Marginalia

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• Variations on a theme

• A list of our favorite books about old people

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• Animal collective

• Trinie Dalton throws a zine party. Unicorns and werewolves show up.

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• Reborn and beyond

• We watch Susan Sontag talk about architecture and round up her greatest nonfiction hits.

New reviews

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• Short fiction

• Livability, by Jon Raymond

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• Stories by the author of "Wendy and Lucy" and "Old Joy."

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• Memoir

• The Mercy Papers, by Robin Romm

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• Remembering a mother's death.

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• Historical fiction

• Land of Marvels, by Barry Unsworth

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• Scenes of a wartime archeological dig.

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• Sesame Street: The history

• Street Gang, by Michael Davis

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• Michael Davis goes behind the scenes of the famous educational program.

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• Poetry

• My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poems of Jack Spicer

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• Spicer’s poetic talent was both a burden and a kind of magic.

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• Immersion journalism

• Voluntary Madness, by Norah Vincent

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• In her new book on our mental-health system, Norah Vincent goes to the loony bin.

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• Adventures of a runaway

• Miles from Nowhere, by Nami Mun

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• This debut novel follows a young Korean-American through the gritty streets of 1980s New York.

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• Diaries of an intellect

• Reborn, by Susan Sontag

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• A rigorous and private writer reveals herself.

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• ODB revisited

• Digging for Dirt, by Jaime Lowe

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• The new bio of the Wu-Tang member gets mired in linguistic gobbledygook.

See more book reviews… »

Author profiles

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• Allegory details

• Laura Miller returns to Narnia.

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• Gary Indiana

• Indiana slices through the cultural dreck.

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• From hear to eternity

• Critic Ben Ratliff plays DJ for TONY.

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• Anomie of the people

• A new satire distills a screenwriter’s spiritual crisis and political rage.

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• Naval gazing

• Novelist Amitav Ghosh studies life on a 19th-century ship.

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• Orphan club

• Hannah Tinti’s debut novel follows a band of outsiders.

Print condition

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• The cheapest bookstore

• It’s called the library, geniuses. Here’s how it will save you money—and more.

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• Culture Report, part I

• Literary agents, editors and publicists weigh in on the unpredictable world of publishing.

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• Culture Report, part II

• Writers discuss the factors of literary success.