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Inside the NYTBR

A New York Times Book Review editor revealed the publication’s secrets at Harvard last week. Gawker reports.

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U.S. gets Britain’s Remainder

Praising Remainder, Rupert Thomson found “echoes of Beckett, Flann O’Brien too,” but also “a precision, a surreal logic and a sly wit” all author Tom McCarthy’s own. The book is just out here.

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Coetzee on Claus

J.M. Coetzee applauds the intelligence and passion of Hugo Claus’ poetry, “a medium over which he has such light-fingered control that art becomes invisible.”

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Winners and sociopaths: the mind of Stephen Cloud

The best of Steven Cloud’s Boy on a Stick & Slither (BOASAS) comics recall Calvin & Hobbes, and Linus’ existential philosophizing in the glory days of Peanuts. The strip has reached new heights lately — “Champions of Winning” is a recent favorite — but it’s always been good. “Conformity” has hung on the Maud Household’s pantry since 2002. “Don’t forget! . . .

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