INTERVIEWS
Bald New World: An Interview with Peter Tieryas Liu
Interviewed by Berit Ellingsen
In a dystopian future where everyone is bald, two filmmaker friends go on a quest to “explore the existential angst of their balding world through cinema.”
Looking for the Big Doom: An Interview with Trevor D. Richardson
Interviewed by Simon Wilbanks
The author of Dystopia Boy discusses the inception of his Orwellian tale of Watchers keeping track of every move the public makes.
CONVERSING AROUND LOVECRAFT:
Leslie S. Klinger and Neil Gaiman
During a joint bookstore appearance, Leslie S. Klinger and Neil Gaiman discuss Klinger's latest book, The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, as well as other collaborations and literary obsessions.
FEATURES
An Aladdin’s Cave of Delights: The New York Review Children’s Collection
The New York Review of Books has an authority which gives a children’s book published by its imprint the instant stamp of a classic; this effect is emphasized by their red cloth spines which line up beautifully on a shelf to unite the variety of writing they present—an Everyman for children, as it were. Reviewed by Lydia Wilson
From England, A Belated Gift: Elizabeth Taylor’s Fiction
An in-depth look into the life, times, and works of this largely forgotten writer of fiction from the middle-twentieth century shows a profound understanding of human nature and an amazing command of visual imagery. Reviewed by James Naiden
MULTI-GENRE REVIEWS
Language Lessons: Volume 1
Edited by Chet Weise and Ben Swank
With Language Lessons: Volume 1, Jack White’s label makes its first foray into literary publishing under the newly launched banner of Third Man Books, with similar excellence and swagger. Reviewed by Brian Laidlaw
COMICS REVIEWS
The EC Library, Volumes 1-4
Fantagraphics brings us the first four volumes of the “EC Library” which excavate a treasure trove of original pre-censorship comics by icons of the 1940s and ’50s. Reviewed by Paul Buhle
FICTION REVIEWS
Paper Lantern & Ecstatic Cahoots
Stuart Dybek
The simultaneous release of two story collections by the master of the form helps pin down what makes Stuart Dybek so unlike any other writer of short fiction today. Reviewed by Robert Martin
All the Birds, Singing
Evie Wyld
In depicting how her isolated protagonist Jake Whyte gains self-awareness, Wyld has created an entertaining novel that is pleasurable and also deeply unsettling. Reviewed by Lori Feathers
The Madness of Cthulhu
Edited by S. T. Joshi
Joshi compiles stories inspired by Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness—some reverent, and some satirical. Reviewed by Ryder W. Miller
Going Anywhere
David Armstrong
This collection of award-winning stories delivers with compelling family dynamics and exceptional plot twists. Reviewed by Isaac Faleschini
Can’t and Won’t
Lydia Davis
Davis’s stories include whimsical noodlings, found texts, remarks overheard while traveling, possibly true anecdotes, letters, dreams, diatribe, and more. Reviewed by Brooke Horvath
Nirvana on Ninth Street
Susan Sherman
In this collection of stories, Sherman uses her neighborhood as a setting—not for realistic sketches, but for ingenious parables. Reviewed by Jim Feast
Repairable Men
John Carr Walker
In this first collection of short stories, John Carr Walker studies the psyches and stumbles of men in the rural west as they try to negotiate the mysteries of others and themselves. Reviewed by Beth Taylor
POETRY REVIEWS
I am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan
translated by Eliza Griswold
Griswold’s translations of these fascinating landays—two-line Afghani oral folk poems—resonate with poignancy and capture a broken culture ravaged by war. Reviewed by John Bradley
The Greenhouse
Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet
Stonestreet’s language—lyrical yet intimate, expansive yet concise—renders vividly the complex and conflicted feelings of a new mother caring for her son. Reviewed by J.G. McClure
Marked Men
Joseph Hutchison
The recently appointed Poet Laureate of Colorado turns to themes of injustice in this striking new collection of three long poems. Reviewed by Dale Jacobson
99 Poems for the 99 Percent
Edited by Dean Rader
With the realization that “the aims of poetry and the aims of a democratic country were . . . profoundly similar,” Radar made a call for poems that reflected issues of class and capitalism. Reviewed by John Bradley
A Northern Habitat: Collected Poems 1960-2010
Robin Fulton Macpherson
The Scottish poet’s fine eye for the natural image, doubtless formed amid the idyllic scenery on the Isle of Arran, shines brightly in this wonderful collection. Reviewed by Peter McDonald
If the Tabloids Are True What Are You?
Matthea Harvey
Matthea Harvey’s fifth collection of poetry combines photographs, silhouettes, sewn images, and text with startling originality and depth. Reviewed by Renoir Gaither
Prelude to Bruise
Saeed Jones
With fire and ash in all senses, Prelude to Bruise shows how for a gay Black boy becoming a gay Black man, the danger of wanting and being wanted burns into wanting danger. Reviewed by Kate Schapira
Rome
Dorothea Lasky
Lasky’s fourth full-length collection thrums with intelligence and uneasy energy. Reviewed by Gretchen Marquette
NONFICTION REVIEWS
Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France
Caroline Moorehead
Village of Secrets reveals a startlingly different history of Nazi-controlled France than portrayed before, giving an intimate look at the resistance movement. Reviewed by Douglas Messerli
Arthur Ashe: Tennis and Justice in the Civil Rights Era
Eric Allen Hall
Hall’s biography of Ashe is assiduous in giving context to the tennis player’s life from his childhood in segregated Richmond, VA to his coming of age in the Civil Rights Era and on to fame. Reviewed by Andrew Cleary
The Erotic Doll: A Modern Fetish
Marquard Smith
This intriguing study uncovers what motivates the peculiar desires behind that “most polymorphous perverse sexuality: male heterosexuality.” Reviewed by Jeremy Biles
Bad Feminist
Roxane Gay
In her first essay collection, Gay asserts that the impossibility of perfection should not negate earnest effort when it comes to navigating identity politics. Reviewed by Sally Franson
The Fall: A Father’s Memoir in 424 Steps
Diogo Mainardi
Brazilian journalist and author Diogo Mainardi tells the story of his son’s difficult life in a manner that is sentimental, intellectual, and without bitterness. Reviewed by Nicole Montalvo
I Remember
Georges Perec
This newly translated slim volume was inspired by Joe Brainard and in 1979 became one of France’s most-loved short works. Reviewed by Jeff Bursey
The Master and I: Soumitra on Satyajit
Soumitra Chatterjee
Soumitra Chatterjee was for Satyajit Ray what Marcello Mastroianni was for Federico Fellini, Jean-Pierre Léaud for François Truffaut—an early and fateful discovery meant to become a source of inspiration, an alter ego, and a close friend. Reviewed by Graziano Krätli