“Death to the Minibar!”

If you received a text from an unknown number saying, "sup you comnig to this thing?", would you respond? Michael Cera imagines the ensuing conversation in his epistolary humor piece, "My Man Jeremy," for The New Yorker. Depending on how you feel about the actor, the piece is either endearingly awkward or annoying, but it's very Cera — complete with anxiety and references to how he always gets mixed up with fellow "Shouts & Murmurs" contributor Jesse Eisenberg.

From the book I'm reading right now: "My mother's output, starred and pseudonymous, appeared regularly in one of those little, irregular periodicals so limited in readership that they might be called incestuous. Subscription was by invitation only, and contributors would go into a rage over a misplaced comma and brood for days if their poems were understood."

James Hynes discusses the books he read when writing his latest novel, Next: "I wanted to see if I could write a day-in-the-life novel, a narrative that would be set in a single day, or part of one, and by working backwards and forwards through flashbacks, encompass the entire life of a single character."