Cosmic Pessimism – Eugene Thacker
Thacker’s text isn’t a monument; it isn’t even a book.
Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates does not write to blunt edges. He writes so that it might be possible to slice away the protective illusions that obscure the brutal reality of blackness in America.
A Raskolnikoff – Emmanuel Bove
There are crucial realities here the writing is doing its utmost to convey, realities our realisms can’t confront, realities that require other aesthetics.
The figure of the flâneur is generally a de-politicized one; it is typically a man who observes the world from a safe, distanced, detached perspective.
Bloodletting in Minor Scales – Justin Limoli
The dismissal of “heaviness” from experimental or mainstream quarters alike is an evasion.
The Boy Who Stole Attila’s Horse – Iván Repila
“Small goes on dying for days, and his brother goes on keeping him alive. As if they were playing.” This is Repila’s game, and he’s good at it.
The Mark and the Void – Paul Murray
Murray pulls off the impossible. He writes a funny, poignant, human, and philosophical novel about an investment banker.
B., like many other white members of her zeitgeist, cannot embrace her cultural present, so she tries to pilgrimage back in time.
Gold Fame Citrus – Claire Vaye Watkins
[Gold Fame Citrus] speaks to the part of me that sees a drained lake as more than a localized crisis affecting only a handful of fish, and wonders about the texture and shape of the greater crisis that an event like this portends.
In this short but expansive book which reads sometimes like poetry, sometimes like philosophy, and always like resistance, Berkowitz encourages us to become authoritative about our own experiences.