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But Never a Lovely So Real
by Colin Asher
The life and legacy of Nelson Algren, a writer who despite his great acclaim and occasional success always identified with society’s losers.

In Defense of Book
by Damion Searls
When will we get the Michael Pollan of reading?

Greil Marcus
Real Life Rock Top Ten

Refer Madness
by Robert Cohen
An essay that includes, in its entirety, Kafka’s “The Wish to Be a Red Indian,” as well as a persuasive argument against that wish.

Daniel Handler
What the Swedes Read

Pitch Battles
by Colin Dickey
Fraud, conspiracy, and allegations of Nazism in the struggle for an internationally recognized standard musical pitch.

Musin’s and Thinkin’s
with Jack Pendarvis

Americans Talk About Their Dogs: Leah & Beau
“He was literally like a piece of me. Like a fifth limb.”

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Mike Patton
interviewed by Ross Simonini

Bjarke Ingels
interviewed by Scott Geiger

Diana Nyad
interviewed by Carmen Winant

Dany Laferrière in conversation with Alain Mabanckou

The Process
by Caia Hagel
A conversation with artist Polixeni Papapetrou about her photograph The Wanderer #3.

Two Jokes Walk Into a Bar
A new poem by Sabrina Orah Mark

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Kathleen Rooney on Cathy

Abdellah Taïa’s An Arab Melancholia reviewed by Erik Morse

Josef Kaplan’s Democracy Is Not for the People reviewed by Diana Hamilton

Schema: 200 Years (or so) of Creepy Dolls in Literature
by Kylie Byrd