Features & Reviews
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Maps and Legends
“Do you ever get the feeling like you already know the entire contents of the universe somewhere in your head… and you are just spending your entire life figuring out how to access this map?” — The Selected Works of…
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In The Flesh Reading Series
Rachel Kramer Bussel has written a sex column for the Village Voice, edited a number of anthologies including the Best Sex Writing series, Spanked: Red Cheeked Erotica, He’s On Top, She’s On Top and Dirty Girls and has had her…
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To Sit, to Stand, to Write
Ever since Nietzsche’s declaration, there has been some disagreement among writers, thinkers, doctors, and designers as to whether inspiration and creativity come from being seated and quiescent, or from being upright and vigorous.
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We Inspire Complete Coincidences
Amazon, last seen on Slate not answering questions about corporate philanthropy, now has a new web page up—complete with an application form for “nonprofit author and publisher groups that share our obsession with fostering the creation, discussion, publication, and dissemination…
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Lovelace and Babbage comic – It’s about time
I’ve always wondered why Ada Lovelace, first female computer programmer, only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the person I idolized in high school, hasn’t been more glorified in culture, seeing as she was one of the first females to envision…
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The Rumpus Sunday Book Review Supplement
Ah, the lovely march of Spring… Who can deny the splendor and joy that May hath wrought?
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Verbophobia: About the Phobias in Roberto Bolaño’s 2666
“An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom,” by Charles Baudelaire, 2666’s epigram
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MANGIA MANGA
Since its 1983 debut as a weekly serial, Oishinbo has sold over 100 million paperback editions in Japan. Yet while Oishinbo is undeniably the granddaddy of food-themed manga I’ve discovered many fine examples of the genre. Below are synopses of…
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The Rumpus Book Blog Roundup
Sometimes, reading book blogs can make you feel like you’re watching the paparazzi photograph J-Lo on entertainment television, only J-Lo has gotten ugly, become a man, died, and named herself J.R.R. Tolkien. The Rumpus Book Blog Roundup’s goal is to…
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Was This Review Helpful? Amazon and the Search for an Unassailable Masterpiece
One customer review of “The Catcher in the Rye” warns readers that it will make you “want to kill yourself.” Another calls Holden Caulfield a “whiney, immature, angst ridden teenager who need[s] a smack in the head.”