My Monet moment / André Aciman --
Southern culture on the skids / Ben Austen --
The coconut salesman / David Baez --
Venance LaFrance is not dead / Mischa Berlinski --
My year at sea / Christopher Buckley --
A girls' guide to Saudi Arabia / Maureen Dowd --
The last stand of free town / Porter Fox --
The vanishing point / Verlyn Klinkenborg --
Reservations / Ariel Levy --
Aligning the internal compass / Jessica McCaughey --
The last Inuit of Quebec / Justin Nobel --
Twilight of the vampires / Téa Obreht --
A year of birds / Annie Proulx --
Moscow on the med / Gary Shteyngart --
A head for the Emir / William T. Vollmann --
Miami party boom / Emily Witt.