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Reality Hunger, the newest book from the always interesting David Shields, comes sheathed in glowing blurbs from the likes of Lydia Davis, Ben Marcus, Amy Hempel and Jonathan Lethem. Needless to say, I had high expectations …more

“They can’t make us wait in lines,” my friend said when we were told the doors weren’t open yet. “This is punk rock.” …more

America has always had people dying for a taste of the limelight and others willing to delude them for a healthy profit. PBS takes a funny and moving look at one such scheme in Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story (viewable in full on Hulu).

The song-poem hustle goes something like this: …more

I’m not sure why it took me a bit to get into Donald Antrim’s Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World, because the book begins with the quartering of the town mayor by automobile, which is pretty great. Antrim is an inventive writer and pulls some wild tricks—one early sex scene is narrated almost entirely in monosyllabic dialogue—that I was worried might become gimmicky. But Antrim has the talent and humor to meld these innovations into a propulsive narrative that climaxes in the most amazingly twisted ending I’ve read in years. A serious how on earth did he think this up and how did the publisher allow it? moment. …more