Matt Bell, Jennifer Egan, Robert Kelly, Lew Welch, Carole Maso, Chana Wilson, & more...

Interviews

Snowflakes in General: An Interview with Matthea Harvey
Interviewed by Louis Bourgeois
Poet and children’s storybook author Matthea Harvey discusses what inspires her to create resonating poems, pet glaciers, giant snowflakes, and more.

Rain Taxi Talks with Laird Hunt
Laird Hunt discusses the crafting of his new novel, Kind One, a chilling tale of redemption and human endurance in antebellum America.

What A Cute Baby!: An Interview with Matt Bell
Interviewed by Gavin Pate
Bell discusses his new book of stories about parents enduring the apocalypses of children.

Features

Unreadable? Clickthrough Culture and Difficult Literature
Essay by David Huntsperger
David Huntsperger takes a close look at some challenging literature through the lens of our Internet-saturated, attention-challenged world.

Twitter Mind: On Jennifer Egan's "Black Box"
Essay by John Parras
Egan’s 8,500-word story, released earlier this summer over a ten-day serialization on Twitter, was met with much hand-wringing by those worried about The Fate of the Book.

The Place of Love: Robert Kelly & Contemporary American Poetry
Essay by Jordan Reynolds
A look at Robert Kelly's particular poetic genius.

Reviews: Art

Between Page and Screen
Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse
To “read” this textless book, one needs a computer, a web browser, and a web cam. Reviewed by Abraham Avnisan

Reviews: Poetry

Wild in the Plaza of Memory
Pamela Uschuk
In this new collection, the award-winning Uschuk views the poem as a vehicle for fierce engagement with the body and its social realities. Reviewed by Sean Thomas Dougherty

Wolf’s Milk: The Lost Notebooks of Juan Sweeney
Juan Sweeney
Poet Chad Sweeney translates the ethereal, hypnotic, often surreal poetry of his Spanish ancestor, Juan Sweeney de las Minas de Cobre. Reviewed by Jeff Alessandrelli

The Hartford Book
Samuel Amadon
In this powerful collection, Amadon conjures up the dark and destitute side of Connecticut’s capital. Reviewed by Chris Vola

When My Brother Was an Aztec
Natalie Diaz
In this ambitious first collection, Diaz takes on the challenges faced by her native American Indian culture. Reviewed by James Naiden

Western Practice
Stephen Motika
Motika’s first full-length book of poems sets itself firmly at the edge of Western American innovation, with impressive results. Reviewed by Gillian Conoley

Ring of Bone: Collected Poems
Lew Welch
This fortieth-anniversary expanded edition should reawaken interest in Welch's Buddhist- and Beat-inflected work. Reviewed by Maria Damon

Reviews: Literary Magazine

The Poetry of India
Edited by Bhisham Bherwani
Bherwani’s terse and incisive anthology of “twenty-one modern and contemporary resident Indian poets” forms the better part of the Spring/Summer 2012 issue of the Atlanta Review. Reviewed by Graziano Krätli

Reviews: Fiction

Mother and Child
Carole Maso
While Maso’s writing is characterized as lush and otherworldly, her latest book is also grounded in our political and historical moment. Reviewed by Laura Winton

2312
Kim Stanley Robinson
Robinson’s 2312 performs beautifully as both a love story and a solar-system-spanning travelogue. Reviewed by William Alexander

The Master’s Muse
Varley O’Connor
O’Connor’s dynamic and remarkable portrait of Tanaquil “Tanny” Le Clercq, dancer and fifth wife to George Balanchine, investigates the cost of being a muse. Reviewed by Erin Lewenauer

Vlad
Carlos Fuentes
In this delectably blood curdling and final fiction, Fuentes depicts an ageless wanderer transported to modern-day Mexico City. Reviewed by Vladislav Davidzon

I Am a Magical Teenage Princess
Luke Geddes
This debut collection of stories recalls a lost, mythical world of 1950s American pop culture and its aftermath. Reviewed by Stephen Delaney

