What is it about the European cultures, tucked like bats into their tiny cubbies, that seems so much more specific than our own? How do Belgium or Luxembourg achieve “culture” in little more space we might use to construct a Wal-Mart megastore? What is it about confinement that breeds a more tribal than national identity? What are we doing when we sit down to read a collection of fiction culled from a continent?

I’m really looking forward to reading Dzanc’s newly launched online literary magazine this weekend. To learn more about The Collagist, read the debut issue’s welcome letter/preview from editor Matt Bell. I’m especially interested in the inclusion of a novel excerpt, acknowledged as such; this issue’s extract comes from Laird Hunt’s fourth novel Ray of the [...]

This week’s New Yorker features an excerpt (titled “Childcare”) from Lorrie Moore’s long-awaited new novel, A Gate at the Stairs, coming this September from Knopf. I agree with The Millions, however, that novel excerpts can be hazardous to your reading health–and having read the ARC, I must say this particular morsel doesn’t stand alone as [...]