Recent Entries:

Briefly celebrated for Typee and resenting the expectations of his new audience, Herman Melville complained, “All fame is patronage. I want to be infamous.” The cultivation of fame is conventionally regarded as inappropriate behavior. A reporter once asked Al Pacino how he deals with fame.

A nameless man tells this story: I like to walk through my city. Its places speak to me. Once I met an attractive woman and obsessively wanted her. But I’m timid. She appreciated my friendship but longed for another. She apologized for the necessity of having to hurt me. Although agitated, I was devoted to my own perplexed feelings and have no regrets.

Parts of the story of Henrietta Lacks have been told before – in a 1976 Rolling Stone feature, a 1986 university press title, a 1996 BBC program, in numerous newspaper and magazine articles through the years, and at symposia and conferences.

After The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade was nominated for a National Book Award in 1997, Thomas Lynch became the most famous funeral director in America.

In his essay “Questions of ‘Spirit” (2000), Hank Lazer writes, “Poetry is, and sacredly so, most direct in its indirection and in its habitual concealment, in its very refusal to ‘mean’ directly.

Here are our most frequently read book reviews for 2009. Many thanks to all our friends who helped to bring attention to new writing and grow our audience.

POETRY

Salvinia Molesta, by Victoria Chang (University of Georgia Press)