A Hologram for the King

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A Hologram for the King, a novel by Dave Eggers (McSweeney's Books, San Francisco, 2012).

A novel and two poems

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The Elegance of the Hedgehog (L'élégance du hérisson), a novel by Muriel Barbery, translated from the French by Alison Anderson (Editions Gallimard, Paris, 2006; Europa Editions, New York, 2008). 

"Two Creatures," a poem by Billy Collins, from his collection Horoscopes for the Dead (Random House, 2011, pp. 53-54), and originally published in Cimarron Review. 

I also really liked much of Collins' poem "Table Talk" (pp. 60-62, originally in The New Yorker), which aptly, for this post, ended with the words "a hedgehog bristling with quills." 

Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett

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Ship Fever (W.W. Norton, 1996), which won the National Book Award for fiction in 1996, is a collection of eight stories by Andrea Barrett. 

When I first picked up the book, I didn't realize that I'd already read the first story, "The Behavior of the Hawkweeds."  It was originally printed in The Missouri Review, and I'd read the reprint in Best American Short Stories, 1995 (guest edited by Jane Smiley).     

My favorite stories in the collection were "The Littoral Zone" (originally published in Story), "Birds with No Feet," and the rather stunning title story, "Ship Fever."  It, like several of the other stories in the collection, weaves together fiction and scientific or historical record.

Alice Munro, Ellen Bass, Stewart O'Nan

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Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You, a collection of thirteen short stories by Alice Munro (McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, 1974).  My favorite stories here were "How I Met My Husband" (pp. 45-66 in the paperback Vintage International version from 2004) and "Winter Wind" (pp. 192-206).

Mules of Love, a collection of poems by Ellen Bass (BOA Editions, 2002).  My favorites were "The Thing Is" (p. 72), which I mentioned in a previous post, and "In Which a Deer Is Found in a Bubble Bath, Having Entered the House, Turned on the Faucet, Knocked Over the Bottle, and Stepped In—Not Necessarily in That Order" (pp. 23-24).   

 

The Good Wife, a novel by Stewart O'Nan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).  

Two poems and two books

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"Why I Opted for the More Expensive Oil at Jiffy Lube," a poem by Julie Price Pinkerton, Rattle, Volume 19, Number 2 (Summer 2013).

"On Reading a Newspaper for the First Time as an Adult," a poem by Sharon Olds, from her collection Stag's Leap (Knopf, 2012, p. 71), and originally published in The New Yorker. 

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson (Random House, 2011). 

My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather (Knopf, 1926).  

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin

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In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W.W. Norton, 2009) is Daniyal Mueenuddin's debut collection, a set of eight linked stories set mainly in Pakistan. Among other things, the book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award finalist, and a New York Times bestseller.

This is a pretty phenomenal collection overall, and it is difficult to single out individual pieces, but my favorite stories were the bookends: "Nawabdin Electrician" and "A Spoiled Man."

He flourished on a signature capability, a technique for cheating the electric company by slowing down the revolutions of electric meters, so cunningly done that his customers could specify to the hundred-rupee note the desired monthly savings.
--From "Nawabdin Electrician," pp. 13-28 in the paperback version, originally published in The New Yorker (August 27, 2007) and later in Best American Short Stories 2008.

There he stood at the stone gateway of the Harounis' weekend home above Islamabad, a small bowlegged man with a lopsided battered face. When the American wife's car drove up, turning off the Murree road, Rezak saluted, eyes straight ahead, not looking at her.
--From "A Spoiled Man," pp. 221-247, originally published in The New Yorker (September 15, 2008).

(If I absolutely had to choose a third, it would be "Our Lady of Paris," pp. 143-168, originally from Zoetrope: All Story, Volume 10, Number 3 (Fall 2006). Sohail and Helen had begun dating two years earlier, at Yale, where she was an undergraduate and he at the law school. After graduating the previous summer he had returned to his home in Pakistan, while she completed her senior year.)

However, the collection is really more than the sum of its parts. "A Spoiled Man" is incredible on its own, but every bit of the story, even of the title, is more nuanced and meaningful when read with the other stories. It was, I thought, a perfect ending to the book.

