Zane Grey and the Borgias
by Jim Shepard
Graham Greene’s take on postwar Vienna says an unsettling amount about America’s current endeavors.

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An Era of Awkward Repression
by Mark Oppenheimer
Evan Connell’s Wasps, spent and repressed, offer the truest view of American alienation and uncertainty.

More Sex, Please, I’m British
by Mark Swartz
Nigel Cawthorne’s one-trick biographies present a peculiarly unified view of history and its hidden, forbidden motor.

Why Look at Fish?
by Ginger Strand
Aquariums capture the sublime and act as agents of urban renewal—but what of the oil companies that fund them?

Whale Tale
by Lawrence Krauser
The American Museum of Natural History’s forty-year hunt for the right whale.

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Paul Auster
in conversation with Jonathan Lethem
Trading Kafkaesque visions of touring, sharing an exphrasis, and finally revealing why a dog was forced to bark at Harvey Keitel.

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Todd Solondz
interviewed by Sigrid Nunez
Walking around town talking about the shame of creation, the comedy of tragedy, and the meanness of people.

Eve Sussman
interviewed by Suzanne Snider
The head of a band of itinerant artists describes how she transforms masterpieces of painting into operatic films with huge budgets.

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Announcing The Believer Book Awards

Antoine Volodine’s Minor Angels
reviewed by Margaret Wappler

Lisa Robertson’s Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture
reviewed by Stephen Burt

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Kevin McIlvoy’s The Complete History of New Mexico
reviewed by Phyllis Fong

Jess Row’s The Train to Lo Wu
reviewed by John Glassie

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Witold Gombrowicz’s Bacacay
reviewed by Andrew Ervin

Steve Erickson’s Our Ecstatic Days
reviewed by Joseph McElroy

Light: Marfa Mystery Lights
by Susan Briante

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Conservative: Jim
by Jon Mooallem

Underway
by Various

Stuff I’ve Been Reading
by Nick Hornby

La Zona Fantasma
by Javier Marías

Paradise Poem: a new poem
by Dean Young

Schema: Non-Essential Stock Photography
by Brian McMullen & Chester

Four-Color Comics: “Illustrations for My Novel”
by Michael Kupperman