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  • America Pacifica

    America Pacifica: A NovelAnna NorthReagan Arthur Books, May 2011304 pages$24.99 In her debut novel, Anna North dares to enter the dystopic territory staked out by the ruling high priestesses of literary speculative fiction, Margaret Atwood and Octavia E. Butler: America Pacifica features an ordinary heroine with an extraordinary destiny; a punishing climate; and a morally bankrupt,…

  • Why I Reread The Writer’s Chapbook

    I love The Writer’s Chapbook. Compiled by the late, great George Plimpton from the Paris Review’s Writers at Work series, this volume is a collection of wisdom from 20th Century writers about anything and everything literary, from first efforts to children’s books, from sex to writers’ colonies (which often go hand-in-hand).  The section on technique…

  • Reflections on Lorrie Moore

    We’re pleased to present the second reader review following our weekly Free Ploughshares contest. Today, reader Lynette D’Amico will be looking at our Fall 1998 issue, guest edited by Lorrie Moore. Ploughshares Fall 1998 Fiction Issue, guest-edited by Lorrie Moore.Featuring work by Mona Simpson, Charles Baxter, and Gish Jen.247 pages.$10.95.   Above Ground In 1998…

  • Better Late

    According to my medievalist spouse, Geoffrey Chaucer entered into the prime of his literary career, which has spanned the intervening five centuries, around the age of 40.  Presumably he was writing some things before that, and we can quibble about whether to count as major The Book of the Duchess (medievalist spouse:  “are you mad? …

  • Orientation

    Orientation Daniel Orozco Faber & Faber, May 2011 176 pages $23.00 In The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work,) a book of essays and photos, Alain de Botton attempts an “exploration of the joys and perils of the modern workplace, beautifully evoking what other people get up to all day—and night—to make the frenzied contemporary world…

  • Dhaka Dust

    Dhaka Dust Dilruba Ahmed Graywolf Press, June 2011 88 pages $15.00 “Can’t occupy the same space at the same time,” begins the title poem of Dhaka Dust, Dilruba Ahmed’s impressive debut collection. And yet Ahmed’s work, situated across the Midwestern United States, Bangladesh, and Europe, often occupies more than one space at the same time;…