Both Flesh and Not – David Foster Wallace
Suddenly anything the author wrote, even lists of words he wanted to use but never got around to using, are fair game so long as the publisher makes a buck.
As alive as the West’s wide skies and wildflowers, this is a story to see us through the struggle to tell those we love that we love them.
Operation Sweet Tooth is about the creation of art, in particular fiction.
Will Oldham on Bonnie “Prince” Billy – Will Oldham and Alan Licht
As an antidote to the self-serving, grandiose, and often grotesque nature of many “rock memoirs” Will Oldham on Bonnie “Prince” Billy is a refreshing kind of book.
We Monks and Soldiers – Lutz Bassmann
Gloom and ambiguity blend to work the reader into a wonderful confusion. But it’s a useful confusion, one that expresses something fundamentally true about the world.
Swim for the Little One First – Noy Holland
Holland’s stories do not indulge in easy emotions, even if the bleak emotional atmosphere in many of them can be chilling.
Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt – Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco
As tragically optimistic as Hedges seems to be about the direction of the Occupy movement, it’s disheartening that he doesn’t seem to have as much faith in his previous arguments or in his audience’s ability to absorb them.
Care of Wooden Floors – Will Wiles
“A room is a manifestation of a state of mind . . . We make our rooms, and then our rooms make us.”
Promising Young Women – Suzanne Scanlon
Scanlon implicates the reader in the same system that has produced these “promising young women,” “career patients” seen by their doctors as projects, fodder for academic papers, or books.
The Obscene Madame D – Hilda Hilst
This publication of Hilst’s THE OBSCENE MADAME D may just be the literary miracle of 2012.