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By Daphne Merkin, from This Close to Happy: A Reckoning with Depression, a memoir that will be published next month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Merkin is the author of…

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By Karen Solie, from a manuscript in progress. Solie is the author of several collections of poetry, including, most recently, The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out (2015).

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From a list of phrases used in various languages to describe a sun-shower, the phenomenon of the sun shining while it rains. The phrases were compiled by Bert Vaux, a…

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From a complaint filed in an Illinois circuit court last year by Robert Rialmo, a Chicago police officer, against the family of Quintonio LeGrier, a nineteen-year-old black man who was…

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From affidavits written by people across the United States that were included in a lawsuit brought against the Department of Homeland Security by the Immigration Reform Law Institute. The lawsuit,…

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By Dubravka Ugrešic, from an essay that was published in the September/October issue of World Literature Today. Ugrešic is the author of more than a dozen books. She was the…

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From an interview with the philosopher George Steiner that was conducted in 2014 by Laure Adler, a journalist. The interview appears in A Long Saturday, which will be published in…

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From a list of reasons cited by the Drug Enforcement Administration for suspecting travelers of transporting drugs. Originally compiled by a judge, the list appears in Unwarranted: Policing Without Permission,…

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From scenarios presented in Fighter Not Killer, an app that is used by militant groups, including the Islamic State, to test combatants’ knowledge of international humanitarian law. The app was…

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By Rachel Cusk, from Transit, a novel that was published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Cusk is the author of eight previous novels, most recently Outline (2014).

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From letters mailed last year to Gettysburg National Military Park by visitors who had taken rocks from the site as souvenirs.

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By Javier Marías, from To Begin at the Beginning, a reflection on the art of writing fiction. The book was published in October by Sylph Editions as part of their…

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From a list of objects that were mistaken for guns during shootings of civilians by police in the United States since 2001.

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From a post on Object Dreams, a Tumblr blog. The post is a rewriting of The Elements of Style using predictive text, a program that assists typing by anticipating which…

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From transcripts of conversations between Maria Irene Fornes, a Cuban-American playwright and director, and Michelle Memran, a filmmaker. Memran’s documentary about Fornes’s life, The Rest I Make Up, is currently…

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From interviews conducted by journalists and readers with Elena Ferrante since 2003. The correspondence is included in Frantumaglia, a collection of Ferrante’s papers that was published last month by Europa…

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From a letter written by Karl Ove Knausgaard to Fredrik Ekelund, a novelist, in 2014. The letter was included in Home and Away, a collection of their letters about the…

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From a list of nontraditional tableware at restaurants. The list was compiled by We Want Plates, a food blog.

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From emails sent by Maria Bistline, a manager at the food storehouse for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to Preston Barlow, a church official. The emails…

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By Peter Handke, from The Moravian Night, which was published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Handke is the author of more than a dozen novels. Translated from the…

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