Staff Picks
May 31, 2012
The Mad Music of Kevin Barry’s City of Bohane 7
by Bill Morris
Thank you, Kevin Barry, for reminding us that the people in the book business are not all idiots simply because they remain locked in slavish pursuit of The Next Hot Young Thing.
May 10, 2012
Staff Pick: H.H. Munro’s The Best of Saki 8
by Emily St. John Mandel
H.H. Munro wrote a great many light and often very funny send-ups of the stifling conventions and manners of the Edwardian age. But on the other hand, three of the first eight stories in the book involve corpses, with two of these being small children eaten by wild animals.
April 27, 2012
Adventures in Self-Publishing: Dallas Hudgens’ Wake Up, We’re Here 9
by Emily St. John Mandel
Hudgens doesn’t shy away from the brutality of life on earth — the illness, the decreptitude, the humiliations and the teen suicides — but the grittiness is never gratuitous, and his stories are infused with compassion and humanity.
April 18, 2012
Getting the Good Stuff: Mark Haskell Smith’s Heart of Dankness 6
by Patrick Brown
Take it from a guy who hates reggae: I highly recommend picking up Heart of Dankness, whether you have a doctor’s recommendation or not.
April 17, 2012
Staff Pick: Lauren Groff’s Arcadia 6
by Janet Potter
Sometimes I just want to read a book from beginning to end as quickly as possible. Arcadia was perfect for this venture, both because I was immediately in love with it, and because the book itself is about experiences that wrap around you until the outside world fades away.
March 26, 2012
Staff Pick: E.L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel 0
by Michael Bourne
The Book of Daniel is metafiction done right, by an author who cares as much about telling stories as he does about talking about telling stories.