New stories and a novel about a whacked-out imaginary town during the Dust Bowl drought.

NEWYORKER: Karen Russell

In league with the rocket is the 17-foot hideous-yet-endearing troll under the Aurora Bridge, as is the raucous Summer Solstice Parade in all its stilted, puppet bearing, naked cyclist glory that drums to the beat of its own whacked-out marching band.

BBC: Seattle��s Fremont neighbourhood

The story is straightforward enough: Benjamin (Michael Angarano), a lonely teen-ager being home-schooled by his poor single mother (Jennifer Coolidge) in a dome-shaped house somewhere west of the Rockies, salves his soul by writing and illustrating whacked-out science-fiction fantasies.

NEWYORKER: Gentlemen Broncos

Smaller firms that had followed the leveraged buy-out path got whacked, too.

ECONOMIST: Inbound and outbound deals

Arbeter says another indicator showing high levels of fear, which came out before the market got whacked on Thursday and Friday (Oct. 18 and 19, respectively), came from the American Association of Individual Investor survey: Bullish sentiment dropped to 28.7% while bearishness jumped 44.6%.

FORBES: Latest Panic On The Street Presents Rare Buying Opportunity For Long-Term Investors

John Buckingham, editor of the Prudent Speculator (published by Forbes), believes that investors have "thrown the baby out with the bathwater" and that exceptional values exist among solid companies that have nonetheless been whacked.

FORBES: Magazine Article