Inmost, by Jessica Fisher
Many of the most interesting lyric books of the past few years have attempted a sort of reckoning between contemporary life and the reality of ceaseless war. Nick Flynn’s The…
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Aerogrammes by Tania James
Tania James follows her well-received debut novel, 2009’s Atlas of Unknowns, with Aerogrammes, a collection of nine short stories which delve into topics as variant as professional wrestling, chimpanzee adoption,…
Almost Never, by Daniel Sada
Sex is the first word and ironic driving force of Daniel Sada’s Almost Never. It is the activity the agronomist Demetrio Sordo decides upon to break up the monotony of…
Coming to That by Dorothea Tanning
Dorothea Tanning’s Coming to That is a book full of imagination, creativity, and intellect.
Between the Crackups, by Rebecca Lehmann
Rebecca Lehmann’s collection, Between the Crackups, is a glittering, furious book. Many of its poems inhabit a childhood world full of violence and anger. Others showcase adult voices that range…
Ninety Days: A Memoir of Recovery by Bill Clegg
There is a moment in Junky in which a psychiatrist asks William Burroughs’ narrator why he needs narcotics. His answer is to get out of bed in the morning, to…
Voices of the Rainbow: Contemporary Poetry by Native Americans
Visiting the Taos Pueblo (“an ancient community continuously inhabited for 100 years”) on San Geronimo Day, I was frightened by the Sacred Clowns (Koshares). The list of rules for visitors…
Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung
In Catherine Chung’s Forgotten Country, Janie, the eldest daughter of a Korean immigrant family and a graduate student in mathematics, has always carried the responsibility of appeasing and protecting her…
Absolution by Patrick Flanery
Patrick Flanery is not South African, and neither is his debut novel, Absolution. This is not to say that Flanery does not know South Africa or its politics, history, landscape,…
The Poems of Jesus Christ, by Willis Barnstone
Born in 1927, Willis Barnstone is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Indiana University and an admired translator . His rendering of The Poems of St John of the…
Girl In Cap and Gown by Harriet Levin
Filmgoers this year who saw the documentary The Cave of Forgotten Dreams in 3-D (or not) entered the prehistoric Chauvet caves of Southern France in a stunning modern way. The…
Zona, by Geoff Dyer
To appreciate Zona, Geoff Dyer’s twelfth book, you’ll need to watch the Andrei Tarkovsky film, Stalker, among the most treasured and troubling movies in the history of cinema. If you’ve…