Portraits of a Marriage – Sándor Márai
“Spanning late fin de siècle Budapest to the conclusion of World War II, Sándor Márai’s Portraits of a Marriage focuses on the insurmountable effect of class on relationships and the tension rippling across Europe during this period.”
Tonight No Poetry Will Serve – Adrienne Rich
“Adrienne Rich’s new collection is a slender volume of lyric notes, a vivid outline of the contemporary world. Her pieces are elliptical, often free-form, short. She is, of course, a master of the craft.”
How to Write a Sentence – Stanley Fish
How to Write a Sentence is about much more than what lies between periods; it’s about why we love literature.
A Discovery of Witches – Deborah Harkness
“Reading vampire fiction in a culture saturated with vampires is chasing the dragon.”
“The character of Black Pat is delightfully written. He goes about his job—of depressing people—by lying on them, or chewing rocks loudly, or tearing apart their household items like any unruly dog does.”
While Mortals Sleep – Kurt Vonnegut
“One of Vonnegut’s greatest and most appealing skills is his ability to blend an utterly humanist sensibility with sardonic dark humor. This collection of sixteen of his earliest unpublished short stories demonstrate that talent in its infancy.”
An Object of Beauty – Steve Martin
“The strength of Martin’s book is its perceptive, sharp-witted, and at times deeply dark observation of the for-profit side of the New York art world. It’s clear that this was what Martin was really setting out to accomplish, but what is murkier is how he feels about it.”
You Know When The Men Are Gone – Siobhan Fallon
“With a deft feel for characterization and pacing, Fallon’s tales carve out a subtle lesson on the psychological impacts of war, even — or especially — as experienced from halfway around the world.”
“Baxter’s terminally displaced protagonists explore, with an unabashed seriousness — one at turns childlike and insane — our desire for love.”
Walled States, Waning Sovereignty – Wendy Brown
“Wendy Brown chooses to focus on the increasingly familiar phenomenon of erecting physical barriers – both at the edges of sovereign territories and within – in an age of globalization that in its most utopian moments promises to make such barriers obsolete.”