As Belarusian author and journalist Svetlana Alexievich wins the Nobel Prize in Literature amid political turmoil at home, and Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to drop bombs in Syria, Belarusians and Russians alike have a lot to think about these days.

Both nations would do well to get beyond their ideological differences and follow the example of generations of readers, who in troubled times have turned to Russian literary masterpieces for solace, insight, and inspiration. In fact, given the current state of the world, we all could benefit from following that example.

All of the 10 works of fiction below are acknowledged classics of Russian literature. With the possible exception of Ulitskaya’s The Funeral Party, published only recently, all of these books have stood the test of time. What they also have in common are great stories, artistic prowess and originality, and the capacity to engage readers in deep, personal reflection about life’s most important questions. These books will make you think and feel and grow as a human being. “Read the best books first,” Henry David Thoreau once admonished, “or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” So here they are, some of the best Russian books I suggest you read first:

Eugene Onegin (1833) by Alexander Pushkin

In this lesser known masterpiece of Russian fiction, Alexander Pushkin combines an engrossing love story, an encyclopedia of early 19th century Russian life, and one of the wittiest social satires ever penned. And he does so entirely in verse! At once playful and serious, ironic and passionate, this novel in verse is the starting point for most college survey classes on modern Russian literature, because in it Pushkin creates the template for nearly all of the themes, character types, and literary techniques that future Russian writers would build upon. It’s no accident that Pushkin is often dubbed the father of modern Russian literature, and Eugene Onegin is considered his most representative work. 

A Hero of Our Time (1840) by Mikhail Lermontov

Often referred to as Russia’s “first psychological novel,” A Hero of Our Time tells the tale of Pechorin, a young, charismatic, womanizing rebel without a cause, who has fascinated and disturbed readers for more than a century and half. The novel consists of five interlinked stories that delve into Pechorin’s complex soul from multiple perspectives. The result is an unforgettable portrait of Russian literature’s first antihero, who leaves a wake of destruction in his path, even as he charms and fascinates characters and readers alike.

Fathers and Sons (1862) by Ivan Turgenev

This deeply felt and poetic novel subtly captures the social and familial conflicts that were emerging in the early 1860s, a time of great social upheaval in Russia. The book set off a journalistic firestorm with its powerful portrayal of Bazarov, a steely-eyed and passionate young nihilist who is as recognizable today as he was in Turgenev’s time.

Russia's Bolshoi premieres Lermontov's "A hero of our time"

Russia's Bolshoi theatre presents three short ballets based on Mikhail Lermontov's 1840 novel "A Hero of Our Time." John Russell reports.

Reuters

Russia's Bolshoi premieres Lermontov's "A hero of our time"

Russia's Bolshoi theatre presents three short ballets based on Mikhail Lermontov's 1840 novel "A Hero of Our Time." John Russell reports.

Reuters

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Russia's Bolshoi premieres Lermontov's "A hero of our time"

Russia's Bolshoi theatre presents three short ballets based on Mikhail Lermontov's 1840 novel "A Hero of Our Time." John Russell reports.

Reuters

War and Peace (1869) by Leo Tolstoy

Often hailed by critics as the greatest novel ever written, this epic tale traces the fortunes of five aristocratic families living through Russia’s wars with Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century. War and Peace is many things: It is a love story, a family saga, and a war novel, yet at its core it is a book about people trying to find their footing in a ruptured world and about humans trying to create a meaningful life for themselves in a country torn apart by war, social change, and spiritual confusion. At once an urgent moral compass and a celebration of the deep joy of living, Tolstoy’s epic is also the Russian classic for our time.

The Brothers Karamazov (1880) by Fyodor Dostoevsky

In this emotionally and philosophically intense story of patricide and family rivalry, Dostoevsky explores as deeply as any Russian writer has the themes of faith, evil, and meaning. The novel describes the different world views of the three Karamazov brothers—the monastic Alyosha, the sensual Dmitry, and the intellectual Ivan—as well as their lecherous father, whose mysterious murder and its investigation become the focal point of the riveting, final third of the novel.

Doctor Zhivago (1959) by Boris Pasternak

Inspired by War and Peace, this historical novel tells the tale of a poet-physician Yuri Zhivago, who struggles to find his place, his profession, and his artistic voice amid the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. A masterpiece of evocative prose as beautiful as the Russian countryside it depicts, Doctor Zhivago takes readers on a journey of love, pain, and redemption through some of the harshest years of the 20th century.

