They're hailed as the "future of literature" |
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| The Thread's Must Read | 
"Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead" by Sara Gran
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For my final recommendation in my "Anywhere but Sweden" noir series, I’m headed to New Orleans, where the city is just cooling off after Mardi Gras fever.
Sara Gran grew up in Brooklyn, lives in Los Angeles, but writes New Orleans like she’s never but a few steps from the seedier side of the Quarter. Her detective, Claire DeWitt, is one of the most original, contradictory and compelling crime solvers I’ve bonded with in contemporary fiction.
DeWitt, who feels the strong tug of New Orleans’ luminous decay, is undisciplined in her personal habits yet rigorously ethical in her work. She’s committed to justice — both social and criminal — yet she is troubled and easily distracted by drugs and alcohol.
Also, DeWitt is obsessed with the technique of a tragic French philosopher/detective named Jacques Silete.
All of this adds up to a fresh spin on noir: It's world-weary yet idealistic, introspective without the navel-gazing.
Get to it.
— Kerri Miller |
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 | | Real life creates a recipe for baker's poetry | "Hitman-Baker-Casketmaker" poems by Danny Klecko |
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Master baker Danny Klecko's St. Agnes Bakery was the official bread supplier for the Super Bowl and it had a huge number of orders. Then the bakery ran into immigration problems. In three weeks the business was gone. Klecko is now telling his side of the story in a new collection of poems.
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 | | 'The Lost Gutenberg' traces one bible's 500-year journey | | "The Lost Gutenberg: The Astounding Story of One Book's Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey" by Margaret Leslie Davis |
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The depth of Margaret Leslie Davis' research on the tome's history cannot be overstated. Her writing is straightforward and, at times, heartbreaking, but outstanding reporting lies at the core.
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 | | Poet W.S. Merwin dies at 91 |
In the 1980s, the two-time U.S. poet laureate moved to Hawaii and began working to restore the rainforest. According to one contemporary, that's when he "morphed into a poet of praise."
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