The Mumpsimus

When the suspect in the  attack on the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina was identified, the authorities circulated a photograph of him wearing a jacket adorned with the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and post- UDI   Rhodesia . The symbolism isn't subtle. Like the confederate flag that flies over the South Carolina capitol, these are flags of explicitly white supremacist governments. Rhodesia plays a particular role within right-wing American militia culture, linking anti-communism and white supremacy. The downfall of white Rhodesia has its own sort of lost cause mythic power not just for avowed white supremacists, but for the paramilitarist wing of gun culture generally.

People ask, what kind of writer do you want to be. I say, I want to be like Brancusi . I want my writing to have that rigour, that beauty, and that ability to see the world in a new way. —J.M. Ledgard Coffee House Press is one of the very few publishers whose books I will buy simply because Coffee House published them (another, in case you're curious, is Small Beer Press . Apparently, I am partial to publishers with beverages in their names). At this year's AWP conference , I happened to pass the Coffee House booth, and I was curious to see what was new. On a table at the front of the booth, J.M. Ledgard's Submergence grabbed by eye: a novel partially about events in East Africa, with a cover blurb by Teju Cole , published by Coffee House ... how could I resist? I could not. Life caught up with me, though, and I didn't have time to read the book until this week. I begin by writing about where and why I bought the book because I'm trying to stay specific an...

By court order, the U.S. government has to sell off Theodore " Unabomber " Kaczynski's stuff . Intrepid and well-funded buyers can bid on such things as the sunglasses and sweatshirt made famous in the forensic sketch , various tools and personal items, numerous manuscripts, and a few typewriters, including the one he used to write his manifesto. All good fun for the memento-seeker, and the proceeds go toward restitution to his victims' families. I was curious to see what books he had. Lot 12 consists of 5 paperbacks the FBI thought were particularly important: Chinese Political Thought in the Twentieth Century by Chester C. Tan, The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul, The True Believer by Eric Hoffer, Violence in America , and The Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague De Camp . Other lots include a well-worn Bible, a manual for wilderness survival, and various battered paperbacks mostly concerned with history and science, though there's also a collectio...