@thebeliever.net
A quarterly literature, arts, and culture magazine.
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@thebeliever.net“‘Fat City’ is a hand-to-hand book, the kind you give to a lifelong comrade, someone whose stories leave you simultaneously bereft and laughing.”
Peter Orner on Leonard Gardner’s “Fat City,” with a new cover by Liniers: www.thebeliever.net/end-notes-fa...
@thebeliever.net“After someone dies, does what’s left just keep getting smaller? How can he protect what’s left of his mother?”
Ben Bush reviews “Hold Still” by @benehrenreich.bsky.social for Issue 155:
@thebeliever.net“Only more recently did I start listening to Kurt Weill and [his collaborator] Bertolt Brecht. I have a little CD box set, and it is as good as they say.”
From Issue 155, Kurt Vile on his homophonous counterpart: www.thebeliever.net/an-interview...
@thebeliever.net“As a reader, you tend to look for the character that you feel is in some way like you. Even when you know better.”
@katiekitamura.bsky.social, interviewed in Issue 155 by @patrickcottrell.bsky.social: www.thebeliever.net/an-interview...
@thebeliever.net“The movie is so rock-and-roll. The score takes over the film with eerie plainsongs and rock ballads. Yo La Tengo shows up as a Salvation Army band beating out the tune of lonely America. PJ Harvey sings to herself like an angel.”
www.thebeliever.net/resurrector-...
@thebeliever.net“They’ve talked about every other goddamn thing… So now the locusts of academia, having laid waste to the other senses, are flying around scent. They’re welcome to it.”
Biophysicist and perfume critic @lucaturin.bsky.social, interviewed by Sara Black McCulloch: www.thebeliever.net/a-microinter...
@thebeliever.net“Reading the first hundred pages of ‘The Fathership’ feels like hanging on for dear life while perched on a dog toy that’s being shaken violently in the jaws of an irate husky.”
Shruti Ravindran on Glenn Bech’s debut novel: www.thebeliever.net/a-review-of-...
@benehrenreich.bsky.socialReposted by @thebeliever.netBay Areans, save the date. I’m coming your way. Hold Still will launch at @citylightsbooks.bsky.social on October 22 as part of @litquake.bsky.social with @thebeliever.net’s Daniel Gumbiner.
@thebeliever.net“But it might not matter. Also: might be
Me. Humans aren’t meant to read three
A day, that’s what killed Art Garfunkel.”
From “The Books Are Bad,” a new poem by @tricialockwood.bsky.social in Issue 155: www.thebeliever.net/the-books-ar...
@thebeliever.netHear from the wrestlers, then read @k-e-c.bsky.social’s essay on a year spent following the Pacific Northwest’s indie professional wrestling circuit: www.thebeliever.net/the-work/
@thebeliever.netDerek Drexl and Amira Lukens, two of the wrestlers featured in @k-e-c.bsky.social’s new essay “The Work,” went on @opb.org’s “Think Out Loud” to talk indie wrestling and share match stories: www.opb.org/article/2026...
@thebeliever.net“Respect is so native to Anne Carson’s work—respect for the long tradition of human literature and thought, respect for the shattering immediacy of feeling, respect for the lover, the holy one, for ‘Thou’—whoever looms on the other side of her page.”
www.thebeliever.net/les-nobelisa...
@thebeliever.netOur columnist on Anne Carson, today’s winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, as part of his series on this year’s top Nobel hopefuls:
www.thebeliever.net/les-nobelisa...
@thebeliever.net“The old lighthouse seemed to wobble on the shore like a pencil in a child’s hand, and oily-sheened cormorants clung to the jetty. Gasps replaced chatter as we lunged for the railings.”
Randle Browning at the longest-running birding festival in America: www.thebeliever.net/how-to-watch...
@thebeliever.net“Like a great white shark who’ll die if he stops moving forward, an Aira novel is possessed by constant motion upon which its survival depends.”
Ricardo Frasso Jaramillo on Nobel favorite César Aira: www.thebeliever.net/les-nobelisa...
@thebeliever.net“I hope I lose because if I win, my victory could be chalked up to luck, or even foresight. But if I lose, the bet will be simply an indication of my earnest love for one particular writer.”
Our columnist’s pick for the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature: www.thebeliever.net/les-nobelisa...
@thebeliever.netGet 15% off a Believer subscription with promo code “rfjaramillo” to read Les Nobélisables in full, plus new issues and our entire 23-year archive:
@thebeliever.netOur tour of this year’s field for the Nobel Prize in Literature concludes today with new installments on César Aira and Cristina Rivera Garza! Read up and make your bets: the winner will be announced tomorrow.
@thebeliever.net“My definition of art is very minimal. It’s anything that’s both beautiful and difficult.”
In Issue 155, a microinterview with biophysicist and perfume critic @lucaturin.bsky.social: www.thebeliever.net/a-microinter...
@thebeliever.net“It’s always good to think about at least two cultures that are going to see your film… It completely changes your way of thinking.”
From a process talk with filmmaker Igor Bezinović: www.thebeliever.net/the-process-...
