Editor's Shelf

George Garrett recommends Omniphobia, fiction by R. H. W. Dillard (Louisiana State): “Four stories and three novellas by a master of American metafiction. A virtuoso demonstration of the virtues of the avant-garde.”

Gail Mazur recommends Open Water, a novel by Maria Flook (Pantheon): “Maria Flook’s people in Open Water are the product of her full-hearted embrace of an American kind of nuttiness and a zest for their strange self-induced troubles. The margin, which is their habitat, is wildly, deliciously drawn by a writer of enormous intelligence and…

James Alan McPherson recommends Paramedic: On the Front Lines of Medicine, a memoir by Peter Canning: “Peter Canning is a former student from both Virginia and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His book is an excellently written account of the lifesaving roles played by paramedics in an increasingly dangerous world. I might add that Peter is…

Maura Stanton recommends Pears, Lake, Sun, a first book of poems by Sandy Solomon: “Sandy Solomon is the winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. The poems in Pears, Lake, Sun are tough-minded and impeccably crafted, full of passionate stillness and disciplined commotion.” (Pittsburgh)

James Welch recommends Philadelphia Flowers, poems by Roberta Hill Whiteman: “Once in a great while, a poet, like an eagle, catches a draft and soars to new heights. Philadelphia Flowers is that draft, and Roberta Hill Whiteman is that poet. This is an important, beautifully crafted book of poems by one of America’s brightest poets.”…

Philip Levine recommends Picnic, Lightning, poems by Billy Collins: “For some years now Billy Collins has been our most delightful poet, someone who handles his lines with superb grace and an unerring ear and whose personal take on the world can make the reader laugh out loud and beg for more. But careful readers of…

Dan Wakefield recommends Playing the Game, a novel by Alan Lelchuk (Baskerville): “This novel has been neglected and deserves to be read. A wonderful and entertaining insight into U.S. sports, with a coach who uses Thoreau, Whitman, and Francis Parkman as inspirational reading for halftime pep talks.”

DeWitt Henry recommends Rabbit Fever, stories by Geoffrey Clark: “Geoffrey Clark’s new collection, Rabbit Fever, is rich with terrible beauties. His mature prose is fresh with sensory texture, sonority, wit, hard-learned truths, and precisely dramatized voice. The progress through the collection as well as the upper Michigan setting is reminiscent of Hemingway’s Men Without Women,…

Andre Dubus recommends Moving Violations, a memoir by John Hockenberry (Hyperion): “You don’t have to be in a wheelchair to love this book, which reaches a conclusion about the U.S. that I’ve never read before.”