“Artful,” by Ali Smith
In one of the more memorable passages of Ali Smith’s Artful, the narrator notes how “surprisingly lightly” we treat books “in contemporary culture. We’d never expect to understand a piece…
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Ryan Zee
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Ryan Zee lives in New York with his degrees in English and Philosophy from Muhlenberg College. His work has appeared in Ploughshares and on Daily-Download.com. He's also the brains behind @JunotDiazDaily. He likes Junot Diaz a lot.
“Encyclopedia of a Life in Russia,” by José Manuel Prieto
In 1988, Czech novelist Milan Kundera published a personal dictionary of his “key words, problem words, words I love.” Not your average lexicon, “Sixty-three words” fuses history, philosophy, social-critique and…
“Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story,” by D. T. Max
Like many latecomers to his work, my introduction to David Foster Wallace began with a reading of his 2005 Kenyon College commencement address. I remember being struck initially, immediately, by…