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Scary monsters and super freaks

What if deceased presidents were reincarnated as horses in a belated lesson in humility?

By: LISA WEIDENFELD | February 13, 2013

Yo, Jonny! The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

Sometime after becoming a YouTube megastar and crashing into the cult of personality that has metastasized in contemporary society, Teddy Wayne's 11-year-old bubblegum idol Jonny Valentine is hanging out in his dressing room getting a blow job from a girl who doesn't even like his music.

By: SHARON STEEL | February 05, 2013

The Big Love Hurts: Valentine's Day press releases

Spoil the mood with terrible dates, familiar faces and sex toy surprises
Valentine's Day brings an enormous opportunity to squeeze money from the most lucrative demographics: the frustrated, the clingy, the lonely, and the stalky.

By: DAVID THORPE | February 05, 2013

In Memoriam: On the death of Jack McCarthy, a working-class poet

An unsung hero of modern poetry passed away last week.

By: B. DOLAN | January 30, 2013

Sweet bad dreams: Yoko Ogawa's latest book

What lingers like a nightmare?

By: CLEA SIMON | January 30, 2013

Jennifer Haigh's quiet lives

BOOKS
Jennifer Haigh's News from Heaven , a series of 10 interconnected short stories set in the fictional Bakerton, Pennsylvania, of her celebrated 2005 novel Baker Towers (it's subtitled "The Bakerton Stories"), stretches over much of the 20th century.

By: LISA WEIDENFELD | January 23, 2013

Life as a commercial: John Kenney's Truth in Advertising

Gwyneth Paltrow, 1984 , and dirty diapers aren't an obvious mix.

By: CLEA SIMON | January 15, 2013

Mansbach is back

Books
Prior to the meme-tastic success of last year's Go the Fuck to Sleep (Akashic Books), Adam Mansbach had written two acclaimed novels about race and culture.

By: JONATHAN DONALDSON | January 11, 2013

Bipolar and off the leash of meds: Juliann Garey's Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See

Juliann Garey's debut novel begins with its narrator doing something unforgivable.

By: LISA WEIDENFELD | January 08, 2013

Kate beyond time: The Kate Moss Book

Almost all models who achieve some degree of fame find themselves blamed for whatever agenda their era's most vocal scold happens to be pushing.

By: CHARLES TAYLOR | January 08, 2013

Getting booked: Winter reads

Who cares about the fiscal cliff when we'll have authors talking about Scientology, the space-time continuum, and Joy Division?

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | December 21, 2012

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Brilliant friends: Great reads of 2012

You already know Chis Ware's Building Stories is the achievement of the decade (thanks, New York Times!), but some other people wrote some pretty great books this year too.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | December 17, 2012

Even the Jordan River has bodies floatin'

Style aside, the 1960s — the era that spawned sex, drugs, and rock and roll — are still with us.

By: PETER KADZIS | December 12, 2012

SLIDESHOW: The cheap near-thrills of Sexytime

With porn so privately accessible now, we don't worry about the stigma attached to its consumption, the thought of someone pausing to peruse the art in front of an adult movie theater (hell, the thought of an adult movie theater) instead of just ducking in before being seen is almost touching.

By: CHARLES TAYLOR | December 14, 2012