And Quiet Flows the Don (1959) by Mikhail Sholokhov

Often compared to War and Peace, this epic historical novel traces the fate of a typical Cossack family over a tumultuous 10-year period, from just before the beginning of World War I to the bloody civil war following the Russian Revolution of 1917. Early 20th century Russian history comes alive in Sholokhov’s well-developed and relatable characters who must contend not only with a society under siege, but ill-fated romances, family feuds, and a secret past that still haunts the present.

Life and Fate (1960) by Vasily Grossman

This sprawling epic does for mid-20th century Soviet society what War and Peace did for 19th century Russia: It interweaves the tale of an epochal event, the horrific siege of Stalingrad during World War II, with the private stories of characters from all layers of society whose lives are violently uprooted by the forces of war, terror, and Soviet totalitarianism.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

This short, harrowing, yet strangely hopeful masterpiece tells the story of a single day in the life of an ordinary Soviet labor camp inmate, of which there were tens of millions in the Soviet Union. Based on Solzhenitsyn’s personal experience as one of those prisoners, this book is authentic, full of rich detail, and devoid of sentimentality, which intensify its powerful emotional impact.

The Funeral Party (2002) by Lyudmila Ulitskaya

This English-language debut of one of contemporary Russia’s most important novelists describes the bizarre and touching interactions among a colorful cast of Russian émigrés living in New York who attend the deathbed of Alik, a failed, but well-liked painter. At once quirky and trenchant, The Funeral Party explores two of the biggest “accursed questions” of Russian literature—How to live? How to die?—as they play out in a tiny, muggy Manhattan apartment in the early ’90s.

Andrew D. Kaufman, Russian literature scholar at the University of Virginia, is the author of Give War and Peace a Chance: Tolstoyan Wisdom for Troubled Times, published by Simon & Schuster.

Why did police find containers full of pain medication and what appears to be human tissue in the trunk of a Michigan OB/GYN’s car? Answers are forthcoming and they are not going to be pleasant.

Detroit’s WXYZ reports that police in the wealthy suburb of West Bloomfield found “14 containers of human tissue, possibly fetuses, medical equipment and large amounts of fentanyl” in the trunk of the doctor’s car after it was impounded as part of an accident investigation launched in early October. Fentanyl is a powerful painkiller often used in brief surgical procedures.

West Bloomfield Deputy Police Chief Curt Lawson told the Detroit Free Press that they are investigating the doctor and have raided his office and his home. Lawson said of the tissue found in the car, “We do have an opinion from the medical examiner’s office that this is remnants of conception, but there was nothing that was seen within the containers that were recognizable.”

Lawson was not immediately available for further comment on the investigation. No charges have been filed and Roth, 73, is not in custody. Michigan’s attorney general is also investigating the contents of Roth’s vehicle.

WJBK confronted Roth leaving the police station to to ask if he had “anything to say about this investigation.” Roth attempted to hide his face in the hood of his jacket and responded, “Just go away.” The station also observed the raid on Roth’s lakeside apartment, reporting that investigators left the house “carrying grocery bags among other things.”

The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs disciplined Roth in 2012 for alleged practices that were “below standards of care for physicians licensed to practice medicine in the State of Michigan.” Among the many complaints against Roth was a 1998 case in which a 41-year-old woman “requested [Roth] to perform a voluntary termination of pregnancy at her home” because of her “alleged agoraphobia.” In fact, the woman was a “bartender” and had no diagnosis of agoraphobia.

The administrative complaint filed against Roth indicates that the doctor “never saw her before performing the procedure” in violation of Michigan’s mandatory 24-hour waiting period for abortions.

In 2004, Roth was told to “never perform a pregnancy termination procedure outside an approved clinic/hospital/office setting” by the Department of Community Health, which also fined him $15,000 and placed him on probation.

Roth had provided abortions from his practice at the Novi Laser and Aesthetic Center, where he also ran an “Eat to Live” Weight Loss Program. According to a court document obtained by The Daily Beast, a complaint was filed last October by Roth to recover possession of an office lost by the doctor.

The investigation into the contents of Roth’s car comes in the midst of Republican investigations into Planned Parenthood, sparked by a series of undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress, which allege that the women’s health provider profited from the donation of fetal tissue. On Tuesday, Planned Parenthood announced that it would no longer accept reimbursements for the cost of procuring fetal tissue for medical research.

A 41-year-old woman “requested [Roth] to perform a voluntary termination of pregnancy at her home” because of her “alleged agoraphobia.”

