NewPages Book Reviews
Posted November 1, 2010
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- Book Type Poetry
- by Neil de la Flor
- Publisher Marsh Hawk Press
- Date Published March 2010
- ISBN-13 978-0984117734
- Format Paperback
- Pages 72pp
- Price $14.95
- Review by Renee Emerson
Neil de la Flor’s Almost Dorothy is a collection of
poetry dealing with issues of sexuality, the past, and coming of
age. AIDS is a recurring theme, as is death. The world he writes
in isn’t inviting or pretty, yet he seems to find humor in it
and approaches it in a playful way.
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- Book Type Poetry
- by Tony Gloeggler
- Publisher NYQ Books
- Date Published June 2010
- ISBN-13 978-1-935520-15-3
- Format Paperback
- Pages 140pp
- Price $16.95
- Review by Kimberly Steele
Tony Gloeggler’s latest poetry book, The Last Lie,
celebrates imperfection in all its ubiquitous manifestations –
in people, relationships, memories, and dreams. It is about the
lies we tell ourselves when we discover that the truth is
insufficient, and the tools we use to renounce those
fabrications that distract us from recognizing beauty in
imperfection and experiencing fulfillment from that which seems
lacking at first glance.
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- Book Type Ed. Barbara Hamby, David Kirby
- Publisher University of Georgia Press
- Date Published April 2010
- ISBN-13 978-0-8203-3569-8
- Format Paperback
- Pages 427pp
- Price $24.95
- Review by Larry O. Dean
I was drawn to this collection for two – make that three reasons: I enjoy versifying power-couple Barbara Hamby and David Kirby's individual work, and I believe good, 'funny' poetry is, if not quite as uncommon as some might argue it to be, at least worthy of omnibus analysis and appraisal. I suspected that these two editors, no strangers to humorous writing, would take a broad enough approach to compiling what they deem “seriously funny” poems, and the book's introduction – a fine read in its own right – bears that out.
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- Book Type Poetry
- by Alex Grant
- Publisher Lorimer Press
- Date Published September 2010
- ISBN-13 978-0-9826171-3-7
- Format Paperback
- Pages 53pp
- Price $16.95
- Review by Renee Emerson
The Circus Poems by Alex Grant defied my expectations,
becoming more than “just” a book about circus performers through
contextualizing the circus in history and myth and leading the
reader toward the idea of the circus as metaphor.
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- Book Type Fiction
- by Bragi Ãlafsson
- Translated From Icelandic
- by Lytton Smith
- Publisher Open Letter Press
- Date Published October 2010
- ISBN-13 978-1-934824-13-9
- Format Paperback
- Pages 298pp
- Price $15.95
- Review by Olive Mullet
Bragi Ólafsson is a well-known author of poetry, short
stories and novels in Iceland. His fifth novel The Ambassador
was the finalist for the 2008 Nordic Literature Prize and
received the Icelandic Bookseller’s Award as best novel of the
year.
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- Book Type Poetry
- by Rob Schlegel
- Publisher Center for Literary Publishing
- Date Published December 2009
- ISBN-13 978-1-885635-12-9
- Format Paperback
- Pages 54pp
- Price $16.95
- Review by Matt McBride
Rob Schlegel’s debut collection of poems, The Lesser
Fields, winner of the 2009 Colorado Poetry Prize, creates a
kind of rarefaction through decay. As Schlegel states, “I
breathe away the parts of myself I no longer require.” The
titles of the three sequences which comprise the book, “The
Lesser Fields,” “November Deaths,” and “Lives,” seem to
underscore this theme. Indeed, the collection itself feels
rarified, taking up a miserly fifty-four pages, including notes
and acknowledgements.
