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life in Mississippi; stuffier compatriots; small beer; the fruits of a Southern kick; clumsy crabs

      September 2006

       Opinions about scientists; clever cynics; the flop and bawl; a spousal downgrade; the worth of weddings and the World Cup

      October 2006

       A scary woman; visiting with permafrost experts; an offer from ExxonMobil; toothless writers’ unions

      April 2007

       Endless craving for misery; a double burial; experimental novels from Slovenia; advice on how to deal with favorites

      May 2007

       The musical taste of iPods; reconsidering dated smut; thoughts on tinned food; devout Catholic wives

      June / July 2007

       Breakfast Frappuccinos; bacon-flavored potato chips; effortless use of the American vernacular; lippy kids

      August 2007

       Index entries on Greil Marcus; life behind the Berlin Wall; antinomians; up with fiction, down with facts

      September 2007

       The end of the world; kitchen gizzard experiments; a passable Mick Jagger impersonation; a blank-verse novel about werewolves

      October 2007

       Defending the honor of a pink book; the death of God; ten adult books that aren’t boring; weird chimes

      November / December 2007

       Helpful cake analogies; hamstring trouble; unreadable Marxist pamphlets; a middle-class twat; doublethink

      January 2008

       A fact-finding mission; sex education; writers with an eye on posterity; a sun-lounger in France; lovable Millennials

      February 2008

       Learning to read; a state of bolshiness; a hydrocephalic weakling; cricketers; Titmus, F. J.; hints on a proposed lordship

      March / April 2008

      Stuff he’s been watching; misery memoirs; unpleasant people doing unkind things; a fascist-killing machine; Juno backlash

      May 2008

       The fate of a man tired of books; an increase of snazz; the delivery of an unsporting thumping; mortgage payments on boxes

      September 2008

      Specialization on Doctor Dolittle; breakfast made by a chimp; tolerance of a bare breast; a temporary farewell

      May 2010

       Learning from eHow; the old days; nude tableaux vivants; failed moneymaking schemes; delicate moral complications

      June 2010

       An invitation to the Oscars; iconic NHS spectacle styles; the postwar Labour government; LitCologne

      July / August 2010

       Advice from the Brits; tragicomedy; the Lost Booker Prize; a novel-shaped Manhattan; a pisseur de copie

      September 2010

       The return of the Scientist of the Month award; small males; possible roles for Miley Cyrus; words from Lorne Michaels

      October 2010

       Painfully cold sponsored parties; a hunky bad boy; Negative Twenty Questions; the moments on which a life turns

      November / December 2010

       Shakespeare’s most Tarantinoesque works; instructions on making yogurt; the time before funk; the Mau Mau uprising

      January 2011

       Literary fattism; sick burns by Dickens’s contemporaries; the difference between Scottish and Irish; Bose headphones

      February 2011

       Postman Pat; an MP3 of Elizabeth Bishop; diarrhea in the book; the universal love of Céline Dion; good goals and bad goals

      March / April 2011

       Victimhood; characters who are quite clearly creeps; a gift from the president; cells that grow like kudzu

      May 2011

       New forms of inadequacy; married bliss; curious descriptors for lovemaking; the Dillon Panthers; homework

      June 2011

       A worthy opponent; the Hawaiians’ need for the Bible; the favorite television program of Mr. Gum; a bald assertion

      July / August 2011

       A certain yen; a surprising anecdote; incomprehensible improbability; a man possessing the necessary anxiety; required reading

      September 2011

      A string of presumptions; the definition of monogamy; Democracy Versus Hot Sex; an ode to Body Shop Vanilla Shower Gel

      October 2011

       Chopsticks; an example of womanizing both real and prodigious; the gray North Sea; an endorsement of the Waboba ball

      November / December 2011

       Everybody’s favorite literary biographer; the posher papers; old tosh; Marshalsea debtors’ prison; the blacking factory

      January 2012

       A lemon-firing bazooka; unbearable quirk; WWOOFers; instances of transgressive and sinister sexual chaos

      March / April 2012

       A second chance for Sade; plastic carrier bag as madeleine substitute; taunting the fact-checkers; friendship with Woody Allen

      May 2012

      The definition of creative professional; an epiphanic right-hemisphere production; a theory regarding nonfiction books

      June 2012

       Passing the point of concern; penal reform; the notion of the second longhand draft; a month of fictional bravery

      July / August 2012

       The future for writers; a frustrating imagined dialogue; Fitzgerald’s rate; a gum-snap young-adult voice

      September 2012

       A personal library; the no-snark rule; a “meh” face; the end of the London Olympics; vital supplies

      March / April 2013

       Assorted woo-hoos; the fashionable Rod Stewart; a very common human propensity; a Christlike alter ego

      May 2013

       Casting notes; the transcendence of one’s subject; disappointment regarding orgies and uzis; a very long series of questions

      June 2013

      Asshole paranoia; quantifying the delusions of Kanye West; “Cheat Sheet” and PopEater; uses for a Wonder Bread bag

       Introduction: A Note from Jess Walter

      The crazy lady in 13B leaned over and asked what I was reading. Hoping to avoid one of those torturous airplane conversations, I simply held up the cover of a newish story collection.

      “No. I didn’t ask what you’re reading,” the woman said. “Why?”

      Why? And in a moment of sheer stupefaction I will regret the rest of my life,

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