Critical Mess: William Monahan on the culture of book reviewing

First Novels by Darcy Cosper

Interview: Alan Moore talks with Steve Erickson

Fiction Forecast by Kera Bolonik

Great Responsibility: Jonathan Lethem on Marvel Comics and contemporary novelists

Hopeless Causes: Gerald Howard on Wallace Markfield

Contributors' Picks, compiled by the editor

Coffee Table: Barry Schwabsky and Andy Grundberg on art and photo monographs

Aimee Bender on Schooling, by Heather McGowan

Greil Marcus on The Dying Animal, by Philip Roth

Bradford Morrow on True History of the Kelly Gang, by Peter Carey

Sarah Vowell on Fearless Jones, by Walter Mosley and Selected Letters of Dashiell Hammett 1921-1960, edited by Richard Layman with Julie M. Rivett, introduction by Josephine Hammett Marshall

John Powers on Hotel Honolulu, by Paul Theroux

Ariel Swartley on Sputnik Sweetheart, by Haruki Murakami

Anthony Miller on American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

Howard Hampton on Glue, by Irvine Welsh and Cardiff Dead, by John Williams

Emily White on Lightning Field, by Dana Spiotta

Michael Ventura on The Carpenter's Pencil, by Manuel Rivas

Bruce Bauman on Going, Going, Gone, by Jack Womack

Mark Dery on Spectacular Bodies: The Art and Science of the Human Body from Leonardo to Now, by Martin Kemp and Marina Wallace

Dennis Cooper on Lobotomy: Surviving the Ramones, by Dee Dee Ramone with Veronica Kaufman, introduction by Legs McNeil

Mary Ann Caws on A Convergence of Birds: Original Fiction and Poetry Inspired by the Work of Joseph Cornell, edited by Jonathan Safran Foer

Robert Polito on Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña, by David Hajdu

Peter Plagens on Visionaries and Outcasts: The NEA, Congress, and the Place of the Visual Artist in America, by Michael Brenson and Exhibitionism: Art in an Era of Intolerance, by Lynne Munson

Arthur C. Danto on Recording Conceptual Art: Early Interviews with Barry, Huebler, Kaltenbach, LeWitt, Morris, Oppenheim, Siegelaub, Smithson, Weiner, by Patricia Norvell, edited by Alexander Alberro and Patricia Norvell

Rick Moody on A Stay Against Confusion Essays on Faith and Fiction, by Ron Hansen

David Grubbs on Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, edited by B.H. Friedman, afterword by Frank O'Hara

Michael Almereyda on For the Voice, by Vladimir Mayakovsky and El Lissitzky

Jonathan Ames on Now Dig This: The Unspeakable Writings of Terry Southern 1950-1995

Minna Proctor on Hannah Arendt: Life Is a Narrative, by Julia Kristeva

Luc Sante on The Future of Nostalgia, by Svetlana Boym

David Gates on Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books, by H.J. Jackson

Dave Hickey on The Ephemeral Museum: Old Master Paintings and the Rise of the Art Exhibition, by Francis Haskell