"Indulgence" by Susan Perabo

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My mother was thrilled to be dying of brain cancer after a lifetime of smoking. She had dodged the bullet of lung cancer after all, she triumphantly announced to me on the phone that summer afternoon. All those years my brothers and I had hassled her, lectured her, begged her, berated her (“Don’t you want to see your grandchildren graduate from college?”)—and for what? Her lungs were fine! . . .

"Indulgence," a short story by Susan Perabo, published in One Story, Issue Number 178 (May 3, 2013). The link has a sample of the story and a Q&A with Susan Perabo. (The editor's notes mention this, but I will, too: there are some spoilers in the Q&A.) This was a really poignant story.

The Spring 2013 issue of the Apple Valley Review (April 2, 2013)

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The Spring 2013 issue of the journal features short fiction by Jessica Rafalko, Daniel Ellis, Scott David, and Paul Pekin; a series of three short essays by Laura Vrcek; poetry by Lyn Lifshin, Sharlene Teo, Priscilla Atkins, Christina Frei, Jada Ach, Iain Macdonald, Claudia Serea, Pádrí Veum, and Gail Peck; and artwork by modern Russian landscape painter Dmitry Levin.

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at www.applevalleyreview.com.

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

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Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays, Etc. by David Sedaris (Little, Brown and Company, 2013).

My favorite essay was "A Guy Walks into a Bar Car" (pp. 123-137), which was originally published in The New Yorker as "Guy Walks into a Bar Car" on April 20, 2009.

My other favorites were "Memory Laps" (pp. 27-41), "Easy, Tiger" (pp. 77-86) and "Laugh, Kookaburra" (pp. 87-99), which were also originally published in The New Yorker.

"The Thing Is" by Ellen Bass

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The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands . . .

"The Thing Is," a poem by Ellen Bass, continued online in The Writer's Almanac or in print in her collection Mules of Love (BOA Editions, 2002).

A few poems for April

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The lake freezes, the lake closes its eyes
and a minor paralysis comes upon us.
From the knees, I stand in landfall, landfill. . . .

From "This Body of Water Is Not Meant to Move," a poem by Jane Wong, published in Linebreak (April 3, 2013).

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After work I'd go to the little bars
along the bright green river, Chloe's Lounge,
Cloverleaf, Barleycorn, it was like dying
to sit at five p.m. with a Bud so cold
it had no taste, it stung my hand,
when I returned home I missed my keys
and rang until my wife's delicate head
emerged in her high window . . .

From "The Bars," a poem by D. Nurkse, published in A Night in Brooklyn (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012) and presented by Knopf Poem-a-Day on April 4, 2013.

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I am dreaming of a letter
that I am writing to my
dead sister. The text
appears word for word
before me and I find that
it is the coming accounting
of her eulogy or this poem. . . .

From "Our Hair," a poem by Barbara Gravelle, published in Salome Magazine (April 1, 2013).

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I wanted to give you something —
no stone, clay, bracelet,
no edible leaf could pass through. . . .

From "The Present," a poem by Jane Hirshfield, published in Come, Thief (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011) and presented by Knopf Poem-a-Day on April 11, 2013.

Four short stories, a poem, and an essay

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"As Dreams of Poets," a short story by Timothy Dyke, Drunken Boat (Number 15).

"I Am Thinking of Starting My Own Religion," a short story by Timothy C. Dyke, Spork Press.

"What Happened When She Moved In," flash fiction by Steven D. Stark, Fleeting (February 27, 2013).

"Cortes Island," a short story by Alice Munro, The New Yorker (October 12, 1998) and reprinted in her story collection The Love of a Good Woman (Vintage 1998, pp. 117-145).

"Russian Beggarwoman II," a poem by Gail Peck, Ekphrasis (2008).

"The Poverty Clinic," an essay by Paul Tough, The New Yorker (March 21, 2011, pp. 25-32).

