McSweeney's as a publishing company is built on a business model that only works when we sell physical books. So we try to put a lot of effort into the design and production of the book-as-object.

I'm never a fan of the sociopathic kind of reviewing, people who are sort of self-immolating and have social problems or whatever, and let it out in literary-criticism form. I just feel like book reviewing should be respectful and calm and not filled with bile.

Every time I get through the work on a book of nonfiction, I say I'll never do it again; it takes so much out of you.

I worked at magazines for over 10 years before I even thought of writing a book.