Selfies
by X.C. Atkins
When I woke up, I reached for my phone. I really hated this about myself. This gross reflex.
Sunday Stories: “Selfies”
Weekend Bites: Inside “The Devil in Silver,” Revisiting Djuna Barnes, Jordan Harper’s Latest, and More
In our weekend reading: inside the making of “The Devil in Silver,” Vincent Tirado’s bookshelves, and more.
Inside the Culinary Archives: On Luke Barr’s “The Secret History of French Cooking”
Luke Barr’s The Secret History of French Cooking is an absolute feast—an irresistible blend of culinary archaeology, cultural storytelling, and pure gastronomic joy. Barr has a gift for taking something as familiar as French cuisine and revealing the hidden machinery beneath it: the personalities, the rivalries, the obsessions, and the quiet revolutions that shaped what the world now thinks of as “classic” cooking.
Morning Bites: Amal El-Mohtar on Writing, Tom Perotta Interviewed, Stephen King’s Archives, and More
In our morning reading: interviews with Amal El-Mohtar and Tom Perotta, a trip into Stephen King’s archives, and more.
Afternoon Bites: Patrick Cottrell on Writing, Cormac McCarthy’s Car, Cat Fitzpatrick Reading, and More
In our afternoon reading: an interview with Patrick Cottrell, poetry by Jeff Schroeck, and more.
I Am Quite at My Leisure
I Am Quite at My Leisure: A Journey Through Jane Austen, Stardew Valley, and the Romanticization of Spare Time
by Ireland Headrick
Donald Sutherland sinks back in his chair, tears gated, eyebrows wild and raised, preparing to deliver Mr. Bennet’s final lines in Joe Wright’s 2005 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. He is dressed in a voluminous white frock, his cravat wrapped up to the chin, his brown waistcoat buttoned almost, but not quite, to the top. In the generous light of a double-hung window, he sits underneath a dark-toned oil painting of a sheep. The desk in front of him is piled with books, suggesting an interest in reading, as well as a white orchid and a watering can, suggesting an interest in horticulture.
A Glimpse Inside Stephan Franck’s “Palomino”
We’re happy to present a preview of the sixth and concluding volume of Stephan Franck’s noir comic series Palomino, for which a Kickstarter campaign is now live. Previous volumes in the series are available from Dark Planet Comics, which tell a decades-long storyline involving unsettling crimes against the backdrop of Los Angeles’s country music scene.
Morning Bites: Revisiting Nancy Lemann, Notable Short Fiction, Jayne Anne Phillips’s Latest, and More
In our morning reading: thoughts on books by Nancy Lemann and Jayne Anne Phillips, short fiction recommendations, and more.