What is the place of secrecy in scientific innovation? Sponsored by Season 2 of Manhattan on WGN America, we’ll examine the often heavy consequences of such secrecy, just like those faced by the characters of Manhattan as they rush toward saving lives—or committing a necessary evil, in their perilous discovery.

Secret Heroes?: The Manhattan Project

As World War II reached its climax in the mid-1940s, some of the world’s brightest scientists were hard at work on a project in a secret research facility in New Mexico. These scientists’ work would come to be known as the Manhattan Project, and—though at the time unknown to all but a few individuals on the planet—it would change the trajectory of human history.

Led by renowned theoretical physicist Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project was responsible for the development of the world’s first nuclear weapons. After years of research, the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay dropped its payload, Little Boy, on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The device held immense destructive power. Its blast instantly killed more than 80,000 people, and injured another 70,000. Three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, the United States dropped its second nuclear weapon, Fat Man, on Nagasaki, killing almost 28,000 people. In the face of such overwhelming devastation, Japan signed the instrument of surrender, ending the Pacific Theater of World War II.

History may not have been kind to Oppenheimer, but according to Ray Monk, author of the biography Robert Oppenheimer: Life Inside the Center, the divisive scientist ultimately believed in the moral justness of his work. “Imagine being in charge of a secret project costing one billion dollars on which the fate of your country or even the world turns,” Monk says. “And if he succeeds, he succeeds in making the world’s most terrifying weapon, capable of mass killings. Oppenheimer thought it completely justifiable that the Allies get the bomb before the Germans. He was persuaded by [Danish physicist Niels] Bohr’s argument that atomic weapons would bring an end to war itself, precisely because its horrific nature makes wars unthinkable.”

Today, the Manhattan Project serves as terrible reminder of the potential costs of human ingenuity. However, it is far from the only instance of a scientific endeavor with dire consequences.

“Imagine being in charge of a secret project costing one billion dollars on which the fate of your country or even the world turns.”

Even if secret, the work of the Manhattan Project was highly directed and deliberate; the development of the atomic bomb was no accident. One would hope the United States could dedicate the same scientific willpower and devote the same resources to tackling the greatest scientific dilemma of our time—climate change. Unfortunately, one might then be disappointed, both in our lack of progress on this issue in the decades we’ve known about our impact on our global climate, and in our refusal to plan in any cohesive way a strategy for future climate science innovation.

Corporate Secrets, Global Consequences: Climate Change

Climate scientists have been desperately trying to convince willfully ignorant politicians of the very real dangers of climate change for years. Many of these attempts have been ignored, and it would currently appear none of the current Republican 2016 presidential hopefuls see our changing climate as a priority—with the possible exception of Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who sagely reminded viewers that “America is not a planet” during the second GOP presidential debate on CNN. His impressive grasp of astronomy aside, Rubio is likely unaware—along with much of the American public—that ExxonMobil knew the potential dangers of rising carbon dioxide emissions in 1981, seven years before the issue became a matter of public interest.

“Mental patients, the homeless, drug addicts, prostitutes, and prisoners—‘people who could not fight back,’ as one agency officer described them—were all subjected.”

Newly released correspondence from Lenny Bernstein, a climate scientist who worked for ExxonMobil for more than 30 years, proves the energy giant was fully aware of the harm carbon emissions could have on the environment—so much so that the company declined to tap a huge gas field in Indonesia, a site that would have been the single largest source of carbon emissions in the world at that time. Not only did ExxonMobil know about the dangers of greenhouse gases years before the issue became a political time-bomb, but the company also spent more than $30 million over the next 30 years funding organizations that actively deny climate science, for fear of what legislation limiting the use of fossil fuels could have on its bottom line.

“What it shows is that Exxon knew years earlier than James Hansen’s testimony to Congress that climate change was a reality; that it accepted the reality, instead of denying the reality as they have done publicly, and to such an extent that it took it into account in their decision making, in making their economic calculation,” says Alyssa Bernstein, Director of the Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics at Ohio University.

Blame the market for ExxonMobil’s—shall we say—fudging of the data on the coming global apocalypse, if you like, but don’t look to the American government for an inspiring, alternative attitude. Economic calculations may have been an aspect, too, of the CIA’s decision to secretly test biological weapons on its own citizens during the 1960s, in the the agency’s secretive MK-ULTRA program. From 1953 until 1964, the CIA conducted tests on American citizens to determine the potential applications of psychedelic drugs as part of the United States’ ongoing political conflict with the former Soviet Union and its allies during the Cold War. At that time, it was suspected that LSD had significant potential as a coercive tool, and officials in the American intelligence community believed that Chinese, North Korean, and Russian intelligence operatives were using the drug to brainwash American captives.

