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Where the actual and the imaginary meet

From Hawthorne to Twain to White to Roth: if American fiction and personal essays “are at times nearly impossible to distinguish,” it’s “because they share a common ancestor.” (Thanks, NYRB.)

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The year in reading

The Millions’ excellent Year in Reading series — featuring new discoveries from writers and critics, including John Banville, Fiona Maazel, and Stephen Dodson — begins for 2010.

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Wintry chili, cornbread, writing, agoraphobia

Asphalt always gets to me, but the malaise is never worse than after the leaves fall, before the first snow, when the trees are bare and the sky is dark and all I see when I look up and down Ocean Parkway from my terrace is gray, gray, and more gray. Even as I narrow in on the end of . . .

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