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Readings

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

Dantor a Anais and Sanité Bélair

Dantor a Anais and Sanité Bélair, mixed-media artworks by Didier William, whose work is on view this month at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, in Hartford, Connecticut. Courtesy the…

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The Country in the Woman

From Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick, a book of short stories including previously uncollected work, published this month by Amistad. “L ooka heah Cal’line, you oughta stop dis heah…

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Leftovers

From Children of the Land, a memoir published this month by Harper. Hernandez Castillo was born in Mexico and immigrated to the United States when he was five years old.…

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Paperback to the Future

From Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-reader, a collection of essays published next month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The other day I was asked a question of fact…

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Minor Threats

By Jean Genet, from The Criminal Child: Selected Essays, published this month by NYRB Classics. This text is an abridged version of the essay “The Criminal Child,” which was commissioned…

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“Untitled (Forest 2)”

“Untitled (Forest 2),” a photograph by Sandra Kantanen, whose work was on view in November at Elizabeth Houston Gallery, in New York City. Kantanen’s monograph, More Landscapes, was published last…

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Nurses with Wine

Nurses with Wine, a painting by Alex Kanevsky, whose work was on view in September at Hollis Taggart, in New York City. © Private collection. Courtesy the artist and Hollis…

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Powers for Algernon

From news reports of tasks that various types of rodents have been trained to perform. Distinguish healthy patients from tuberculosis patientsDistinguish Japanese speech from Dutch speechFear cherry blossomsFear terrorists

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An Instant of Nowhere

From “Translating Paul Blackburn,” published in The Next Loves, a collection of poetry that was released in September by Nightboat Books. Translated from the French by Lindsay Turner. Finally I…

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La Güera

La Güera, a mixed-media artwork by Hugo Crosthwaite, whose work was on view in December at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles. Courtesy the artist and Luis de Jesus Los Angeles

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Kindergarten Cops

From records of alleged behavior by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, as reported by unaccompanied minors, dating from 2009 to 2014. The A.C.L.U. Foundation of San Diego and Imperial…

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Deadly Poets Society

From My War Criminal: Personal Encounters with an Architect of Genocide, out this month from Ecco. The book recounts the author’s interviews, conducted between October 2014 and November 2016, with…

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Being in Nothingness

From The Longing for Less: Living with Minimalism, a work of criticism that will be published next month by Bloomsbury. In the midst of existence, most living things deny time.…

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Clear History

Past behaviors, described and reported online, that individuals successfully lobbied Google to remove from its search results under the European Union’s “right to be forgotten” law. Publishing a poem on…

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“Composition with Painted Cutouts”

“Composition with Painted Cutouts,” a photograph by Nico Krijno, whose work was on view in June at Elizabeth Houston Gallery, in New York City.

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The Beast in Me

From South American Journals, a collection of Ginsberg’s spiritual writing published last month by the University of Minnesota Press. This entry is the author’s account of an ayahuasca experience in…

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Our Town

Our Town, a painting by Amy Bennett, whose work was on view in August at Miles McEnery Gallery, in New York City. Courtesy the artist and Miles Mcenery Gallery, New…

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I Follow the Sunlight Around the Lawn

From Little Hill, which will be published in April by City Lights. I follow the sunlight around the lawn With a ridiculous plastic chair A chair has its task and…

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Song of My Shelf

From sentences in movie reviews by James Patterson. I’m a little nuts and a little sickIt should be obvious that I like preposterous storiesStephen King commented that he doesn’t have…

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Roy Meets World

From an untitled essay in Book of Roy, a collection of photographs by Neil Drabble that was published in October by MACK. Tillman’s essay accompanies Drabble’s photographs of an American…

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The Sleepwalkers and Rope-a-Dope

The Sleepwalkers and Rope-a-Dope, mixed-media artworks by Deborah Roberts, whose work was on view in July at Stephen Friedman Gallery, in London. Courtesy the artist and The Studio Museum in…

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Single Blood

For Rebeca López, from Bleeding from All 5 Senses, published this month by White Pine Press. Translated from the Spanish by Cole Heinowitz. You were born from the sperm of…

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Protocol or: A Contribution on the Renaissance as Compiled Jointly with My Uncle Josef

From Why I Write?, a collection of prose published this month by Karolinum Press. Hrabal (1914–1997) was a Czech writer known for his novels Closely Watched Trains and I Served…

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Workbench with Underwood

Workbench with Underwood, a painting by Dickon Drury, whose work was on view in August at Koppe Astner, in Glasgow, Scotland. Courtesy the artist; Koppe Astner, Glasgow, Scotland; and Galerie…

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Faulty Towers

From reports of conditions in the New York City Housing Authority’s public-housing units since 2017. Unidentified children likely poisoned by lead paintMold in the apartments of asthmaticsBroken air conditioners in…

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The Pillar

Photographs by Stephen Gill from The Pillar, a monograph published this year by Nobody Books. Gill photographed a pillar and the birds it attracted on his property in Skåne, Sweden,…

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Reappearing Act

From 97,196 Words, a collection of the author’s non-fiction writing, published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This story was written as a statement of intent for a film…

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Sex and Sensibility

From an interview with Vladimir Nabokov conducted by Alberto Ongaro in 1966 for L’Europeo, included in Think, Write, Speak: Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews, and Letters to the Editor, a book…

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February 2020

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