About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Katherine Bucknell
Rave Booklist Isherwood questioned everything in life, ardently examining himself, and Bucknell’s marvelously knowledgeable portrait reveals the full dimensions of his richly contemplative life.
Michael Nott
Rave Booklist Nott...skillfully balances scholarship with the human aspects of Gunn’s poetry-rich life in this thoroughly engaging biography.
Angela Garcia
Rave Booklist Astute and harrowing ... Given ongoing arguments over immigration, drug use, and legalization, Garcia’s outstanding book adds compassion and insight to this important social and political discussion.
Adam Shatz
Rave Booklist Thoroughly researched ... A deep meditation on the transformative power and influence of one radical philosophical writer on the continuing fight for justice on many fronts.
Patti Hartigan
Rave Booklist While Wilson enjoyed mythologizing his own life, this glowing biography sifts fact from fiction. Wilson was always a poet; his last words to his daughter were, \'It is beautiful. It is beautiful.\' As is this invaluable biography.
Hilton Als
Rave Booklist A triumph of loving erudition and studied panache conveying Als’ passion for the mercurial musical powerhouse who was known as Prince ... Though this fascinating, quick read doesn’t attempt to speak for the entire queer community, it does shed light on one truth, that love is love and it’s often complicated ... A journey well worth taking, this distinctive, poised, compact book is an education and more. It is a gem.
Jim Harrison
Rave Booklist Spanning 45 years, this new bevy of essays and musings bursts with insight, adventure, and well-lived experiences, from literature to fishing and hunting to life in Michigan’s UP, Montana, Patagonia, and Arizona ... Although the subjects in Harrison’s rich, vibrant, and enjoyable essays were at times steered by who was footing the bill, his writing is always and truly \'genuine.\' Forthright, perpetually curious, and compassionate, Harrison remains wholly compelling and readers will be grateful that this buoyant, observant, and caring writer took time away from his sublime poetry to create these enriching essays.
Thom Gunn
Rave Booklist ... exquisitely edited ... Gunn’s letters are a testament to his vitality and enthusiasm for a cornucopia of experiences embraced with gusto and eloquently shared.
Teju Cole
Rave Booklist In this culturally and historically astute collection of essays, he moves expertly and seemingly effortlessly between the refinement of high art and the tragic state of our current world’s spiraling chaos. Whether he’s narrating his search for Caravaggio’s ghost, following bits of pigment like breadcrumbs across Italy, or reflecting on the shadowy sinews of Kerry James Marshall’s astonishing body of work, Cole is a discerning witness and documentarian of life and art ... Cole’s engaging collection of essays reassembles the visual kaleidoscope of life now in sharp, exacting prose. Cole should be seen and attentively read.
Louise Glück
Rave Booklist Glück’s work builds on an inquiring sense of wonder over our human experience and fortitude. If not for her tender, sometimes funny lines, one might mistake her for a pessimist ... The Nobel committee praised the \'austere beauty\' of Glück’s poems; this marvelous collection adds warmth and wit.
Natalie Shapero
Rave Booklist ... shrewd pacing and curiosity sharpen one’s attention. Here the oddities of our very human lives are keenly observed in bright lyric perfection ... a masterful romp through Shapero’s quick-witted and asymmetrical mode of thinking. It’s funny and serious all at once, like so much of our lives.
A. M. Juster
Positive Booklist Juster regards the common and the sacred in the everyday ... A wry humor ... Sections titled \'Outer,\' \'Inner,\' and \'Other\' form a cohesive triptych that anchors this strong collection, which includes Juster’s skilled translations of poems by Li Po and Rimbaud, and a take on a Bob Dylan classic that is very funny and not to be missed.
Robert Hass
Rave Booklist ...covers a rich landscape of human experiences ...It is this intellectual momentum, combined with emotional precision, that is most astonishingly clear in Hass’ new poems ... Ultimately it is the imperfections in our world that Hass so gracefully catches, steadies, and illuminates in this powerful gathering.
Paul Muldoon
Rave Booklist Muldoon reinvigorates the craft in his new, punching collection. Traversing both time and topography, these poems frisk through contrasting sensations ... With a tour guide’s knowledge and engagement, Muldoon circumnavigates historical follies and whims ... This is a strong, agile collection from one of the world’s finest poets at his best.
John O'Connell
Positive Booklist O’Connell’s diligently documented book on the literary influences on David Bowie is a fantastic voyage into 100 books that inspired the artist’s prodigious output ... O’Connell’s introduction is informative and crucial in framing Bowie’s library; it’s also very entertaining. For Bowie enthusiasts, it fills in gaps of fandom knowledge with tales ... This exciting book chronicles the literary influences on a revered and visionary bibliophile artist.
Charles Wright
Rave Booklist ... [an] exquisite assembly ... Wright’s poems illuminate the subtleties and wonderment of our world in calm exaltations ... Few poets can seize the passing of time as Wright does, and give it a shape that we might comprehend ... One may lose track of self and time within Wright’s radiant poems, trusting that this great poet, this holder of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and many other honors, might help us hear our own language, decipher our own feelings, as if for the first time.
Jana Prikryl
Positive Booklist Prikryl continues to travel circuitously within her unique landscape. These 67 poems, each with a single-word title, do not reveal themselves casually; close attentiveness is needed ... Her poetry is exacting and tough, yet compassionate and solicitous ... Prikryl’s focus elegantly pivots in and out of hushed encounters in poems that, with careful reading, gracefully astound.
Pamela Hart
Positive Booklist In her debut poetry collection, Hart brings a new, salient voice to the home front in times of war. Beginning with the love of a mother for her child, she draws a clear and distinct line between the news we hear and how it makes us feel ... Hart’s poetry is an attempt to reason through the world’s chaos ... Hart’s finely crafted poems may help readers do just that.
Jeffrey Yang
Positive Booklist \"Yang... has constructed an Escher-like collage by weaving together musings on Southwest America’s past and accounts of current art movements ... There are lyric gems here ... A collection to read in wonder and then reread, discovering something new.\
Thom Gunn, Ed. Clive Wilmer
Positive Booklist A compendious selected volume drawn from 11 of Gunn’s books, and his crisp introduction fills in many biographical gaps in the life of one of the finest poets in the English language ... Though he may be best remembered by the reading public for The Man with Night Sweats (1992), poems from the epicenter of the then-growing AIDS epidemic hit an exacting note still heard and felt today.
Kai Carlson-Wee
Positive Booklist ...glowing poems, which are alive with curiosity and wonderment ... his poems ring with a longing to genuinely feel his world, and, ultimately, our collective world, and he does so in these very fine and shining poems.