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Readings

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

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From a previously unpublished cartoon by Thomas Nast, an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly in the late nineteenth century.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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A Free Country

From Pure Life, a novel, which was published in May by Strange Light. She waited for him in Baggage Claim wearing a cowboy hat and a white blouse and a…

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Going Nowhere, Fast

From The Newlyweds, which will be published next month by Atria Books. For most of my mother’s life, she has lived in the house she was born in. It is…

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Bound and Galleyed

From “Whips and Chains,” which appeared in Issue 11 of The Fence. Back in February 2012, when I was a newly minted marketing executive at Random House U.K., I was…

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Murder, She Wrote

From an archived version of a blog post titled “How to Murder Your Husband,” which was allegedly written in 2011 by Nancy Brophy, who was put on trial in April…

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Gated Community

From reports of people living at airports. A German former pilot spent thirteen days in Viracopos–Campinas International Airport after he was dumped by a woman he met online. An Indian…

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Gap and Erasure

From the April issue of The Brooklyn Rail.   The lumbering bumblebee is out Buttering up its bronze thighs With pollen’d orbs of echinacea. It’s a period piece, a Gap…

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The City That Never Sleeps

From complaints received by New York City’s 311 helpline between February 2021 and February 2022. My neighbor is having loud sex and has kept me up for two days straight.…

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Rags to Reichstag

From a speech given by the Tennessee state senator in April during a debate on a bill to make camping along highways a misdemeanor. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I haven’t…

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Zero Dark Flirty

From promotional materials for YBeU, a beauty and life-coaching business run by Alfreda Scheuer, a former CIA officer who oversaw the interrogation of suspected terrorists during the George W. Bush…

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Game of Life

From an interview with Marcel, a chess player in New York City’s Washington Square Park, published in April on CAFÉ ANNE, Kadet’s website. This game has cost me a couple…

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Fear and Loathing in Moscow

From “In Moscow, Russians Face the Vertigo of War,” which was reported from Moscow and published in March by L’Obs. The names of some subjects have been changed by the…

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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Gauche

From descriptions of trips hosted by Young Pioneer Tours, which offers vacations to “destinations your mother would rather you stay away from.” south sudan budget tour The most affordable tour…

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Time Wasting

From Chronicle of a Hunger Striker, which is forthcoming from Deep Vellum. Sentsov was arrested in 2014 for protesting the Russian annexation of his native Crimea, and spent five years…

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Prime Factors

From A Divine Language, which will be published next month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1. Prime numbers are those that can be divided cleanly only by themselves and by…

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Terms of Endearment

From Companion Piece, a novel, which was published last month by Pantheon. Surface v depth: and if you said someone was light-timbered it meant they were a weakling, I told…

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Loss in Translation

From “Unspeakable Pain,” which was published in the Spring 2022 issue of The Yale Review. “I am Dr. Smith,” I say. “I am Dr. Jones.” For five hours a day,…

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Life, Inc.

From “Corporate Insecthood,” a study conducted by Nina Strohminger and Matthew Jordan, which will be published next month in Cognition. Participants were asked to rank various corporations and organizations on…

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Not Terrorized No

In memory of Marisela Escobedo, a Mexican activist who was assassinated in 2010 while protesting the acquittal of Sergio Rafael Barraza Bocanegra, who had confessed to murdering Escobedo’s teenage daughter.…

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Chew Your Own Adventure

From Letter to the Americans, which was written in 1949 after a visit to New York City. It will be published for the first time in English this month by…

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Naming Contentions

From a list of names that are banned around the world, collected by USBirthCertificates.com. Linda (Saudi Arabia) Sarah (Morocco) Judas (Switzerland) Osama bin Laden (Germany) Devil (Japan) Monkey (Denmark) Thor…

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August 2022

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