyson‘s “The May Queen,” become “Romance Incarnate.”

The Millions is delighted to welcome new staff writer Marie Myung-Ok Lee, whose first piece for the site publishes today. Marie is the author of  Somebody’s Daughter and a novel about medicine forthcoming from Simon and Schuster. You may have seen Marie’s excellent writing in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many other venues. She teaches fiction at Columbia.

A blogger translates a long Murakami interview about 1Q84 (scroll down for parts I, II, and III). (via)