Format: In Print and Online

Literary MagNet chronicles the start-ups and closures, successes and failures, anniversaries and accolades, changes of editorship and special issues—in short, the news and trends—of literary magazines in America. This issue's MagNet features Verse, Fence, McSweeney's, Open City, Orchid, Two Lines, and the Missouri Review.

After finishing About a Boy by Nick Hornby, a reader in New York City left it on a Starbucks magazine rack with hopes that someone would pick up the novel and read it. Two days later a reader from Delta, British Columbia, found the book, took it back to Canada, read it, and left it in the waiting room of a dentist's office, where it found its way into the hands of another local reader. The tracking of such a literary journey is made possible by a unique online book club called BookCrossing.com.

The task of bringing literature into another language means transporting an entire culture, its shame as well as its triumphs.

Three new films based on books of fiction are scheduled to be released in October: Ethan Canin's The Palace Thief, Michael Cunningham's The Hours (which features an all-star cast including Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Claire Danes, and Ed Harris), and Janet Fitch's White Oleander.