Ryu Murakami goes heavy on nihilism but leaves Dumb & Dumber out to dry.
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Child of God
Before outlaw Anton Chigurh came outlaw Lester Ballard — watch him kill.
The Invention of Morel
Adolfo Bioy Casares' "perfect" story about an lost island and its "living ghosts."
Institute Benjamenta
Walser's Jakob von Gunter is just another name for nothing left to lose.
Bartleby the Scrivner
Melville at his most melancholy and mysterious turns the known world on end.
Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
David Eagleman's many afterlives are the mothers and fathers of invention.
Bartleby & Co.
Spaniard Enrique Vila-Matas writes about mumness to celebrate writing itself.
The Baron in the Trees
Italo Calvino's gift was an adamant refusal to see the planet conventionally.
Emilio’s Carnival (Senilità)
Italo Svevo, born Aron Hector Schmitz, time and again presaged the modern curve.
The Yellow Birds
Kevin Powers (mostly) fends off overwriting to produce a moving Iraq War parable.
The Things They Carried
Tim O'Brien's Vietnam can still bring hardened readers to their knees.
The Trial
Kafka gave his name to a modifier, "Kafkaesque," but few bother reading him.