Joseph Salvatore BOA Editions ($14) by Weston Cutter The first hint of magic in Joseph Salvatore’s To Assume a Pleasing Shape comes in the first story, though you have to read it again after finishing the collection to recognize it. “Parts” is a whisp, a narrator recalling what his father used to tell him about how to […]
Kate Bernheimer FC2 ($14.95) by Caroline Wilkinson Kate Bernheimer’s The Complete Tales of Lucy Gold—the last novel in her trilogy about three sisters—makes for an unusually happy ending. Lucy, the most cheerful of the Golds, steps forward to recount her life and untimely death. Her novel, like the others in the trilogy, draws upon traditions of […]
Elena Chizhova translated by Simon Patterson and Nina Chordas Glagoslav Publications ($22.50) by Steve Street Russians have a reputation for being at once soulful and tough. Is this because of the adversities their country has put them through, from severe cold to famine and brutal wars? Or is it because of the value their culture […]
Francis Spufford Graywolf Press ($16) by Justin Wadland The difference between utopia and dystopia is awfully—some might say, fatally—thin. Often the difference is only a matter of perspective. Francis Spufford’s Red Plenty contains many instances of double vision that capture both the aspirations and horrors of the Soviet Union. Take for example this memorable moment when […]
Mahmoud Darwish translated by Sinan Antoon Archipelago Books ($16) by Brooke Horvath Sinan Antoon, writing in The Nation upon the occasion of Mahmoud Darwish’s death in 2008, called him “one of the last great world poets.” Darwish published more than fifty books, his work finding in translation readers around the world; his public appearances attracted audiences in […]
Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot Dark Horse Books ($14.99) by Greg Baldino Memory and history often lie about each other, and yet in autobiographical writing this murkiness often leads to greater truths than mere facts. Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, a graphic novel written by literary scholar Mary M. Talbot and illustrated by acclaimed cartoonist […]
Fumi Yoshinaga Translated and Adapted by Akemi Wegmüller Viz Media ($12.99) by Amanda Vail Like many manga, Fumi Yoshinaga’s Ōoku: The Inner Chambers is a bit hard to get into at first. The series begins with an intriguing premise: the population of Tokugawa-era Japan (1600-1700s) has been beset by a terrible disease which has killed most of […]
Nathalie Handal University of Pittsburgh Press ($16.95) by Amelia Cook Eighty years after Spanish poet Federico García Lorca turned his experience of New York into poetic form, Nathalie Handal inverts his journey—she leaves New York to spend some time in Andalucía, Spain. The result, Poet in Andalucía, is a rich collection made up of layers […]
Neil Shepard Mid-List Press ($13) by Judith Slater The title’s the tip-off: this is no ordinary adventure. In Neil Shepard’s fourth book of poems, we’re snatched up as if by the fabled Roc and dropped into one far-off locale after another, subject to travel’s transformative power not only to delight and excite the senses, but […]
Gregory Sherl Mud Luscious ($12) by Christopher Beard Gregory Sherl’s The Oregon Trail is The Oregon Trailuses a video game about survival to meditate on its impossibility. This does not mean the book languishes in existential gloom, though. Instead, Sherl has written a book full of love and surprising emotional power. Though The Oregon Trail is mostly known […]