Course Catalog for the Final Semester
A small college decides to run one last semester. The course listings, prerequisites and grading policies, as issued by a registrar who saw no reason to change the format.
The Cabinet Habit: Why People Collect the Strange
Before museums there were cabinets of curiosities. A librarian on why people collect the strange, where the habit turns dark, and what a collection is for.
Curses for Books: Anathemas for the Modern Borrower
Medieval scribes guarded their books with curses. A short history of the form, its most famous forgery, and twelve curses for the borrowers of today.
Strange Dispatches: News from Places That Are Not on the Map
A running file of reports too odd for the front page: a clock that runs backward by popular consent, and a doomsday postponed for a dog show.
Conspiracy Folklore: A Field Guide to Theories Nobody Needed
Eight small, harmless and entirely invented conspiracy theories, pinned out like moths and labeled by structure.
The Grotesque Gallery: Six Plates
Six works in the grotesque manner, with notes: a choir of teeth, a face with too many eyes, a saint made of pylons.
Why Conspiracy Theories Feel True
They are not believed because people are stupid. They are believed because they do several things a good explanation ought to do.
Terms and Conditions for the End of the World
By continuing to exist you agree to the following. A standard-form agreement governing the conclusion of all things.
A Calendar of Failed Prophecies
Twelve dates on which the world was confidently expected to end and did not, with a note on what the believers did the following morning.
Classifieds from the Last Newspaper
The small ads from the final edition of a local paper that went on printing after there was no news left to report.
Nothing of that kind is shelved in this room yet.