After the Quake

~
After the Quake, a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami, translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002).

...the letter his wife left for him when she vanished five days after the earthquake was different: I am never coming back, she had written, then went on to explain, simply but clearly, why she no longer wanted to live with him.  
--From "UFO in Kushiro," pp. 3-28, originally published as "U.F.O. in Koshiro" in The New Yorker. 

 

..."So Masakichi the Bear went to town and found a spot for himself in the square.  He put up a sign: Deeelicious Honey.  All Natural.  One Cup ¥ 200." 

"Can bears write?"

"No, of course not," Junpei said.  "There was a nice old man with a pencil sitting next to him, and he asked him to write it."

--From "Honey Pie," pp. 141-181, originally published in The New Yorker (August 20, 2001).  

A Night in Brooklyn (the collection and the poem)

~
A Night in Brooklyn, a collection of poetry by D. Nurkse (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012).

...she was washing
at the cold tap, she was binding
back her copper hair...
--From "Red Antares in a Blue Mirror," p. 9, originally published in Harvard Review (Issue 41, Winter 2011). 

 

...

always I teetered on that high stool

while the Schlitz globe revolved so slowly,

disclosing Africa, Asia, Antarctica...
 --From "The Bars," p. 16, originally published in The New Yorker (October 31, 2011, p. 84).  

We undid a button,

turned out the light,

and in that narrow bed

we built a great city...  
--From "A Night in Brooklyn," p. 49, originally published in Poetry (January 2008).

We have to bomb the rebel cities
from a great height, find shelter
for the refugees, carry a sick kitten
to the shade of a blighted elm,
fall in love, walk by the breakwater...

--From "There Is No Time, She Writes," p. 73, originally published in The New Yorker (August 6, 2007).

...

they had not imagined the pain

of dressing, sorting clothes

back into male and female...

--From "Return to the Capital," p. 82, originally published as "A Night in the Capital" in The Manhattan Review (Volume 13, Number 2; Fall/Winter 2008-2009). 

Frost in the Low Areas

~
Frost in the Low Areas, a collection of poetry by Karen Skolfield (Zone 3 Press, 2013). 

They've turned back to the food, what's left

of the warm brie.  These are not the people

you want between you and the lifeboats.
--From "Where Babies Come From," p. 3, originally published in Zone 3.

 

Mistake one: driving by two cemeteries when the kids

are tired.  Mistake two: saying only some people get

buried.  Where are the others, my son asks.   
--From "Rumors of Her Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated," p. 31, originally published in BOXCAR Poetry Review (Spring 2011) and later in the 2011 Best of the Net Anthology.  

..the students act as if they were being pressed

to death.  As if the rest of their lives were cheery

and full of volunteer work and perfect omelettes.  
--From "Sturm und Drang," p. 34, originally published in Conte (Volume 7, Issue 1). 

The note said that my pea seeds

are infected with pea weevils, many

apologies, here's a refund...

They're next to a big hunk

of meat and every time I open the freezer

I startle, like the time my daughter

froze her toys, the eyes

of a baby doll staring, rime-rimmed. 
--From "Disposal," pp. 63-64, originally published in Used Furniture Review (September 5, 2012). 

D. Nurkse's "The Bars," two other poems, short stories, and an essay

~
"The Bars," a poem by D. Nurkse, reprinted in Knopf's Poem-a-Day series on April 4, 2013, from his collection A Night in Brooklyn (Knopf, 2012), and originally published in The New Yorker (October 31, 2011, p. 84).  

"Is This Part of the Love Ritual?," a short story by Jenny Bitner, PANK, Volume 5, Number 9 (September 2010). 

 

"Eleanor Writes She's Reading Rimbaud," a poem by Susan Aizenberg, Blackbird, Volume 12, Number 2 (Fall 2013). 

 

"Many Houses, Many Windows," a poem by Donna Vorreyer, from her collection A House of Many Windows (Sundress, 2013, p. 69), and originally published in Wicked Alice (October 11, 2012).

 

The Moons of Jupiter, a collection of short stories by Alice Munro (Viking Penguin, 1977).
 

"The Divine Auditor," an essay by Sarah Valentine, Prairie Schooner, Volume 87, Issue 2 (Summer 2013).   

A Hologram for the King

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

A novel and two poems

~
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

~
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.