From The Death of Jesus, which will be published this month by Viking. The book tells the story of Simón and Inés, the legal guardians of a young boy, David,…

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From This Is What Democracy Looked Like, which will be published in June by Princeton Architectural Press. The book is an illustrated history of the paper ballots used in U.S.…

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For and after Vivian Springford, from a manuscript in progress. frameshield forward bloom of a cosmic stain, up on the sun’s old weird edge of expansion, to dispense with the…

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From a sign posted inside Catnap, a café in Christchurch, New Zealand. So you’ve ordered a muffin. Our wobbly tabby cat Bea really likes muffins, so there are a few…

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From a manuscript in progress. Light woke me up What I fed grew Some fun could curve The time of day It’s possible we were Confused by old turns Of…

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From Afropessimism, which will be published this month by Liveright. In February 2001, I attended the Race Rave conference at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with my wife, Alice.…

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From The Celestial Hunter, which will be published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Translated from the Italian. In the time of the Great Raven even the invisible was…

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From purposes of phone calls made by New York City residents to 3-1-1, a help line for information and non-emergency government services.  To discuss a neighbor who hangs underwear out…

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From Synthesizing Gravity, a collection of essays, which will be published this month by Grove Press. It is easy to be sentimental about memory because of its powers to intensify.…

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From My Meteorite, which was published last month by Penguin Books. Dodge is a sculptor and video artist. I always knew I was adopted, and since I was born in…

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From “A Short Lexicon of Milan Kundera,” an essay published in Revue des deux mondes in March to mark Kundera’s ninetieth birthday. Noiville is a novelist and a staff writer…

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From Genghis Chan on Drums, which will be published next year by Omnidawn. I don’t imagine that a chariot is hurrying near but that a sleek car is speeding up…

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From The Last Taxi Driver. The novel, which tells the story of a cab company in Northern Mississippi, was published last month by Tin House Books. They never tell you…

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From Magnetized: Conversations with a Serial Killer, a collection of interviews he conducted with convicted murderer Ricardo Melogno, which will be published in June by Catapult. In 1982, at the…

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From a list of terms defined by the U.S. Department of Defense in a report on men who identify as involuntary celibates, or incels. Elliot Rodger was a twenty-­two-year-old self-described…

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From a manuscript in progress. In the dream I wrote this poem called “Electric.” Somehow I got the t in the middle of the title to wiggle. All the words…

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From Norma Jeane Baker of Troy, a version of Euripides’ Helen, published last month by New Directions. The play was performed last spring at the Shed’s Griffin Theater, in New…

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From transcripts of interviews conducted by David Stavrou with Sayragul Sauytbay, a Uighur woman from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, where the United Nations estimates that between one…

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From an account told to Witold Szabłowski by Abu Ali, a former cook for Saddam Hussein. The story is included in Szabłowski’s book How to Feed a Dictator: Saddam Hussein,…

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From This Brilliant Darkness, out last month from W. W. Norton. The book is composed of short essays about encounters Sharlet had while photographing strangers. mike All photos by Jeff Sharlet The…

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From items found in the stomachs of dead whales since 2010, as described in news reports. Fishing nets Bundles of rope Corrugated tubing Duct tape Shopping bags Banana bags Rice…

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From lyrics referring to Donald Trump in rap songs catalogued by Genius.com. Rich Well-known Over-tan Orange Pink All-American High drama Living large On the links On the news Making big…

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From “Phone Calls from the Apocalypse,” an essay in the collection Thin Places, which will be published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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From At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life, published this month by W. W. Norton. When I imagine my death, I do not see myself surrounded…

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From the novel Hurricane Season, which will be published this month by New Directions. They say she never really died, because witches don’t go without a fight. They say that,…

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From actions since 2006 taken by American companies and institutions to appease China. Censored music that refers to the Tiananmen Square massacreCanceled a lecture on women’s rightsRemoved an app that…

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By Joanne McNeil, from Lurking: How a Person Became a User, published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. A user of Google products might be put off by the…

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