Arielle Bernstein considers the book as a representation, object and fetish and wonders how new technologies will shape our attachments to them

And what do we produce? Everything we think we can sell, from jet planes to running shoes–anything that will detract us from the potential for remarkable indifference.

We grew up thinking that we could have anything, do anything, be anything (if not all at once), as long as we had our expensive degree and middle class upbringing.

On a whim, based on a trip to the suburbs, they decide that their time in the city has come to an end – that they should move to Long Island and start a family. The smug wink-and-nod cynicism and their unraveling is reminiscent of Revolutionary Road, but, you know, really funny, including an excrutiating, more than you want to know account of vasectomies. A lot more.

Upon returning to the United States for an extended stay after years living in France, Nathaniel Missildine finds himself and his family lost in a suburban grocery store among exotic culinary marvels he thought he once knew. Maybe more donuts would help.

Aaron Dietz is both in love with and afraid of the wonderful dynamically-changing organism that is Taiwan.

The economy is so bad, people are burning the small bills just to stay warm.

Rejection letters are always a drag; whether they are negative responses from job opportunities, university admissions boards or literary journals. However, there is nothing quite as spirit-crushing as a rejection letter received after submitting a poem. A short-story rejection slip is depressing, but not devastating. You manufacture a story in your head, create some characters [...]