“Mental patients, the homeless, drug addicts, prostitutes, and prisoners—‘people who could not fight back,’ as one agency officer described them—were all subjected.”

LSDeclassified: Psychedelics and the CIA

CIA operatives dosed hundreds of unwitting U.S. citizens with LSD in order to observe its effects. Mental patients, the homeless, drug addicts, prostitutes, and prisoners—“people who could not fight back,” as one agency officer described them—were all subjected to forced LSD ingestion as part of the CIA’s research. The agency conducted 149 separate experiments into mind control and other applications of hallucinogenic drugs, all of which were ultimately useless, according to Sidney Gottlieb, the man responsible for overseeing that part of the MK-ULTRA program, shortly before he retired from the agency in 1972.

The program yielded no scientific benefit, and left many subjects’ lives in ruin. At least one test subject died, and many others were left with serious psychological problems or went insane. Despite the damage the CIA had done, Gottlieb was awarded the Distinguished Intelligence Medal in 1973, the same year the agency deliberately destroyed much of the evidence pertaining to the MK-ULTRA program.

“Gottlieb never did what he did for inhumane reasons,” says John Gittinger, a psychologist at the CIA who vetted Gottlieb prior to his appointment as supervisor of the program. “He thought he was doing exactly what was needed. And in the context of the time, who would argue? But with his experiments on unwitting subjects, he clearly violated the Nuremburg standards—the standards under which, after World War II, we executed Nazi doctors for crimes against humanity.”

The Terrorist Cult: ISIS and Psychological Power

The CIA’s experiments may not have had any scientific value, but coercion and psychological manipulation have long been tools employed by violent organizations. To take an example from current headlines, thousands of teenagers have been coerced into joining ISIS, but this phenomenon is much more insidious than appealing to typical teenage angst. According to Steve Hassan, a former member of the Unification Church (or “Moonies”) who was involved in the forced deprogramming of cult members during the 1980s, ISIS is using mind control techniques more commonly seen in destructive cults to recruit impressionable young members to wage its war on the West.

“One key concept is that people are not making informed choices,” Hassan says. “[Recruits] don't know what it is they're getting involved with fully. They're given enough information to formulate a fantasy or projection. Like my group—I thought we were going to end poverty, end war, end crime, make an ideal kingdom of heaven on earth. That was the fantasy that I was told initially; it wasn't a religious group at all. And, within two weeks, I find out we're all bowing to an altar, praying for God to help the messiah to take over the world, and we'll all speak Korean. I only found out two years into it that we would kill everybody who didn't convert—which is exactly what ISIS is doing.”

Hassan says ISIS uses a technique common in hypnosis known as a “double bind,” in which the potential recruit being groomed is given the illusion of choice to make it seem as though joining the organization is the recruit’s choice. ISIS recruiters, he says, are familiar with social psychology and the principles of influence, which may explain why the group has been so successful in bolstering its ranks. These techniques may not display the implementation of hard science in order to exploit or harm innocent people in the same way as MK-ULTRA or the atomic bomb, but the psychological finesse shown by ISIS recruiters nonetheless displays a similar desire to use empirical observations to exert deadly power over human lives.

The quest for knowledge is as human an instinct as any; it’s what drives us to discover, to push ourselves and our species toward unseen heights and unimagined progress. However, our history shows we often value the impulse to discover new tools at our own peril. We should never, of course, stop innovating or seek to quell our innate curiosity. Rather, we should make sure to learn from the past to ensure our breakthroughs are used to help our human community—or risk the consequences.

Lamar Odom, NBA star and ex-husband of reality TV fixture Khloe Kardashian, was rushed to the hospital yesterday after losing consciousness at a Nevada brothel. Breaking updates indicate he may have suffered from one or more strokes.

According to those at the brothel with him, he had been taking large quantities of “herbal Viagra.” It is also being reported that he was found to have a substantial amount of cocaine in his system, though no illegal drugs were found near him at the time.

It is difficult to know with certainty exactly what was in the supplements Odom was ingesting. Unfortunately, even Odom himself may not have had much idea what it was he was taking so much of. If the reports of cocaine use bear out, the combination may have been deadly.

