Tag Archives: Fall 2013

THE FIFTH BEATLE

The Brian Epstein Story Vivek J. Tiwary and Andrew C. Robinson, with Kyle Baker edited by Philip Simon Dark Horse/M Press ($19.99) by John Eisler Amidst the recent plethora of Beatles-related publications comes a graphic novel dramatizing the eponymous “fifth Beatle,” manager Brian Epstein. While the fab four are no strangers to the comics—indeed, they […]

WRITING UNDER:

Selections from the Internet Text Alan Sondheim Center for Literary Computing/West Virginia University Press ($19.99) by Sandy Florian In his introduction to Alan Sondheim’s Writing Under, Sandy Baldwin recalls the announcement of Sondheim’s “The Internet Text” that defines itself as a “meditation on the philosophy, psychology, political economy, and psychoanalytics of Internet (computer) communication. “ He […]

MATSUO BASHŌ’S POETIC SPACES

Exploring Haikai Intersections Edited by Eleanor Kerkhan Palgrave Macmillan ($95) by Joel Weishaus Haiku is well known in much of the world as a short poem, usually written in three lines. Traditionally, in Japanese at least, it’s laid out in a 5-7-5 sequence and includes a seasonal reference. The word “haiku” was first popularized by […]

SYSTEMS WE HAVE LOVED

Conceptual Art, Affect, and the Antihumanist Turn Eve Meltzer University of Chicago Press ($45) by Pablo Lopez There’s something immediately off-putting in the title of Eve Meltzer’s book, Systems We Have Loved: Conceptual Art, Affect, and the Antihumanist Turn. Uncomfortably, Meltzer’s title implicates the reader in loving systems—but aren’t systems the problem, something to resist if […]

RAILTRACKS

John Berger and Anne Michaels photographs by Tereza Stehlíková Counterpoint ($18) by Jesse Freedman Some books assume an atmospheric quality. Railtracks, which records a series of conversations between the acclaimed art critic John Berger and novelist Anne Michaels, is among them. Accompanied by the haunting photography of Tereza Stehlíková, this beautiful collection is equal parts history, […]

LEONARDO'S FOOT

How 10 Toes, 52 Bones, and 66 Muscles Shaped the Human World Carol Ann Rinzler Bellevue Literary Press ($16.95) by Ryder W. Miller In Leonardo’s Foot, internationally bestselling health and medicine writer Carol Ann Rinzler gives the subject of our feet—something we take for granted until we are plagued by podiatric woes—a fascinating medical and historical […]

Ed Dorn and William Everson

TWO INTERVIEWS Edward Dorn Edited by Gavin Selerie and Justin Katko Shearsman Books ($17) WILLIAM EVERSON The Light the Shadow Casts Selected Everson Poems and Five Interviews edited and introduced by Clifton Ross Freedom Voices ($14.95) by Patrick James Dunagan Among the dozens of poets represented in Don Allen’s New American Poetry: 1945-1960, Ed Dorn and […]

THE NOVEL

An Alternative History, 1600–1800 Steven Moore Bloomsbury ($39.95) by Scott Bryan Wilson Steven Moore spent the first volume of his The Novel: An Alternative History obliterating the common notion that Don Quixote was the first novel; it’s thus appropriate that the second volume begins with Cervantes’s opus, so that its far-reaching influence can be seen on so many of […]

A MAN OF MISCONCEPTIONS

The Life of an Eccentric in an Age of Change John Glassie Riverhead ($16) by Douglas Messerli By coincidence, just as I completed reading Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès fiction, Where Tigers Are at Home—in which one of the central stories concerns the seventeenth-century priest Athanasius Kircher—my companion brought home from the local bookstore a recent biography […]

LAST CAR OVER THE SAGAMORE BRIDGE

Peter Orner Little, Brown ($24.99) by Kate Petersen Trying to describe all that Peter Orner’s Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge contains is a bit like trying to summarize the contents of one of the photo boxes I found while helping my parents clean their garage this summer: sweet but impossible. These are universal boxes, aren’t they? […]