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)
Jane Hirshfield recommends The Opposite of Clairvoyance, poems by Gillian Wegener: “This is a first collection of uncommonly sure-handed grace. These poems, many set in California’s Central Valley, mix the recognizable with the revelatory in a way quietly but entirely Wegener’s own. They see exactly what was there to be seen, but wasn’t, and then…
James Alan McPherson recommends The Interloper, a novel by Antoine Wilson: "The Interloper is an admirable exploration of the complex emotional bond that develops between an imprisoned man and another male, bent on vengeance, who employs the affectations of a female. The exploration of this developing bond will enlighten the novel’s readers. Antoine Wilson, a…
Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a novel: In his first book for young adults, Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist who leaves his school on the Spokane Indian Reservation for an all-white high school. This heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written tale received the 2007 National Book Award…
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