Bookworm

A voluminous correspondence of an intellectual friendship between two literary geniuses,  Questioning Minds: The Letters of Guy Davenport and Hugh Kenner, edited by Edward M. Burns.

Dramatic, emotional, and philosophical, Katherine Weber’s, Still Life with Monkey, is a profound book written in the old style, with depths orchestrated by the author.

In Barbara Kingsolver’s Unsheltered, characters feel as if they did what was right in life, but get a bad deal at the end of their lives.

Mythical and lyrical, written in love, Leland de la Durantaye’s debut novel Hannah Versus the Tree is original work that speaks to our moment.

The restless imagination of Brian Phillips brings lyrical essays to a narrative border in his debut book, Impossible Owls.

Evolution is a collection of all-new material by Eileen Myles, whose inspired poetry is a form of communication.

Ben Fountain writes with equal opportunity vexation, trying to make sense of what we’re doing in our lives, in his new book Beautiful Country Burn Again.

Susan Orlean’s The Library Book is about the cultural institution of libraries, with each chapter a source of its own excitement.

Beauty and despair woven into their history, twelve multigenerational urban Native Americans find ways to live in Tommy Orange’s There There.

Gary Shteyngart’s Lake Success is about a hedge-fund manager billionaire who has lost track of what he once cared about and loved.

French Exit by Patrick deWitt, a vastly amusing novel about a spider woman.

Edward St. Aubyn’s Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother’s Milk, and At Last: The Complete Patrick Melrose Novels, recently adapted into a five-episode limited series on Showtime.

Samuel Nicholson edited three of Joshua Cohen’s books at Random House, including his recent collection of nonfiction, ATTENTION: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction.

Joshua Cohen’s collection of nonfiction, ATTENTION: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction, examines the effect of the internet and technology on the human mind.

Buffalo Trace: A Threefold Vibration, by Mary Cappello, James Morrison, and Jean Walton, is a trio of novella-length autographical essays about graduate school students who love to read.

Joshua Mattson’s experimental debut novel, A Short Film About Disappointment, pulls the rug out from under the reader.

B. Catling further discusses learning to write The Vorhh Trilogy by being within it.

In B. Catling’s The Vorrh Trilogy, a vast surrealist tapestry comes into being; cooperating with the reader’s desire.

Christian Kracht’s The Dead is an expectations bending book with more tricks than a circus.

Lydia Millet’s Fight No More is a book of improvised stories about people who live improvised lives in Los Angeles.