Least Appealing Summer Residencies

From the ObservatoryJulio CortázarTrans. Anne McLeanArchipelago Books, August 2011130 pages$18.00 The first time I read Julio Cortázar’s From the Observatory, I thought I’d succumbed to a fever-dream. Eels slip, muscularly, into Möbius strips; the night is red-haired and the marble cold. I had no idea what I was reading or where I was, and I…

Guest post by Greg Schutz Because I enjoy fishing and have several tech-savvy friends who do as well, Google will every so often sift through the contents of my GMail inbox and offer me a targeted advertisement from PETA. “You wouldn’t impale a dog in the mouth,” the text reads, “so why would you do…

I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Ray Bradbury, or sci-fi in general (though I respect it plenty—its speculation on the future, its persistent social commentary, its relentless and somehow familiar glandular imagining). But every fall when I pick up Something Wicked This Way Comes, I feel the way I did when I first opened…