A split issue, the first four pieces are terrific to pretty good. In Richard Ford's novella, "The Womanizer," a self-deluded married man tries to win over a woman during a business trip to Paris. Next, Paul Theroux's even longer novella, "Lady Max," is an "imaginary memoir" in which Theroux navigates literary London and is both promoted and seduced by a clever socialite.
However, after two more good pieces by William T. Vollmann and Prof. Alan Lightman, the issue suddenly shifts to three pieces about South Africa and two about racial inequality in the US. In the last article, Richard Rayner, an Englishman living in LA, provides a vision of Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots that is racist, gratuitous and unbelievable. ( )

Worth reading just for Alan Lightman's story,"Einstein In Bern", concerning Einstein and his dreams about the nature of time in 1905, his miracle year. ( )

a good mix of fiction, non-fiction and photos ( )