Cloud of Ink, one of the two winners of the 2010 Iowa Poetry Prize, is a solid volume of eccentric, dense, whimsical, occasionally inscrutable and occasionally gorgeous poetry. Though the collection is somewhat eclectic and adopts a number of different approaches, Klatt’s talent for imagining bizarre, dreamlike scenarios is certainly one of his greatest strengths.
Unfamiliar Fishes – Sarah Vowell
Vowell often comes off like a guest who crashed the party and then forgot why she wanted to come in the first place.
Wolitzer’s greatly misunderstood what it’s like to be on and experience the internet, while simultaneously reacting to the medium as it was in about 2003. The depiction of technology and its effect on our relationships is so awkwardly misplaced, it’s hard to move past it.
The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise – Georges Perec
Once again, Perec manages to transcend gimmick, turning a laborious challenge into a conceit for the circuitous monotony of the workplace.
“Separated from his native Nigeria by resentment, time, and trauma, Julius treats the clinically depressed at Columbia-Presbyterian while soberly addressing his own suspicion of a worsening emotional miasma and its many symptoms, including the terrifying return of bedbugs.”
The levels of depravity and viciousness that W. is able to reach through his assessment of Lars and himself truly merit the exalted categories of cosmic, transcendental, and messianic.
Harlem Is Nowhere – Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts
“We need more books like this. As Americans in a swiftly changing and displaced nation, the project of walking and talking, reading and wondering, must be done with great seriousness.”
The Gospel of Anarchy – Justin Taylor
The Gospel of Anarchy will remind you of the line you toe so you can keep your place in this society. The one under which you sweep your deviant thoughts so your conspecifics won’t see them and think you’re “weird.”
The Strange Case of Edward Gorey – Alexander Theroux
“He throws many words at Gorey, often the same words over and over, in a litany that demonstrates the futility of getting at his core.”
Robert Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century – William Patterson
I knew Heinlein was carrying around contradictions. But it wasn’t until I began to read William Patterson’s biography that I realized how important those contradictions were in expressing the Geist of an entire generation.