Bang Crunch, stories by Neil Smith (Vintage): Most literary trends produce both brilliant and unfortunate incarnations, and the "quirky fiction" school is no exception. The less successful manifestations of this trend toward off-kilter fictional realities seem to embrace weirdness for the sake of weirdness, to privilege style over substance, while the more memorable works…
Robert Boswell recommends House of Bone, poems by Sheila Black: "This is a complex and surprising collection, a very mature first book of poetry. House of Bone is beautifully written, and the poems are genuinely moving. Sheila Black deserves a wide and enthusiastic audience." (Custom Words)
Maxine Kumin recommends That or Which, and Why: A Usage Guide for Thoughtful Writers and Editors, by Evan Jenkins: “A pragmatic and wonderfully witty collection of advice on slippery usage issues. Even if you think you know it all, read it for entertainment.” (Routledge)
Russell Banks, The Reserve, a novel: Part love story, part murder mystery, and set on the cusp of the Second World War, this deeply engaging new novel raises dangerous questions about class, politics, art, love, and madness. (Harper)
Maxine Kumin recommends Ultra-Talk, essays by David Kirby: “Kirby’s essays leapfrog from remembering Johnny Cash’s ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ while touring Sicily to a piece called ‘Give Me Life Coarse and Rank,’ a disquisition on dithyrambs and more in Whitman. My favorite essay, ‘Shrouded in a Fiery Mist,’ examines the eroticism of Saint Teresa of Avila…
Gerald Stern recommends Velocity, poems by Nancy Krygowski: “These are courageous poems. The music, the language, which I love, is based on a terrific sense of things, and I don’t know if it is the music or the knowledge which I most admire. This is a wide-eyed, assertive, wild, well-read, street-smart, edgy, loving, suffering, heaven-crazed…
Ron Carlson recommends A Proper Knowledge, a novel by Michelle Latiolais: “Here is a deep look at a doctor who works with autistic children, so frustrated with science and the tiny progress he’s making with the young people with whom he works, that he comes to life himself. Latiolais writes sharply and beautifully about the…
Philip Levine recommends Space Walk, poems by Tom Sleigh: “Sleigh’s reviewers use words such as ‘adept,’ ‘elegant,’ and ‘classical.’ Reading his new book, I find all those terms beside the point, even though not one is inaccurate. I am struck by the human dramas that are enacted in these poems, the deep encounters that often…
David St. John recommends Intaglio, poems by Ariana-Sophia M. Kartsonis: “I only discovered this prize-winning collection earlier this year, and it stunned me with its rich and sensual language and complex narrative architectures. Without question one of the very finest debut volumes of recent years.” (Kent State)
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