This Week’s Hot Reviews

Fludde: Poems
Peter Mishler | Sarabande Books | 9781946448194 | May 2018
“The poems of Fludde tend to resemble James Tate’s early and mid-career poems, albeit with less goofiness and more gravitas. Still, as in Tate’s best work, whimsical play and occasional moments of absurdist humor add texture to Mishler’s poems without deflecting our attention from the pain that is housed in the heart of the collection.”—Los Angeles Review of Books

Hong Kong Noir
edited by Jason Y. Ng and Susan Blumberg-Kason | Akashic Books | 9781617756726 | December 2018
“Crime fiction has to work hard to compete in a city where dismembered bodies make conspicuous appearances in news headlines. . . . The result is natives and expats mingle with returning Cantonese and displaced mainlanders, each (often correctly) suspicious of the others’ motives. . . .  As far as the city itself is concerned, this collection represents Hong Kong to its very core.”—Asian Review of Books

The Lake on Fire
Rosellen Brown | Sarabande Books | 9781946448231 | October 2018
“[A] poetic and moving meditation on the choices we make to achieve the lives we imagine.”—Seattle Book Review

A Rebel in Gaza: Behind the Lines of the Arab Spring, One Woman’s Story
Asmaa al-Ghoul, Selim Nassib, trans. Mike Mitchell | DoppelHouse Press | 9780998777054 | November 2018
“In recent years, translations of al-Ghoul’s Arabic-language journalism and political commentary have come to the attention of the international media. . . . Al-Ghoul [makes] much of literature’s ability to subvert doctrinaire conceptual frameworks. . . . [In so] doing, [she] enables Palestinian society to retain a measure of psychological health. Nothing could be more important, as the sad truth is that the occupation shows no sign of coming to an end.”—Believer Logger

The Goose Fritz
Sergei Lebedev, trans. Antonina W. Bouis | New Vessel Press | 9781939931641 | March 2019
“Lebedev’s novel abounds with the sweep of history, but by filtering the experience of several generations through the perspective of one deeply introverted character, he achieves a decidedly intimate take on the form. Hanging over the proceedings is a question of national identity, which adds another dimension to the narrative.”—Words Without Borders

The Lost Boys: Inside Muzafer Sherif’s Robbers Cave Experiment
Gina Perry | Scribe US | 9781947534605 | April 2019
“Perry writes about Sherif’s complicated past, why he was able to carry out the test, and how the boys banded against each other at the camp. But she also digs into the theory behind it, which feels spookily relevant now: the idea that we easily pick sides based on arbitrary circumstances, and that can lead to violence.”—Outside Magazine

Collage by Women: 50 Essential Contemporary Artists
edited by Rebeka Elizegi | Promopress | 9788416851775 | May 2019
“Born from the belief that women’s voices are of the utmost relevance in all cultural and social fields, the book will surely contribute to a healthier, more comprehensive, more inclusive understanding of our reality.”—Empty Mirror

Beyond the Face: New Perspectives on Portraiture
edited by Wendy Wick Reaves | GILES | 9781911282204 | September 2018
“Useful not just for art historians but those interested in identity politics and American cultural history.”—ARLIS/NA

Wounds into Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma
Rabbi Tirzah Firestone | Monkfish Book Publishing | 9781948626026 | April 2019
“Rabbi Firestone has emerged as a moral leader who has come through the eye of her own life’s needle, and who is thus able to see a future beyond tragedy.”—Tikkun

The Chancellor and the Citadel 
Maria Capelle Frantz | Iron Circus Comics | 9781945820267 | February 2019
“A uniquely stunning debut graphic novel.”—Multiversity Comics

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