The Quiet Winter

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The Quiet Winter, a chapbook by Carrie Bennett (Dancing Girl Press, 2012). I really liked the way this collection was formatted. There was a lot of white space on each page, so that each set of words looked a bit like a snowflake, and there was a quietness to the words themselves, both in terms of the layout and the content.
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"what monster," a poem by Kristy Bowen, from her chapbook havoc (Dancing Girl Press, 2011).
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"Walkers," a poem by Stephanie Barbé Hammer, from her chapbook Sex with Buildings: Prose Poems (Dancing Girl Press, 2012).

A poem by Claudia Serea and two chapbooks from Dancing Girl Press

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She filled the yard of the sky
with domestic animals and birds,

and the yard screeched
when it turned,
like a rusty wheel,
with the shrill of crickets.

From "Away from the lights of the house," a poem by Claudia Serea, continued in Grey Sparrow Journal (Winter Issue, January 18, 2013).

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"Ella at the Cafe," a poem by Liz Kay, from her chapbook Something to Help Me Sleep (Dancing Girl Press, 2012).

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"Medina Street" (page 7), "Absence" (p. 14), and "Ladies' Night" (p. 26), poems by Sara Tracey, from her chapbook Flood Year (Dancing Girl Press, 2009).

From Sara Tracey's poem "Ladies' Night":

The rain was always doing things like this,
always the wrong night, the wrong back yard.
One hundred other things would be worse,
but right now, you can't think of any.
Forget riding five to a taxi, forget metro cards.
Tonight, you're walking two miles
with no umbrella, your favorite jeans
wet to your knees. See, even though you checked
the forecast, this is the kind of night
you'll end up crying in the bathroom
while some guy you don't want to kiss
holds your coat. . . .

Still Falling for Her, and Now Is the Time for Us to Be Sweet

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. . . I do not need a picture to
remind me of the look on my mom's
face, when she sang--extreme yearning,
a yearning out at the edge of what was
socially acceptable
on a ship like that . . .

From "Still Falling for Her," a poem by Sharon Olds, The New Yorker (December 5, 2011, pp. 54-55).
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When it's too hard to get on from the past, the best thing you can do is stop thinking, stop trying. Get a hobby, a new cat. Addict yourself to whatever little thing you have found as your grind. Your drink, your pill, your loveseat naps. It can work. You grind into it. And then Eric Eicher enrolls in your poetry class, transfers in a week after the semester starts.

From "Now Is the Time for Us to Be Sweet," a short story by Molly Tolsky, The Collagist (Issue 29, December 2011).

Dear Life

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Dear Life, a collection of short stories by Alice Munro (Knopf, 2012). This book includes, at the end, four pieces that she describes as "autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact."

A little bit of Dear Life, and Mrs. Dalloway

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... he was annoyed when the girl who took the tickets told him that she was going to have to quit, because she was having a baby. He might have expected this--she had been married for half a year, and in those days you were supposed to get out of the public eye before you began to show--but he so disliked change and the idea of people having private lives that he was taken by surprise.

From "Leaving Maverley," originally published in The New Yorker (November 28, 2011) and reprinted in Dear Life, a collection of short stories by Alice Munro (Knopf, 2012).

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And then, opening her eyes, how fresh like frilled linen clean from a laundry laid in wicker trays the roses looked . . .

From Mrs. Dalloway, a novel by Virginia Woolf (Harcourt, 1925).

Three poems and a short story

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"Invitation," a poem by Mike White, West Branch (Issue 65, Fall/Winter 2009).

"The Ruin of Amalfitano," a short story by Roberto Bolaño, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer, Harper's Magazine (October 2012, pp. 67-74).

"Remember to Learn from Your Mistakes," a poem by JodiAnn Stevenson, www.bowlofmilk.com (2003).

"Fruit," a poem by JodiAnn Stevenson, www.bowlofmilk.com (2004).

Unless (Carol Shields)

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"In my new life--the summer of the year 2000--I am attempting to 'count my blessings.' Everyone I know advises me to take up this repellant strategy, as though they really believe a dramatic loss can be replaced by the renewed appreciation of all one has been given."

"My daughter is living like a vagabond on the streets of Toronto, but even so I had to have four yards of screened bark mulch delivered to the house this morning, $141.91, including haulage."

From Unless, a novel by Carol Shields (HarperCollins, 2002).