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- Book Type Poetry
- by Ayane Kawata
- Translated From Japanese
- by Sawako Nakayasu
- Publisher Litmus Press
- Date Published May 2010
- ISBN-13 978-1-933959-08-5
- Format Paperback
- Pages 144pp
- Price $18.00
- Review by C.J. Opperthauser
Sawako Nakayasu's translation of Ayane Kawata's Time of Sky & Castles in the Air proves that translating Japanese to English can result in a beautiful rebirth. The first half of the book, Time of Sky, is full of number-titled poems usually no longer than three or four lines in length, but these poems pack so much imagery and beautiful sounds that the reader often has no choice but to reread immediately. I found myself pausing to soak in all of the wonderful, unique images and ideas. Even simple things resound with beauty, like the description of a pigeon in 12:
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- Book Type Young Adult Fication
- by Katie Williams
- Publisher Chronicle Books
- Date Published June 2010
- ISBN-13 9780811871754
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256pp
- Price $17.99
- Review by Laura Di Giovine
Katie Williams’s debut YA novel, The Space Between Trees,
is a lyrical journey into the lonely world of 16-year-old Evie,
a friendless teen whose life changes forever after a childhood
friend, Elizabeth “Zabet” McCabe, is murdered. Evie was friends
with Zabet in middle school, but they hadn’t been close for
ages. Adept at small, usually innocuous stretches of the truth,
Evie finds herself telling Mr. McCabe at Zabet’s funeral that
she was his daughter’s best friend. Evie’s lie initially repels
Hadley Smith, a troubled, unstable teen who was Zabet’s real
best friend, but Hadley soon draws Evie into her dangerous
obsession to find Zabet’s killer.
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- Book Type Fiction
- by Michelle Hoover
- Publisher Other Press
- Date Published June 2010
- ISBN-13 978-1-59051-346-0
- Format Paperback
- Pages 216pp
- Price $14.95
- Review by Skip Renker
In a brief, illuminating YouTube interview on the publisher’s
website, Michelle Hoover discusses the genesis of The
Quickening. She discovered a typewritten memoir, composed in
1950, by her great grandmother about her experiences as a farmer
and farm wife. The memoir of twenty or more pages covers much of
this strong woman’s life in the first half of the Twentieth
Century. Hoover used this story and further research on family
history and U.S. farm life as a springboard to create the
imaginative world of this novel.
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- Book Type Fiction
- by Davis Schneiderman
- Publisher TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press
- Date Published June 2010
- ISBN-13 978-0-8101-5215-1
- Format Paperback
- Pages 253pp
- Price $22.95
- Review by Kimberly Steele
Davis Schneiderman vividly creates a desolate and backward
futuristic word in his novel Drain – a world that is made
all the more terrifying for its uncanny resemblance to our own.
Part sci-fi/fantasy (though certainly not the kind you want your
kids to read), part psychological thriller, and part commentary
on contemporary religion and politics, Drain follows
numerous paths and occasionally fights the urge to draw
extraneous ideas into its already-teeming domain.
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- Book Type Illustrated
- by Friese Undine
- Translated From German
- by Paul North
- Publisher Ugly Duckling Presse
- Date Published October 2010
- ISBN-13 978-1-933254-74-6
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 64pp
- Price $20
- Review by Gina Myers
Swiss writer Robert Walser opens Answer to an Inquiry,
originally published in 1907, by stating his purpose for
writing it: “You ask me if I have an idea for you, sir, you ask
me to draft a sketch, a play, a dance, a pantomime, or some
other thing you could use, that you could depend on.” From
there, Walser lists the materials needed for costumes, set, and
lighting, and gives step-by-step instructions with commentary on
how to convey true suffering to an audience:
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- Book Type Fiction
- by Brendan Connell
- Publisher Better Non Sequitur
- Date Published May 2010
- ISBN-13 978-0974323572
- Format Paperback
- Pages 100pp
- Price $12.00
- Review by Alex Myers
A geographical whirlwind, Connell’s debut collection presents
36 cities in alphabetical order (some letters get more than one
hit … why eschew Moscow for Madrid? Xi’an, on the other hand,
has no X peer). Each destination offers a story, a scene, or a
vignette – as I read I came to think of them as little windows –
into the city. A moment, a place, a person. Each encounter is an
intense mixture of location and love.
