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Readings

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

Real Estate Speculation

From Tabula Rasa, Volume 1, a collection of his unrealized reporting projects, which was published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. A sprawling ranch on several acres has a…

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Failure to Launch

From discontinued products included in the Museum of Failure’s collection, which was on display last month in New York City. A television remote with eighty-eight buttons A flip phone that…

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Trial by Media

From headlines published by the Guardian since 2009. Pablo Escobar’s hippos can restore a lost world Pablo Escobar’s hippos are people too Pablo Escobar’s hippos to cost Colombia $3.5 million Pablo…

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Repetition Compulsion

From articles by Anne Applebaum published in The Atlantic since 2021. Applebaum is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the SNF Agora Institute, which is…

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Literary Matronage

From the introduction to The Family Diary, a 2024 planner edited by Julian Rothenstein, which was published last month by Redstone Press. If, when a child is growing up, it…

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Labor Pains

From “Dear Employee,” which was published in Issue 80 of Conjunctions. The announcement came in the mail: effective immediately, everyone was assigned a new job. Pay was $0 a week.…

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Hog Wild

From “The Maverick Pig,” included in the collection Pleasure of Thinking, which was published this month by Astra House. Translated from the Chinese. At the commune, I fed pigs and…

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Dancer From the Dance

From The Entanglement, which was published last month by Princeton University Press. When she dances, a young child already moves her body with a sensitivity to what is expected of…

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The Power of the Dog

From Animal Spirits, which will be published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Soon after he graduated in 1909, Aldo Leopold headed to the Southwest to take a job…

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Bikini Kill

From August Blue, which will be published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Vass decided to sail after all. He said the wind would calm down. The boat was…

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Good Grief

From a symposium on the topic of loss, which was published in the Spring 2023 issue of The Threepenny Review. The cult of loss has many enthusiastic members. And as…

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Ghost Protocol

From Lament for Julia, which will be published this month by New York Review Books. I did not love her at first; not for a long time. She did not…

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Dashiell, Hamming

From similes used in twentieth-century noir books and films, compiled in The Mysterious Romance of Murder, which was published last May by Cornell University Press. Impressive as an adoring moll…

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Stimulus Package

From the minutes of a meeting of the Boca Raton Planning and Zoning Board held on March 2. ashley cream: Good evening. I am here as a concerned citizen and…

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Groan Banking

From a list of queries and complaints received by the New York City 311 line since 2003, released in March to commemorate its twentieth anniversary. Can you check if my…

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Not

From Phantom Pain Wings, which was published last month by New Directions. Translated from the Korean. I don’t walk without music I don’t wear a slip without lace There’s a…

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No Biggie

From the witness testimony of NCIS special agent John C. Little, given in North Carolina in August 2021 during the detention hearing of Joseph Maurino, a New Jersey national guardsman…

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Book of Lies

From Orphan Bachelors, which will be published this month by Grove Press. Our father’s elder sister arrived with her husband in 1921. We called her Big Aunt. Big Uncle was…

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Compose Yourself

From Easily Slip into Another World, which will be published this month by Knopf. Toward the end of July 1971, I go to see Duke Ellington with his orchestra. This…

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Dirty Pop

From “Chains or Whips? The Cruel Decade and its Aftermath,” which was published in February by The White Review. The decade of cruelty started with low-rise jeans. Of course, no…

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Grace Under Fire

From Ordinary Notes, which was published last month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. At Amiri Baraka’s funeral service, livestreamed from Newark Symphony Hall, a beautiful number and range of people…

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Fatal Attraction

From Tomás Nevinson, which will be published this month by Knopf. Translated from the Spanish. I still didn’t have all the facts—I was waiting for the full reports, which would…

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Benjamin Glutton

From explanations given by centenarians for their longevity, followed by their ages at the time the advice was reported. Smoke fifteen cigarettes a day, 100 Drink one glass of Coors…

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Genius Sidebar

From a hearing held in February to discuss the bail conditions of Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Prosecutors had asked Judge Lewis Kaplan to place…

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Off the Record

From headlines given to letters published by the New York Times between 2009 and 2023. Is It OK to Marry an Amnesiac? Is It OK to Press Your Spouse to…

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All Souls

From All Souls, which will be published in October by Graywolf. Schubert, Schumann said, wrote music as if ‘never in doubt as to how to continue,’ but his notes, conversant…

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Capital Gains Tax

From interviews with former Taliban fighters conducted in Kabul and published by the Afghanistan Analysts Network in February. Translated from the Pashto. Leaving the Taliban’s friendly environment was difficult. There…

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Lots to Lose

From Paved Paradise, which will be published next month by Penguin Press. Parking psychosis is a regular feature of American life. The former NFL safety T. J. Cunningham was killed…

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August 2023

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