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Serious Beach Reads

VOICE CHOICE

Tales for Our Times: Ed Park’s ‘An Oral History of Atlantis’

The Pulitzer Prize–nominated author will discuss his new short story collection at three different NYC events.

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CULTURE

50 Years Gone of Vaughn Bode’s Sex, Violence, Graffiti, and Luminous Grace

The underground comix genius died in 1975, but his life is ripe for a Hollywood biopic. 

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History Bites

Back to the Future: Frederick Douglass’s 4th of July Barn Burner

In 1852, the former slave and forever abolitionist called out America’s basest hypocrisies.

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BOOKS

You Should Know Who Tom Wilson Was – Sun Ra, Bob Dylan, and Lou Reed Certainly Did

“Everybody’s Head Is Open to Sound” looks at the life of the legendary record producer, but rarely gets out of the studio.

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BOOKS

Portnoy’s Undercard: Lucas Schaefer’s ‘The Slip’

Offensive? Impossible? Absurd? All boxes are checked in this rollicking novel that can’t keep its hands to itself.

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Comics

A Trio of Graphic Novels Make Relevance Artful and Entertaining

“Hey, Mary!,” “Animal Pound,” and “The Red Badge of Courage” bring gender identity, political upheaval, and war into focus.

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BOOKS

‘The Seers’ Attempts to Blend Postcolonial Lit With Porn and the Hope for Asylum

The protagonist’s mania for kinky sex gets in the way of a refugee story — and doesn’t even titillate.

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BOOKS

Long Before ‘The Godfather,’ Mario Puzo Put the Unspeakable Into Print

Seventy years ago, the novelist’s debut, “The Dark Arena,” stared into the abyss of the concentration camps the Allies discovered at the end of World War II.

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BOOKS

Discovering Devin Jacobsen, and America, Through a New Short Story Collection

In “The Summer We Ate Off the China,” a former slave meets an old overseer,  tourists try to parse the Dali Museum, and MeToo and HR take the stage.

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BOOKS

E. L. Doctorow’s ‘Ragtime’ at 50: Forget the Musical and Give the Book Another Listen

The compelling novel captures America as the exploitations of the Gilded Age crashed into the anger of the early-20th-century’s dispossessed. 

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