Reading The New Yorker each week is a lot of responsibility, so here is our completely biased guide about what to check out.

Calvin Trillin, Richard Ford and Amy Winehouse make an appearance in this week's New Yorker.

Trillin covers racism in Long Island, and we live just a train ride out from Long Island! The piece could be a conversational life raft if you're ever seated next to a bridge and tunnel'er at a dinner party.

Richard Ford has a new short story this week. We haven't read it, but we're assuming it deals with the existential struggles of the aging, heterosexual American male.

Sasha Frere-Jones, our favorite music critic second to the ever witty Kelefa Sanneh, reports on Amy Winehouse. Get ready for the ironies of "Rehab" to be parsed into oblivion.