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Books

Read: “Premium Harmony” by Stephen King

By Emily Temple on

We’ve heard that nobody reads anymore. At his New Yorker Festival reading this fall, Gary Shteyngart described his upcoming novel as a view of a futuristic, totally illiterate New York – “So, next Tuesday,” he quipped. Ouch. Here at Flavorpill, we know that a healthy dose of legitimate literature is essential to offset all the twittering and facebooking we do every day, so fight the good fight and read something. Stephen King’s new short story, “Premium Harmony”, for… Read More

Books

Fiction Fix: “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” by Jhumpa Lahiri

By Heather Schwedel on

This week, Fiction Fix ventures not exactly into oldie-but-goodie territory, but somewhere close by, because we’re featuring Jhumpa Lahiri, America’s unofficial short short laureate. Lahiri’s story, “The Treatment of
Bibi Haldar,” is currently Narrative’s story of the week. The story comes from Lahiri’s already-classic debut book of stories, Interpreter of Maladies (which she followed up with last year’s Unaccustomed Earth, now out in… Read More

Books

Fiction Fix: “Land Divers” by Claire Messud

By Heather Schwedel on

Have you consulted the Flavorpill food pyramid lately? You’ll notice that we recommend a weekly dose of Fiction Fix as an essential part of your healthy cultural diet. How come? Well, you may not have time for novels, but short stories are like Flintstones vitamins: quick, fun, and good for you! Read this one, and don’t forget to grab a lollipop on your way… Read More

Books

Fiction Fix: “Immortal” by Alex Burrett

By Heather Schwedel on

Have you consulted the Flavorpill food pyramid lately? You’ll notice that we recommend a weekly dose of Fiction Fix as an essential part of your healthy cultural diet. How come? Well, you may not have time for novels, but short stories are like Flintstones vitamins: quick, fun, and good for you! Read this one, and don’t forget to grab a lollipop on your way… Read More

Books

Fiction Fix: “Childcare” by Lorrie Moore

By Heather Schwedel on

Have you consulted the Flavorpill food pyramid lately? You’ll notice that we recommend a weekly dose of Fiction Fix as an essential part of your healthy cultural diet. How come? Well, you may not have time for novels, but short stories are like Flintstones vitamins: quick, fun, and good for you! Read this one, and don’t forget to grab a lollipop on your way… Read More

Books

Fiction Fix: “Idols” by Tim Gautreaux

By Heather Schwedel on

Have you consulted the Flavorwire food pyramid lately? You’ll notice that we recommend a weekly dose of Fiction Fix as an essential part of your healthy cultural diet. How come? Well, you may not have time for novels, but short stories are like Flintstone vitamins: quick, fun, and good for you! So by golly, read this one, and don’t forget to grab a lollipop on your way… Read More

Books

Fiction Fix: “On the Road” with James Franco

By Heather Schwedel on

This week, Fiction Fix takes a break from our standard tough-love, “read this or else!” strategy to try a kinder, gentler tack: we recommend you listen to some fiction as read by a hot guy. Lapham’s Quarterly, shamelessly pandering to James Franco’s current obsession with the Beats, enlisted the Spiderman actor (whose own short story collection is forthcoming) to read some Kerouac. The result: Franco’s dulcet tones draw us in to Kerouac’s seminal story of Dean, Carlo, Mary Lou, et. al. Sure, you probably should have read it in high school, but on some level, your 10th grade self must have been holding out for the Hollywood hunk audio version.

Have a listen here, and move on to the complete novel… Read More

Books

Fiction Fix: “Wilderness” by Jean Thompson

By Heather Schwedel on

The goal of each installment of the Fiction Fix is to present you with a bite-sized capsule of fiction. Operating under the assumption that novels require the kind of commitment you may not have, we scour literary magazines and new story collections to recommend one (just one!) short story that is most certainly worth your… Read More

Books

Fiction Fix: Big City Girls by Pasha Malla

By Kristen O'Toole on

We’ve been meaning to tell you about Pasha Malla‘s story collection, The Withdrawal Method, for a while now.It’s good and weird and a little imperfect in that way that writers sometimes are before they hit it exactly right and publish something that blows your mind. … Read More

Books

Fiction Fix: The Boy Who Cried Wolves by M. David Hornbuckle

By Kristen O'Toole on

The Fiction Fix is your weekly dose of short story. If that’s not your drug of choice, too bad: consider it medicine. Every week, we’ll scour the literary magazines you don’t have time to read, online and in print, and let you know where to find one story worth reading.

Oh my god, you guys, it’s National Short Story Month! [crickets] Yeah, for some reason this month gets a bit less love than National Poetry Month. Fortunately, this tragically neglected medium has us to bring you fun and excitement in the form of short fiction each week. Today we point to Fogged Clarity, a nascent online-only mag that is updated once a month [full disclosure: the Clarity was kind enough to publish the work of one of your fine Flavorpill writers a few months back. But you know we wouldn't be pimping this story, written by a person we don't know, if we didn't love it.]

Read on after the jump. … Read More