Fiction Pick: ‘Cincinnati Does Not Exist’

Jo never thought of himself as a river guy, per se, yet one morning he awoke in a canoe, floating down a body of water that clearly was a river.

Just Keep Living, Kid

There’s no telling how these things will play out, what his life will hold for him, because right now he’s just an idea, a bump in Caitlin’s stomach.

Fiction Pick: ‘Everything is happening at once’

America, the vast and simultaneous.

Fiction Pick: ‘Me and Konrad’

‘Given what I’d done, and the speed with which they were pursuing me, my only reasonable course of action was to disappear into the woods.’

Fiction Pick: ‘Flower, beast or Hitler’

At that point in my life, there was a lot of — how should I put this — fumbling around in the dark.

Fiction Pick: ‘The Eternal Forking’

‘Small decisions, elongated over time, can be just as consequential as big ones.’

Life, as in Wineberries

The delicate balance of tartness and sweetness.

Fiction Pick: ‘Surface’

‘All Paul could think about as he tried to maneuver his way around a lethargic old lady in the cereal aisle of Food Lion was ‘Good God, you old hag, could you move any slower?”

Fiction Pick: ‘Just Look at How Everything Is”

‘Live your life like a clear, blue sky — easy and open.’

On Killing the Little Gray Man

‘The trouble isn’t understanding, in theory, that we don’t want to become that little gray man. The hard part is taking the proper actions to stave him off.’