What other <350-pagers would you add to the reading list for a class on New York Novels?

Happy 101st to James Baldwin. I wrote this for Liberties Journal of Culture and Politics on the occasion of his centennial. libertiesjournal.com/online-article…

We, the staff of The Baffler, are proud to announce that we have formed a union with Workers United, NY NJ Joint Board. Read more about why we have formed a union here: 1/4

*randy newman voice* I’m the butter boy of Abilene, Texas And I’ve got a bone to pick with you If I don’t get my weekly paycheck This butter’s gonna be all over you

I was once an auxiliary multi-instrumentalist in a stomp clap band (upper right), AMA.

no way Eric Adams snuck a Black Hebrew Israelite guy into his list of rabbi endorsements

More and more people are saying it’s a beautiful week to be visiting in-laws in Montgomery County, just beautiful, I’ll tell you what folks. nytimes.com/live/2025/08/1…

For once, I didn’t request a Pynchon galley. He deserves my money.

J. D. Salinger is the Billy Joel of literature.

I don’t want to hear shit about “The Argument” unless it’s this one

Buttigieg, Harris, the Bidens, the Obamas, the Clintons: what do these people even do? Get a job!

Did not know this. I love how much of rock & roll (and American) history is just Southern white trash culture.

Whenever I try to get my son to try new cuisines he says, “I want English food,” so next time I’m serving him a Welsh rarebit with a poached egg on top, please, not too runny, and bacon, scones, butter, cream, jam, not strawberry—what else?—a pot of Lapsang, and some sausages.

Pretty crazy how Her (2013) accurately predicted fashion and weird relationships with AI girlfriends in 2025, the year in which the movie is set.

Fred Moten's mother's family picked cotton on Johnny Cash's cousin's land to send her to college

“Many of these women here are interviewing Andrew Cuomo and if they feel unsafe they’re going to have a whistle to help them through it,” Eric Adams says at his city hall presser

Ok but how is a 5-hour documentary about Russian journalists lower brow than a swimming pool in Red Hook?

Bookstores shouldn’t have in-shelf mood lighting and Apple Store minimalism. They should look like a deranged person lives there sleeping on a sackcloth-covered pile of books. They can’t sleep in the thousand-year-old leather chair because that’s the cat’s bed.