A collection of essays by the prose writer, translator, and critic Alexey Polyarinov—a book that feels like a heartfelt conversation with a good friend about cinema and literature. The author shares his deepest secrets—ideas for books never written: he talks about a novel of adventures starring the mother of Cervantes, fan fiction based on “The Wizard of Oz,” and even offers an imagined tour of a morgue near Moscow, while delivering a lecture about the dead in Russian literature. In the second part, you’ll find the story of the “cursed friendship” between Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace, essays on one of the scariest American historical novels—Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian,” reflections on the emergence of the global novel, and other texts about cinema and literature written with incredible love for the subject and a great sense of humor. Read more interesting facts about the new collection by Alexey Polyarinov in