Mary and Mr. Fox begin to not only write stories together, but to inhabit them as well, and as Mary transforms Mr. Fox from author to subject matter, she slowly exposes to him his own brutality.
How does a journalist end up being more insightful than a host of experienced experts? Michael Lewis asks common-sense questions and doggedly pursues those to which no one can give him a sensible answer.
The Book of Life – Stuart Nadler
Nadler shows that a book of life is not grandiose; it can be simply an amalgam of life’s banalities.
Buffet World is experimental poetry’s answer to The Omnivore’s Dilemma, interspersing verse renderings of “fun facts” about the food industry (at times troubling, at times whimsical, at times both) with found images of artery-clogging comestibles.
From The Memoirs Of A Non-Enemy Combatant – Alex Gilvarry
This five-foot-one, flamboyant Filipino man has been designated a “Non-Enemy Combatant,” a victim of unfortunate, often hilarious, and mind-numbingly idiotic circumstance.
If much “experimental” fiction is primarily experiment with form, Lutz’s innovation is in paring back form in order to reconceive the purpose of the sentence as the truly essential element of prose fiction.
Proud Beggars – Albert Cossery
Cossery’s universe is governed by a system so stacked against humanity that the only way to find peace is to exist in the margins, outside of social norms and worldly obligations. Proud Beggars is not a glorification of poverty, but a condemnation of society as it exists.
East of the West – Miroslav Penkov
The eight pieces in this collection come together like a ball of tiny mirrors, reflecting and illuminating hidden corners of the battered history of a country.
The Great Frustration – Seth Fried
There’s nothing redeeming about just being clever, so it’s great that Seth Fried is also smart-as-hell in his debut, The Great Frustration, a collection that is fantastically imagined, caustically realized, and genuinely touching.
House of the Fortunate Buddhas – João Ubaldo Ribeiro
Over the course of her oral (and anal, and vaginal) narrative, the novel’s narrator reminisces on these and many other encounters in her list of lifelong sexual exploits. She is witty as a whip (and probably good with one too).