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- Book Type Poetry
- by Jason Schneiderman
- Publisher Ashland Poetry Press
- Date Published September 2010
- ISBN-13 9780912592701
- Format Paperback
- Pages 61pp
- Review by Renee Emerson
Striking Surface by Jason Schneiderman focuses on death, religion, and the violence and exile of war. Though writing on such serious topics, Schneiderman still manages to weave in pop culture references, referencing several leading ladies such as Grace Kelly in his poem “Billboard Reading,” Sandra Dee and Lana Turner in “Susan Kohner (Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life),” and Audrey Hepburn in “Elegy VII (Last Moment).”
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- Book Type Memoir
- by Tom Grimes
- Publisher Tin House Books
- Date Published 2010
- ISBN-13 978-0-9825048-8-8
- Format Paperback
- Pages 256pp
- Price $16.95
- Review by Jeremy Benson
Mentor: A Memoir by Tom Grimes details the
relationship of the author and his friend, teacher, and
surrogate father, Frank Conroy. It opens with their initial
meeting: Tom, a budding writer considering MFA options, is
snubbed by Frank after a reading. "I spotted Stop-Time
[Conroy's own critically-acclaimed memoir] on a high shelf and
reached for it ... I struggled to tear it in half. When I
failed, I ripped out pages by the handful until I'd gutted the
thing, splitting in two the author's name and the book's title
... I turned and said, 'Fuck Frank Conroy.'"
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- Book Type Fiction
- by Tina May Hall
- Publisher University of Pittsburgh Press
- Date Published September 2010
- ISBN-13 978-0-8229-4398-3
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 145pp
- Price $24.95
- Review by Kimberly Steele
Occasionally you stumble across a piece of literary fiction
so eloquent in its style, honest in its material, and direct in
its approach that it resonates with you days, weeks, years after
you read it. Such literature is valuable for both its simple
sensory pleasure and its faith-restoring powers. Tina May Hall’s
The Physics of Imaginary Objects is one of these
intelligent, enlightening, and brazen books that you’ll want to
place on your shelf at eye-level so you will remember to keep
picking it up. Hall’s poetic style and articulate precision give
this book a revolutionary quality. It nudges you along with an
air of solemn importance and modest wisdom. Expertly composed
and awesomely beautiful, Hall’s hybrid of poetry and prose is
neither sparse nor excessive, sentimental nor detached,
diffident nor ostentatious. It is, however, seamless – so
delicately woven you forget it ever required stitching in the
first place. The words fit together so effortlessly it sometimes
feels like they just naturally occurred that way.
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- Book Type Fiction
- by Emma Donoghue
- Publisher Little, Brown & Co.
- Date Published September 2010
- ISBN-13 978-0-316-09833-5
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 336pp
- Price $24.99
- Review by Sara C. Rauch
I was website hopping the other day, and came to the Brooklyn
bookstore BookCourt's list of Top 10 fiction bestsellers. On
their hardcover list, at #3, was Room by Emma Donoghue,
which they call "a perfect example of that book (maybe Wolf
Hall is also in this category) that's been a total success
without being read by a single person under the age of 30." I am
here to attest that I am a person under 30 (though not for long)
who has read the book. Not only read it, couldn't put it down.
While I was on vacation in Miami. It is that good.
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- Book Type Edited by
- by D.A. Powell & Kevin Prufer
- Publisher Pleiades Press
- Date Published June 2010
- ISBN-13 978-0-9641454-1-2
- Format Paperback
- Pages 183pp
- Price $12.99
- Review by Caleb Tankersley
The contemporary American literary scene is as vibrant and diverse as any other art community; thousands of writers and millions of readers participate and interact on a daily basis. But looking back to any past period of the community – say the 1940s and 50s, somewhere in the layover between modernism and postmodernism – the world of letters looks sparse. One can’t help but imagine that literary circles must surely have been as wide and broad as they currently are. But it feels as if so few writers have lasted even such a meager sum of time. We’re often led to believe that there’s a reason past artists fall into obscurity. D. A. Powell and Kevin Prufer prove that notion wrong.