GOOD READS for WINTER 2007

Hey all--

There are a ton, but here are a few books I would like to recommend as you snuggle down for wintery hot chocolates (spiked with a generous dash of brandy or peppermint schnapps!)

POETRY:
Laura Mullen's MURMUR (Futurepoem Books, 2007) : exciting language, lush with natural landscapes, scattered thoughts, motives, seascape, this poetry-crime book stretches all our notions of genre, is captivating, smart and also beautifully printed/bound. A must-read, and for fun re-read Poe's "A Telltale Heart" with Mullen's subsection of the same title!

Alice Notley's ALMA OR THE DEAD WOMEN (Granery Books, 2006): Again, exciting language, all of Alice's own, "a mythopoetic structure" says Mark Irwin correctly in his blurb. This massive volume could easily keep you inspired and reflecting on Notley's characters and their world, but also our own, your and my place in it, etc.

Joshua Marie Wilkinson's LUG YOUR CARELESS BODY OUT OF THE CAREFUL DUSK (University of IA Press, 2006) Wilkinson's title already introduces the language you will find here, captivating, unique, mysterious, broken. This "poem in fragments" is like scenes through a viewfinder, not quite but almost piecing together, like memory.

Anne Carson's DECREATION (Vintage, 2005) This is another brilliant book from Carson, I loved reading on the edge of sleep in a train on my way to Berlin her "Every exit is an entrance (in priase of sleep)". Always alive, startling us by trying new forms, this is a book to revel in!

TRANSLATIONS:
Danielle COLLOBERT's works by Norma Cole!

Claude ROYET-JOURNOUD's work "theory of prepositions" by Keith Waldrop (out with La Presse, 2006)

Marie Borel's “Wolftrot” Translated into English by Sarah Riggs and Omar Berrada.

CLASSICS:
DANTE: return to Ciardi's translation of the INFERNO for a good winter read!

GOETHE: pairs well with the Dante. I am reading Gérard de Nerval's version in French.

OVID: again, a never-tire-of-this read, Metamorphoses, I liked Rolfe Humphries translation.

NOVELS:
Zadie Smith's WHITE TEETH (Penguin, 2000) is good, engagin, with lively characters--and the first 7 pages are simply great!

Richard Powers THE GOLD BUG VARIATIONS is a book I have yet to recover from, lyrically written, captivating and thought-provoking tale of loves then and now, a book to pair with listening to the various Goldberg recodings. Powers also has a new book I hear is FAB too!!!