Mrs. Bridge
Evan S. Connell
Recently admitted into the UK's Penguin Modern Classics, we take another look at this masterpiece of spousal repression. Reviewed by Malcolm Forbes

Reviews: Nonfiction

The Hasheesh Eater: Being Passages from the Life of a Pythagorean
Fitz Hugh Ludlow
Originally published over 150 years ago, this remarkable classic of American visionary literature has been rescued from obscurity. Reviewed by Gregory Stephenson

Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes
Adilifu Nama
The first critical survey of black superheroes, Super Black takes Nama’s childhood passion and examines it through cultural, historical, and literary lenses. Reviewed by Isaac Butler

The Secret Violence of Henry Miller
& Henry Miller And How He Got That Way
Katy Masuga
Katy Masuga attempts to rescue Henry Miller from oblivion with two new critical studies of the controversial author. Reviewed by Greg Bachar

An Unquenchable Thirst: Following Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service, and an Authentic Life
Mary Johnson
This no-holds-barred memoir by a former nun focuses on her struggles to overcome her sexual desire. Reviewed by Chris Beal

A Long Way for a Pizza: On Foot to Rome
Brian Mooney
Retired Reuters correspondent Mooney relates the humorous yet profound experience of his 1400-mile journey on foot from Essex to Rome. Reviewed by John Toren

Less than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism
Slavoj Žižek
Slovenian philosopher and social critic Slavoj Žižek takes on the failures of power structures that cannot contain or incorporate the multiplicities of society, allowing ripe conditions for revolution. Reviewed by Jim Kozubek

Kippenberger: The Artist and His Families
Susanne Kippenberger
Kippenberger’s sister reveals the multifaceted artist who thrived on disruption and made a business of creating art from unlikely, quotidian objects. Reviewed by Erika Stevens

Riding Fury Home
Chana Wilson
This gripping and unconventional memoir follows Wilson’s story of sexual revelation and resolution after the emotional toll of caring for a suicidal mother. Reviewed by Scott F. Parker

Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times
Eyal Press
In this ever-more-revelant book, Press writes about individuals who follow their conscience during the darkest times, from Nazi Germany to the present day. Reviewed by Edward A. Dougherty

Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter—Scaling Back in the 21st Century
Lloyd Kahn
With Tiny Homes, carpenter and writer Lloyd Kahn brings his gaze to bear on the elegance of limits in contemporary architecture. Reviewed by Niels Strandskov

Pure Filth
Peter Sotos and Jamie Gillis
Pure Filth, a collaborative work between Sotos and pornography icon Jamie Gillis, seeks to navigate the blurry divide between the lowest point of human imagination and the reality of perceived degradation. Reviewed by Cory Strand

Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan
William Hjortsberg
Two decades in the making and over 850 pages in length, William Hjortsberg’s Jubilee Hitchhiker appears to be every bit of the big, epic, all-inclusive biography that Brautigan fans have long been anticipating. Reviewed by Mark Terrill

C.G. Jung: A Biography in Books
Sonu Shamdasani
Bliss for a bibliophile, this “browse” through C.G. Jung’s library contains two hundred pages of photographed books that practically smell of stamped leather, ink, parchment, dye and paint. Reviewed by Nor Hall

Thinking the Twentieth Century
Tony Judt, with Timothy Snyder
Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder present their conversations on shifting currents of academic fashion and ideas that populated the intellectual landscape of the twentieth century. Reviewed by John Toren

Reviews: Mixed Genre

The Little Book of Terror
Daisy Rockwell
Rockwell combines a selection of her paintings with political reflections on a post-9/11 world. Reviewed by Evan Harris

Swimming Studies
Leanne Shapton
Swimming Studies may be the first literary book entirely devoted to the grueling agonies and occasional ecstasies of competitive swimming. Reviewed by Justin Wadland

My Struggle: Book One
Karl Ove Knausgaard
In this hybrid narrative, Knausgaard collages truth and fiction, revealing intimate details of the Norwegian author’s life much to the chagrin of his family and friends. Reviewed by Jay Orff