Our Indie Press Series honors the work of small independent publishers. Graywolf Press is considered one of the nation's leading nonprofit literary publishers. Fanny Howe is the author of more than twenty books of poetry and prose; her new collection is both a journey in search of knowledge and poems of lament formed in a place of rest. Jeffrey Yang's debut collection (wonderfully reviewed in the New York Times) builds around a simple theme -- poems as sea life, the book as their tank -- to take in the interconnectedness of life with wit and playfulness.
News of Note
Staff Picks
Charlie Parker Played Be-Bop
Written by Sohaila
by Chris Raschka (Scholastic, $6.99)
Possibly the most fun children's book in recorded history to read aloud. Go ahead: "Bus stop. Zznnzznn. Boppitty, bibbitty, bop. BANG!"
Billy Bathgate
Written by David
by E.L. Doctorow (Plume, $15.00)
My second pick also examines a boyhood spent in 1930's New York, though this time as a novel posing as a memoir. Doctorow's young narrator is a storyteller extraordinaire. He recounts his adolescent days spent among the gangs of New York in a voice perfectly reminiscent of the age (or at least how I imagine it to be), and at a pace that wont let you go.
Light Years
Written by Terra
by James Salter (Vintage, $14.95)
Salter was first described to me as a "writer's writer" which I take to mean he has a lot of envious followers. I fell completely in love with this novel for the words Salter uses and the sentences he makes. They're incandescent in their beauty. This book is the portrait of a marriage unraveling over time, and you can feel the solidarity and sureness of it slipping from your grasp as you read. It's heartbreaking and breathtaking and one of the highest testaments to the artfulness and power of the written word.
Our Indie Press Series honors the work of small independent publishers. 
Possibly the most fun children's book in recorded history to read aloud. Go ahead: "Bus stop. Zznnzznn. Boppitty, bibbitty, bop. BANG!" 
My second pick also examines a boyhood spent in 1930's New York, though this time as a novel posing as a memoir. Doctorow's young narrator is a storyteller extraordinaire. He recounts his adolescent days spent among the gangs of New York in a voice perfectly reminiscent of the age (or at least how I imagine it to be), and at a pace that wont let you go. 
Salter was first described to me as a "writer's writer" which I take to mean he has a lot of envious followers. I fell completely in love with this novel for the words Salter uses and the sentences he makes. They're incandescent in their beauty. This book is the portrait of a marriage unraveling over time, and you can feel the solidarity and sureness of it slipping from your grasp as you read. It's heartbreaking and breathtaking and one of the highest testaments to the artfulness and power of the written word.