Unlike prescription medications, herbal supplements are not regulated for safety and efficacy by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Despite the assumptions many make about supposedly natural alternatives to pharmaceutical products, they may contain dangerous quantities of the active ingredients found in the plants from which they are derived. Alternatively, they may contain ingredients totally different from what’s on the label, or no active ingredients whatsoever. Earlier this year, the Attorney General of New York issued cease and desist letters to several major retailers after DNA analysis showed that supplements being sold supposedly with ingredients like valerian or St. John’s wort instead were either unrecognizable or came from totally different plants.

The Mayo Clinic cautions against taking any kind of herbal supplement for treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED), the condition for which Viagra is prescribed. They warn that while these products may include ingredients that relax the walls of blood vessels in the penis (which is how the pharmaceutical version works), they may not be specific enough in their action, and cause dangerous changes in blood pressure overall.

In March, the FDA warned against taking a supplement simply called Herb Viagra after it was found that it contained sildenafil, the active ingredient in the prescription medication. (Whether or not this was the specific product Odom was taking is unclear.) Those who thought they could avoid the health risks of the medication by taking the herbal alternative instead were getting the exact product they were trying to avoid. Several years ago, the United Kingdom’s equivalent to the FDA issued a similar warning about a Chinese “herbal Viagra” supplement known as Jia Yi Jian, which was found to contain dangerous levels of both the active ingredient in the ED medication Cialis and a different medication used to treat obesity. All of these pharmaceutical adulterants can cause problems with blood pressure, especially in unhealthy doses.

Yet another Chinese herb supposedly helpful for enhancing libido and treating ED is the aptly-named horny goat weed, which contains the compound icariin and is available at many supplement stores. As WebMD is all too happy to tout (yet another reason for me to dislike it), icariin may have Viagra-like effects on penile blood flow. Unfortunately, its safety is not established, and it may cause dangerous elevation in blood pressure, especially combined with other herbal ingredients with which it is often paired (PDF).

Elevated blood pressure is also a side effect of cocaine use. If Odom has indeed had a stroke, that may have been the result of an overdose of the drug alone, or a combination of both it and an ingredient in the supplement he was taking. High blood pressure is the most significant risk factor for the kind of stroke he is said to have suffered (the most common variety overall), which is the result of a loss of blood flow to a region of the brain. When blood supply is cut off, usually because of a clot, the area no longer receiving oxygen can be severely damaged.

Given that Odom was at a brothel when he lost consciousness, it may seem intuitive to add sexual activity to the list of risk factors that contributed to his health crisis. However, while sex does raise blood pressure, it only does so briefly and not to dangerous levels. The stroke he suffered is much more likely to have been triggered by the blood pressure effects of one or more of the substances he was taking.

The prognosis for strokes is generally better for younger patients and those whose health was good prior to the stroke. Beyond broad statements like that, however, I can’t pronounce with any authority about his long-term recovery should he make it through his current period of critical peril. (I am neither a neurologist nor in any way connected to his care.) He will certainly require therapies to help him regain the functioning that may have been lost as a result of damage to his brain. Sadly, it is a relatively safe prediction to make to say his return to the NBA is unlikely.

Mr. Messy was a mass of purple squiggles and scrawl. Poor Mr. Bump was a bandage-wrapped disaster area. Mr. Funny was a lime-green joker, wearing a top hat with a flower sprouting from it. Mr. Strong was a smiling, sure-footed red square. Little Miss Helpful looked ready to be just that. Mr. Tickle was an orange ball of naughty, with wriggly arms ready to torment.

Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Men books were childhood favorites, cornerstones: I loved reading and receiving them. And I think my less-innocent adult mind might come to think the same way about humorist Dan Zevin’s excellent series of parodic picture books, featuring such characters as Mr Selfie, Little Miss Overshare, Mr. Humblebrag, and Little Miss Basic, published this week.

The books have black covers, and “a parody” written on their covers, so there is no chance of confusion with their innocence-steeped forebears.

Instead, they are cleverly drawn (by Dylan Klymenko) character types very much of today—and characters we would mock, deride, or leave the room and cross the street to avoid.

Zevin writes in the same childish, sing-songy way as Hargreaves did about the regular Mr. Men, and like those characters Zevin’s barrel through a day in their singularly defined worlds, humblebragging, oversharing, taking their own picture, and being relentlessly middle-of-the-road.

The big difference is all their failures, personality faults and weaknesses are on parade, and they learn not a thing about a better way to behave.

Mr. Selfie is armed with a selfie stick, and ceaselessly takes pictures of himself. After he gets fired, the first thing he does is go to Afghanistan to take “an action-packed shot behind enemy lines,” before some downhill runs on the Matterhorn, and getting almost gored to death trying to take the perfect selfie with a man-eating wildebeest.

