DeWitt Henry recommends Man vs. Nature, a novel by Doug Crandell: “In his debut novel, Crandell tells a lyrical, preposterous tale of Midwestern farm life, interweaving the coming of age of a farm boy with a lunatic father who raises pigs and a subplot about the invasion of TV news and the media’s distortions of…
Margot Livesey recommends Broken Ground, a novel by Kai Maristed: “Maristed brilliantly depicts a woman’s search for her daughter and her past in Germany before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The novel moves gracefully between past and present, personal and political, and is intelligent, absorbing, and suspenseful at every level.” (Shoemaker &…
Gerald Stern recommends Search Party, collected poems of William Matthews: “For my money, the new selected of Bill Matthews is a bit too thin considering his extraordinary vision and voice, but it is a magnificent book that the editors Sebastian Matthews and Stanley Plumly have brought out. I think Matthews will take his place as…
George Garrett recommends Do I Owe You Something, a memoir by Michael Mewshaw: “Novelist and nonfiction writer Mewshaw here offers a focused memoir concerning writers he has known well over many years. At the still point where memory and gossip become history, he gives us candid and surprising portraits of giants and pygmies of the…
Jane Hirshfield recommends Ripe, poems by Roy Jacobstein: "Roy Jacobstein’s Ripe, winner of the Felix Pollak Prize, is a book of balance, precision, vision, courage, and wit. Each poem feels solidly present in what it knows, each poem is fragrant with lived life—just as its title implies, here is a poet come into his ripeness."…
George Garrett recommends A Word in Your Ear, poems by Monroe Spears: “The late Monroe Spears (1916-1998) was one of the major critics and editors (The Sewanee Review) of our time. That he also wrote first-rate poetry was sometimes overlooked. As Daniel Hoffman has written about this volume: ‘Those who know Monroe Spears through his…
DeWitt Henry recommends A Tragic Honesty, a biography by Blake Bailey: “Richard Yates comes fully alive as an artist and as a man in this meticulously researched, judicious, and critically perceptive biography. Blake Bailey has done for Yates what Carlos Baker did for Hemingway, allowing Yates himself to speak from letters, archives, reported conversations, and…
Philip Levine recommends Fire, poems by Wesley McNair: “Is there any poet around who can catch the singular qualities of American voices better than Wesley McNair? If so, I haven’t found her. In this, his fifth book of poetry-and for me his most beautiful and moving-he reunites a dismal collection of people (what we call…
C. D. Wright recommends Alphabet, poetry by Inger Christensen: “A brilliant abecedary by Danish writer Inger Christensen which sets forth our feckless pressure on the earth’s futurity in a comely ancient form.” (New Directions)
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