In this week's issue:

- 130+ French authors—including Virginie Despentes and Bernard-Henri Lévy—walking out of Éditions Grasset after Vincent Bolloré ousted its 26-year president

- Christian Lorentzen in the LRB on Ben Lerner's fourth novel *Transcription*: a broken phone, a dying mentor, and what gets lost when recording fails

- Ian Penman on Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys—one of the LRB's more unusual deep-dives in recent memory

- Sam Kahn's case, in *Persuasion*, for why reading is the only