Little Miss Overshare—the girlfriend of Mr. Tactless—cannot stop herself from regaling everyone with news about her life, her thoughts, what made her who she is, and her problems.

Everything comes out in a babbling stream, like telling her co-workers she has to drink cranberry juice all week because she has a urinary tract infection (“And then she showed them her urine sample”).

Mr. Humblebrag notes that he is humbled by his movie deal, his TED talk, his Ironman race, “and his transformational trip to the African village where he saw the endangered turtles and met the malnourished orphans.” (Do watch Dick Cavett reading Mr. Humblebrag.)

As for Little Miss Basic, she loves her pumpkin spice lattés, and her Uggs, which she wears for SoulCycle and pilates, alongside a black North Face jacket, black Lululemon yoga pants, and sunglasses. How will she deal with rejection from her bae, Mr. Douchebag, and a troubling encounter with a homeless person?

“I was a fan of the books as a kid,” Zevin, 51, tells me. “I had a younger brother, Richard, who had them all, and, as a parent, I read them to my own kids (Leo, 12, and Josie, 9) when they were younger. I thought they were so great: they taught kids how to behave properly.”

He laughs. “And as a humorist, I thought they would make great parodies for adults.”

“If there’s one character, who I am like, it might be Mr. Humblebrag. I feel #blessed and #honored that my parodies are being seen as so funny.”

He recently came across the original books at his parents’ Long Island home, recalling that he liked Mr. Funny, and I related to Mr. Scatterbrain, a pre-ADHD character. I related to Mr. Funny trying to be the clown, and getting himself into trouble.”

In his books, “which are clearly aimed at adults, not children” Zevin emphasizes, “the character never changes, nobody learns any lessons—in fact they are rewarded for their own bad behavior. These types of people are running rampant, blissfully ignorant.

“I’d been writing things on scraps of paper for years: the selfie guy is based on all those people snapping selfies, even in a crowded park.”

When Zevin won the Thurber Prize for American Humor for his book, Dan Gets a Minivan: Life at the Intersection of Dude and Dad, in 2013 he posted a message about it on social media, and a friend responded: “Good one, Mr Humblebrag.” Zevin says, “If there’s one character, who I am like, it might be him. I feel #blessed and #honored that my parodies are being seen as so funny.”

He won’t name names, but it would have been impossible to write the books, he says, without the inspiration provided by those he knows and loves.

“We have a babysitter in her early 20s,” he says, “and I had been noticing all these young women in Starbucks in Uggs, black yoga pants, black North Face jackets, sunglasses. ‘Oh, you’re talking about Basics,’ she said, which to me seem like the new incarnation of Cher in Clueless, or the ‘Valley Girl.’”

Zevin also consulted the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and Psychology Today looking into narcissistic personality disorders, “and there was definitely a moment where I thought, ‘I’m kind of like that. I’m really fucked up.’”

In the spring a new quartet of characters “will get even darker,” Zevin says: Little Miss Hot Mess, Mr. Emotionally Unavailable, Little Miss Passive Aggressive, and Mr. Baller (“he thinks he’s a ladies’ man, but he’s a complete goof”).

Zevin lives in Larchmont, Westchester, and is married to Megan Tingley, Executive Vice President and Publisher of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

They moved there from Brooklyn six years ago. “I thought it would be the open space I would love the most,” he says, “but it’s the fact I have a driveway. We lived in Brooklyn for eight years, seven-and-a-half-of-them which felt we were looking for a parking space in Boerum Hill.”

As well work which has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker and Rolling Stone, Zevin teaches a ‘writing with wit’ course at Sarah Lawrence College, as part of a graduate MFA creative writing course.

He tells his students that “the truth will make you funny. It sounded crazy to me that there was a course offered in humor writing. I tell my students that they are mistaken if they think the course can teach them how to be funny, but if they have a sense of humor it will teach them how to use that in their writing.”

His students read the work of authors including David Sedaris, Dorothy Parker, James Thurber, and Merrill Markoe.

Does Zevin himself find his humor easy to turn on and off? “I find that a second, third, fourth cup of coffee does it for me. You can’t use regular coffee beans, but espresso beans.”

Such is the fuel helping to creating these sharp and clever parodies, which are his new obsession, Zevin says. Or as he puts it, with a wry laugh, “I’m now Mr. Dan.”

All the books are published by Three Rivers Press