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Readings

Excerpts from the best and most bizarre new books, testimonies, government documents, journals, news reports, speeches, and letters.

Asked and Answered

From Sojourn, which was published last month by New York Review Books. The flat was new to me. I’d moved into it the day before yesterday in a hurry. It…

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The Petit Bourgeois

From The Poems, which will be published next month by Seagull Books. This is the first time the poem has appeared in English. Translated from the German. All you have…

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Becky with the Good Care

From an interview with Becky Currie, a Republican member of the Mississippi House of Representatives, conducted by Anna Wolfe for Mississippi Today. Currie wrote the Mississippi Gestational Age Act, which…

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Minor Marginalia

From writings left behind by visitors to the Oakland Public Library. Dear Librarian: Those three kids over there are making too much noise and I can’t read and my friend…

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American Scream

From a lawsuit filed against American Airlines by a passenger, Michael Lowe, earlier this year. On May 13, the police began investigating the burglary of a duty-free store in Dallas…

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Fingerfehler

From comments made by Russian chess officials in July, following an incident at the Moscow Open in which a chess-playing robot broke the finger of its seven-year-old competitor. Translated from…

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In Favor of Fear

From an essay that originally appeared in Jornal do Brasil in 1967 and is included in Too Much of Life, which will be published this month by New Directions. Translated…

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Gods, Up to a Point

From The Tablet of Destinies, which was published in July by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Translated from the Italian. Inanna had desired to leave the Great Above and go down…

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All Work and No Pay

From interviews conducted with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated laborers by employees of the American Civil Liberties Union and professors and students at the University of Chicago Law School. field labor…

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The Throne

From “Club Chair,” an essay in the collection Lost Objects, which was published in July by Hat & Beard Press. In 1957, my family was at the historical apex of…

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A Way Beyond Mortality

From Meet Us by the Roaring Sea, a novel, which was published last month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. We were eighteen the summer of the drought. The cow’s milk…

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The Sick and the Dead

From passages in A History of Present Illness, which was published last month by Little, Brown. Churches are quiet, true enough. Old and cold and safe. There was one hidden…

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Party Politics

From comments made by Eric Adams since he was elected mayor of New York City last year. The most important city on the globe has become a laughingstock We’re so…

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Inside

From Bloom & Other Poems, which was published in July by New Directions. Translated from the Chinese. inside stone is stone and the memory of plate tectonics inside brick is…

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Dirty Talk

From audio recordings played by two trash cans in Malmö, Sweden, when waste is deposited. Mmm, more Mmm, a bit more to the left next time Ooh, yeah, right there…

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Don’t Be Evil

From Google’s style guide for developers. passive voice: Passive can be okay in the following instances: If your readers don’t need to know who’s responsible for the action. please: Using…

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Gall–Peters Reflections

From tweets by the Kenyan journalist posted in April and May, describing events in Western countries. Evidence mounts of war crimes by fighters loyal to Russian Slav warlord Vladimir Putin,…

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Peach

From Some of Them Will Carry Me, a collection of short stories, which will be published next month by Dorothy, a publishing project. When my mother dies, which will be…

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PEN vs. Sword

From remarks delivered at the PEN America Emergency World Voices Congress of Writers, which was held in May at the United Nations. ayad akhtar: The gravity of this moment is…

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The Year of the Purchase

From Campfires of the Dead and the Living, a short story collection, which will be published next month by 11:11 Press. “Is this your good shirt with the frayed collar…

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Cold Light of Day

From an interview with Sam Kriss conducted by Justin E. H. Smith for The Point’s What Is X? podcast, which was released in May. Flat-earthers are conspiracy theorists who believe…

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Streets Paved with Golden Arches

From the essay “Bela’s Pilgrim,” which was published in the Winter/Spring 2022 issue of Jewish Currents. Shayevich left Azerbaijan in the Nineties to seek asylum in the United States. As…

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Bicycle Jenny

From Kick the Latch, which will be published next month by New Directions. Before her husband died and her house burned down, Bicycle Jenny worked at Crocker’s, the slaughtering plant.…

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Chernobyl Pursuit

From promotional materials for Atomik Vodka. The Chernobyl Spirit Company is a social enterprise aiming to produce high-quality artisan spirits (“moonshine”) from land in the areas of Ukraine abandoned after…

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Artistic Differences

From a previously unpublished cartoon by Thomas Nast, an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly in the late nineteenth century. The sketch, completed in 1870, depicts Nast drawing on a woodblock while…

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Order, Order

From alleged behaviors for which politicians in the United Kingdom have resigned or been reprimanded since 1963. Being late for a meeting Protesting the expansion of an airport Leaking confidential…

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If I Had as Many Hands as Vishnu

From his debut poetry collection, Late Life, which will be published this month by Silverfish Review Press. I would touch you tenderly And then touch myself tenderly As I wished…

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The Path to Freedom

From the introduction to A Woman’s Battles and Transformations, a book about the author’s mother, which will be published next month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Translated from the French.…

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October 2022

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