Afternoon Bites: Blake Butler Excerpt, Rock Hall of Fame, Piethos, And More

“When it was Diamond’s turn to respond, it promptly devolved into the Friar’s Club Roast of the Music Industry. He acted boorish, crass, flippant, indifferent, graceless, unappreciative — it was pretty punk rock.” –Christopher Weingarten at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.

  • “Like the traveler lugging the cardboard valise, the reader finds herself pulled in a new direction with every page, deep into a city far more interesting than our own, full of urban decay, old-world philosophizing in invented languages, and besuited men striding with purpose in and out of absurd workplaces.” –Dan Kois reviews Ben Katchor’s The Cardboard Valise.

– Vendela Vida revisits Sweden, and her grandfather’s family.