“Diving Belles,” by Lucy Wood
The very act of writing is a kind of magic. Small black etchings on paper conjure up worlds, people, events, transporting you, the reader, to a different place, a different…
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“Robinson Alone” by Kathleen Rooney
First things first: you don’t have to be a fan of Weldon Kees to enjoy this book. Shameful confession: until I read the note that precedes the table of contents,…
“Hush Hush,” by Steven Barthelme
Steven Barthelme’s new collection of short stories Hush Hush plays like the best of saddest love songs. These are elegiac, yet hopeful stories about characters who bumble through existence, struggle…
“Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story,” by D. T. Max
Like many latecomers to his work, my introduction to David Foster Wallace began with a reading of his 2005 Kenyon College commencement address. I remember being struck initially, immediately, by…
Selected Translations by W. S. Merwin
The translation of poetry requires justification. Not necessarily for conceptual reasons, but because the experience of reading translated poetry however transcendent and beautiful always feels lacking, incomplete, like living in…
“HHhH,” by Laurent Binet
Winner of the 2010 Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman and translated from the French by Sam Taylor, Laurent Binet’s novel HHhH centers around the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, referenced in…
“How to Survive a Hotel Fire” by Veronica Wong
The princess is not a poet, but we never forget that she is written by one, a very good one indeed.
“Fobbit,” by David Abrams
“The real war is unlikely to be found in novels,” writes the late Paul Fussell, in his book Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War. He argues that…
“Fakes,” by David Shields and Matthew Vollmer
Receipts, letters, diaries, grocery lists, photographs, report cards, online dating profiles – all these documents are written evidence of our existence. For most of us, they will be the only…
“Roleplay” by Juliana Gray
In Juliana Gray’s Roleplay, though the book has its share of formal verse – triolets, sonnets, etc – don’t be surprised if you run into a zombie or two. Roleplay…
“The Polish Boxer,” by Eduardo Halfon
Eduardo Halfon is unsatisfied with something. So he decides to travel (or escape?) in attempt to discover what’s missing. His novel The Polish Boxer is a murky study on the influence…
“The Children” by Paula Bohince
The plosive thrills and quietly mournful tenor of the finely-wrought poems Paula Bohince’s The Children (her second full-length collection) reward enormously upon first encounter, and only more so upon subsequent…