I just found out that when Holly Miranda opened for Florence + The Machine last week her backing band was Nada Surf.
If I had known that I would have screamed out for “Popular.”
The Bronze Medal is glad you're here. Other places you can find Ryan are:
Flickr / Facebook / Twitter / Last.fm / Shelfari
He also likes mail - ryan [dot] gessner [at] gmail [dot] com
Read in 2009
Jose Saramago / Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
Thomas Mann / The Magic Mountain
Mikhail Bulgakov / The Master and Margarita
Cormac McCarthy / The Crossing
Graham Greene / The Power and the Glory
Virginia Woolf / Mrs. Dalloway
Bill Davis / Mass Appeal
Chris Adrian / A Better Angel
Nam Le / The Boat
William Gass / Tests of Time
Haruki Murakami / Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman
Colson Whitehead / Sag Harbor
Karen Russell / St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
Virginia Woolf / Orlando
Walker Percy / The Moviegoer
Michael Ondaatje / In The Skin of A Lion
Nicole Krauss / Man Walks Into a Room
James Joyce / Ulysses
Steig Larsson / Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Nicholas Christopher / A Trip to the Stars
Randall Jarrell / No Other Book
William Gass / Habitations of the Word
Thomas Pynchon / Inherent Vice
Lorrie Moore / Self Help
Clarice Lispector / Near to the Wild Heart
Italo Calvino / If On A Winter's Night A Traveler
Aleksander Hemon / The Lazarus Project
Steig Larsson / The Girl Who Played With Fire
Sarah Hall / How to Paint a Dead Man
Dave Eggers / Zeitoun
Steig Larsson / The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Posts that have made me click the 
button
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A few days ago, a gentleman small in stature, wearing a blue plaid jacket and yellow-tinted glasses, came up to me at work. He had a tale, said he’d been sleeping behind the hospital, said he was...
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“It is as if he had spent his entire life wondering what he looked like, without ever discovering there are such things as mirrors.”—
Walter Benjamin on Franz Kafka, as quoted by Simen at Daily Meh.
This description, quoted in a neat essay on Kafka in Zadie Smith’s
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It’s the weekend right?
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Why I love Facebook.
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92y:
In September of 2002, before a reading from his Book of Illusions, Paul Auster spoke with critic Michael Wood. Their discussion is today’s featured recording.
Mr. Auster returns to the 92Y...
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“But then? No then.”— Franz Kafka in “Description of a Struggle,” quoted by Zadie Smith in an essay forwarded to me by Meaghano; more on the essay itself later.
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Happiness is having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dessert. Especially when your main course was a tasty burrito.
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My dad emailed this to my sister and me; someone he works with sent it to him. Subject line: How Pumpkin Pies Are Made.
First of all, I kind of wish I’d thought of that.
Second of all, oh my God,...
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Anna and Nathan Bond’s boutique stationery company now has an online store offering cards, prints, paper goods and — soon — invitations (plus very nice use of widely-spaced Futura).
