THE BELIEVER 151 (FALL 2025)

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All subscriptions to The Believer placed before November 1, 2025, will include this issue.

In Issue 151 of The Believer: Ash Sanders reports from a performance art festival on the dried-up shore of California’s biggest—and most toxic—lake; Mona Kareem unpacks her father’s attempts to assemble the perfect personal library; Heather Christle attends the largest-ever solo exhibition of Bloomsbury Group painter Vanessa Bell; and Oliver Egger spends an uncanny day in Spring City, Pennsylvania, where a former state institution now doubles as a disability museum and haunted Halloween attraction. You’ll also find conversations with Blondie; Laura van den Berg; Jamila Woods; The Handmaiden screenwriter Chung Seo-kyung; and British comedian Richard Ayoade, who talks to Wallace Shawn about seriousness, failure, and the parodic form.

In addition, these chartreuse-trimmed pages include Peter Orner’s literary interpretation of an old family photograph; Nathaniel Rich’s visit to a forest that appears on no maps; and one soap-related aphorism for a needful reader from Carrie Brownstein. Plus: Nick Hornby on the Cazalet Chronicles, Michael Snyder on a museum full of banned Russian art, small-press book reviews, poetry, games, and much more.

Table of Contents:

The Routine
by Robbie Arnott

Underway
by Steven Duong

Stuff I’ve Been Reading
by Nick Hornby

“Vanessa Bell Is Not at Home”
by Heather Christle

Ask Carrie
by Carrie Brownstein

Chung Seo-kyung
interviewed by Natalie So

“The Last Resort”
by Ash Sanders
Observations from the Bombay Beach Biennale, a multi-day performance art festival at the edge—and the end—of the world.

Place: The Nukus Museum of Art
by Michael Snyder

Laura van den Berg
interviewed by R. O. Kwon

“Elders” a new poem by Kyle Carrero Lopez

Sacrifice Zone: Forest Denka
by Nathaniel Rich

Game: The Cryptic Crossword by Vijay Khurana

The Process: Richard Ayoade by Wallace Shawn

“The Haunting of Pennhurst Asylum”
by Oliver Egger
How an infamous state institution turned haunted house became the unlikely home of America’s only physical museum of disability.

Debbie Harry
in conversation with Chris Stein

“The Labyrinth”
by Mona Kareem
In Kuwait after the Gulf War, a father and daughter seek to rebuild their library, by any means necessary.

“Sai’s Closet”
a new poem by Soham Patel

Jamila Woods
interviewed by Sam Sax

The Way Back: The Fireside on Lincoln Avenue
by Peter Orner

“The Letter”
a new poem by Gabrielle Bates

Small-press reviews Meghan Racklin on Solvej Balle, Katherine Seligman on Brian Barth, Ricardo Frasso Jaramillo on Andrea Bajani, Saffron Maeve on Lana Lin.

Kevin Young
microinterviewed by Nick Hilden

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