Books
January 13, 2020
A Poignant Travelogue From a Mother to Her Daughter
The most important thing Ursula Schulz-Dornburg carried with her as she wandered the streets of Yerevan, Armenia, in search of new wonders, is not this camera or that, but the thought of her daughter.
Sarah Rose Sharp
The Complex History of Yellow, a “Mediocre” Color
Considering the evidence of yellow’s constant fluctuation in and out of favor, it is curious to see author Michel Pastoureau wonder if it could be “the color of the future.”
Aida Amoako
A Musician’s Fictional, Indistinct Futures Take the Shape of a Novel
Leaning into the imaginative possibility of text, Félicia Atkinson’s A Forest Petrifies: Diamond Feedback grafts a poetic, discursive dialogue that fills in the detailed sonic worlds of her recent album.
DeForrest Brown, Jr.
A Gripping Memoir Dives Into LA’s Graffiti Subculture of the ’90s
Artist and scholar Stefano Bloch has written a story that is personal, but also a primer on graffiti’s history and artistic and social import.
Bridget Quinn
Articulating a New Kind of Class Struggle
Capital Is Dead: Is This Something Worse? illustrates that Capital is actually dead. Something new and much worse, involving what author McKenzie Wark calls “the vector” has usurped it.
Ben Tripp
The Poet as a Dream Guide
In Joseph Donahue’s Wind Maps I-VII we are led out of sleep by the poet, just as he has been led out of sleep by a dream guide, into a renewal of mythic or storied truth.
Norman Finkelstein
A Tantalizing, If Flawed Reinterpretation of Picasso’s “Demoiselles d’Avignon”
In her new book, Suzanne Preston Blier seduces the reader with a reinterpretation of the painting, based on sources she claims no Picasso scholars have addressed before.
Karen Chernick
A Daily Commute Frames an Author’s Reflections
Over the course of her graphic memoir, Commute, Erin Williams acknowledges the lives of people she encounters in her day, but she maintains a steady gaze on herself.
Angelica Frey
Rhythm, Divination, and Naming in Jay Wright’s Poetry
In Wright’s poems the name of the absolute is scrawled in a host of esoteric tongues.
J. Peter Moore
“The Hardest Story I Have Ever Done”: Autobiographical Comics Illustrated by Sexual Abuse and Harassment Survivors
Some of the contributors to Drawing Power: Women’s Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment, and Survival maintain a “straightforward” style of testimony, while others employ creative license to convey the lasting psychological effects of sexual violence.
Carolyn Yates
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