Since 1998 McSweeney's Quarterly Concern has been emerging from various kitchens, attics and an old laundromat roughly four times a year - or definitely at least three. In those ten years, almost 100,000 stories have been submitted, usually in manila envelopes, mostly from unknown names living in unfamiliar corners. Approximately 400 of those stories were selected for publication. Eighteen of them appear here, wildly diverse in style and subject, from some of the finest writers of today and tomorrow. Several typos have been removed. 'The whole thing is driven by a slightly crazed exuberance which makes other literary magazines look like phone directories' - Mark Haddon 'Groundbreaking . . . the only place to be seen for would-be cult US novelists . . . a forum for innovation as well as established talent' - Observer

There Is a Country collects eight engrossing pieces by South Sudanese authors--the first collection of its kind, from the youngest country in the world. Wrestling with a history marked by war and displacement, the work here presents a fresh and necessary account of an emerging nation, past and present. In vivid, gripping prose, There Is a Country's stories explore youth and love, life and death: a first glimpse of what South Sudanese literature has to offer.

McSweeney's 65: Plundered spans the Americas, from a bone-strewn Peruvian desert to inland South Texas, and considers the violence that shaped it. In fifteen bracing stories, the collection delves into extraction, exploitation, and, crucially, defiance. How does a community, an individual, resist the plundering of land and peoples? Guest-edited by acclaimed author Valeria Luiselli, with Heather Cleary, Issue 65 brings together stories of stolen artifacts and endless job searches, of nationality-themed amusement parks and cultish banana plantations. Including contributors from Brazil, Cuba, Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, the United States, and more, Plundered is a panoramic portrait of a hemisphere on fire. Praise for McSweeney's Quarterly A key barometer of the literary climate.-The New York Times McSweeney's is so much more than a magazine; it's a vital part of our culture. -Geoff Dyer, McSweeney's contributor and author of Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi and Otherwise Known as the Human Condition

As John Hodgman says in this book's introduction, “We all know that books are funny. First, they are made of paste and cloth, which is funny, as is the fact that people still buy and read them.” With that in mind, the McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes collects the best book-related humor from the humor-laden archives of McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Open it and be regaled by such sketches, lists, letters, and spoofs as: Postcards from James Joyce to his Brother Stan Winnie-the-Pooh is My Coworker Ikea Product or Lord of the Rings Character? Popular Children's Fairy Tales Reimagined Using Members of My Family The Very Unauthorized Biography of Steven Seagal Chuck Norris Erotica John Updike, Television Writer Jane Eyre Runs for President Cormac McCarthy Writes to the Editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican Holden Caulfield Gives the Commencement Speech to a High School Letters from Odysseus's College Roommate And many dozens more.

This new and brilliant issue of McSweeney'scomes in three parts, held together by a magnet. In the first, poets including Michael Ondaatje and Denis Johnson initiate poet-chains, picking a poem of their own and one by another poet, who then does the same, and so on. In the second, F. Scott Fitzgerald provides unused story premises first catalogued in The Crack-Up; his mission is completed by new writers. In the third, the president of France's legendary Oulipians offers a rare glimpse into his group's current experiments with linguistic constraint. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose . . .

“Filled with wisdom and thought experiments and things that will mess with your mind.” — Neil Gaiman, author of The Graveyard Book and American Gods In sharply argued, fast-moving chapters, Cory Doctorow’s Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free takes on the state of copyright and creative success in the digital age. Can small artists still thrive in the Internet era? Can giant record labels avoid alienating their audiences? This is a book about the pitfalls and the opportunities that creative industries (and individuals) are confronting today — about how the old models have failed or found new footing, and about what might soon replace them. An essential read for anyone with a stake in the future of the arts, Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free offers a vivid guide to the ways creativity and the Internet interact today, and to what might be coming next. This book is DRM-free.

With tremendous new stories from Steven Millhauser and Roddy Doyle, an epic, genre-shattering novella from Hilton Als, and a really excellent special section on Norway's finest writers (featuring not just Per Petterson but also Kid Icarus and a woman named Blind Margjit)--along with, probably, correspondence from a man we can't yet name and an unbelievable disappearing-ink cover done by Jordan Crane--Issue 35 is a full-to-bursting edition in the tradition of the best ones we've ever done. For several hundred pages of unrivaled summer reading, this is your book.