Category Archives: Book Reviews

Letters to Lil

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It’s perhaps not surprising that Malvern’s music maven, Adam, has a lil’ rap-related reading recommendation for you all…

Dear Lil WayneDear Lil Wayne is a humorous compilation of letters/prose poems sent by the author Lauren Ireland to her musical icon, rapper Lil Wayne, who was incarcerated at Rikers Island for possession of marijuana and possession of an illegal firearm at the time. (Lil Wayne never bothered to write back to her.) There are certain excerpts from this series of letters that are so hilariously bizarre they will make you laugh out loud. Dear Lil Wayne is a must-read for anyone in search of a fun and amusing book.

Words To Go For

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For those of you craving a little Swedish poetry in your lives, here’s a recommendation from Malvernite Taylor Jacob Pate. (NB. Taylor is also editor-in-chief of smoking glue gun, so you know he has impeccable taste in all things literary!)

You Go the WordsYou Go the Words by Gunnar Björling, translated by Fredrik Hertzberg
(Poetry, Action Books)

This collection of poems explores the power of the absence of words through hypnotic rhythms and lyrical minimalism. Although much of his lexicon is comprised of seemingly insignificant words like like-the-that-it-you-if-as-and, Björling’s emotional territory is immense and cuts to the heart and shimmers erotically. Large amounts of white space and disjunctive syntax come together to form a work in ten parts that, thanks to Fredrik Hertzberg’s supple and nimble translations, can be consumed in an afternoon or savored for days on end.

Recommended: Buffam & Bat

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The captivating Mr. Tyler Gobble (host of the soon-to-return Everything is Bigger) has a couple of sterling summer reading recommendations for you today:

The IrrationalistThe Irrationalist by Suzanne Buffam
(Canarium Books, Poetry)

Let me say it simply: This is one hell of an enjoyable book. Not always cheery or blossomed with dance hall fervor, sure, but charmingly witty and playfully insightful, absolutely. You might have seen me pacing around the store, smiling and shaking my head YES, and odds are I was holding this book. Here, you can have it now. Enjoy.

Bat City 10Bat City Review, Volume 10
(Literary Magazine)

This here new issue of Bat City Review showcases exactly why I love journals: under one pretty cover, a whole mess of goodness, stories and poetry and art fresh into the world. Particularly, I dig Mykola Zhuravel’s art and Joe Hall’s poems, but really, friend, you can’t go wrong by picking up this assorted awesomeness.

New In Store: Merwin & More

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Nothing makes us happier here at Malvern than frantically tearing open carefully unpacking a shipment of lovely new books—and these recent arrivals from Copper Canyon Press certainly produced an immoderate amount of booksellers’ glee. Copper Canyon have been publishing poetry since 1972, and their titles include renowned and emerging American poets, poetry in translation, anthologies, and re-issues of classic collections. Let’s take a look at the cream of the Copper now gracing our shelves…

New Books 1

The Moon before Morning by W.S. Merwin ($24; hardback)—a stunning new collection from our seventeenth Poet Laureate. Lyrical, elegant, and transcendent, the poems in this volume suggest that, at the age of eighty-six, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Merwin is writing some of the best poetry of his life.

Upgraded to Serious by Heather McHugh ($22; hardback)—McHugh’s eighth collection was honored as a “Book of the Year” by Publishers Weekly. These poems are frank and funny, full of fast-paced banter and linguistic acrobatics.

Radio Crackling, Radio Gone by Lisa Olstein ($15; paperback)—winner of Copper Canyon’s 2005 Hayden Carruth Award for New Emerging Poets, Radio Crackling creates a dreamscape filled with paradox and uncertainty, and guides the reader through this eerie world with remarkable intelligence and energy.

New In 2

Human Dark with Sugar by Brenda Shaughnessy ($15; paperback)—winner of the James Laughlin Award for the best second book of poems by an American poet (no sophomore slump here!), Human Dark with Sugar shuns sentimentality in favor of forthright, sexy, self-aware verse that somehow feels both playfully improvisational and assiduously controlled.

Crow with No Mouth by Ikkyū ($14; paperback)—Fifteenth-century Zen master Ikkyū Sojun only lasted nine days as headmaster of the great temple at Kyoto… and when he quit he invited his fellow monks to look for him in the sake parlors of the Pleasure Quarters. His short poems are as bawdy and robust as you’d expect from an iconoclastic ex-monk who despised authority and revered erotic love.

The Monster Loves His Labyrinth by Charles Simić ($14; paperback)—a collection of the 2007 U.S. Poet Laureate’s notebook entries, this book offers a fascinating glimpse into the preoccupations of one of our most acclaimed poets. These epigrams and vignettes offer moments of stunning beauty interspersed with biting humor.

Queen Cocaine

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Craving a little end-of-week literary excitement? Malvernite Adam has an adventurous reading recommendation for you…

Queen CocaineThe novel Queen Cocaine by Spanish journalist Nuria Amat tells the story of Wilson Cervantes, a Marxist journalist in Colombia, and his girlfriend Rat, a young writer originally from Barcelona. The pair are forced to go on the lam after Wilson writes unfavorable articles about the Colombian government. They endure countless hardships while hiding out in a remote seaside cabin during the country’s brutal drug war. Whether it’s the paramilitary police burning down the nearby coca fields, the ruthless drug dealers fighting over territory, or the state’s Guerrilla army performing random executions, the plot never loses momentum in this exciting novel. There is not a dull moment for the protagonists, with the story shifting from moments of intimacy to sheer horror in a matter of minutes. A definite must-read for fans of adventure novels.

The Play’s The Thing

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Malvernite Adam has written about his musical predilections and given us a story suggestion—and now he’s back with a dramatic recommendation for y’all…

AdamTwo Lost in the Filthy Night is an edgy, suspenseful play by Brazilian writer, actor, and journalist Plínio Marcos. The play portrays the type of life that working class people in Brazil must endure. The play only consists of two characters but the script is so well written that there’s never a dull moment throughout the story. There is a constant feeling of anticipation as to what will happen next as the reader goes through the chaotic events with the two characters who are living in extreme poverty. These life conditions cause the two characters to commit a robbery, thinking it will help their situation, only to find that it is the beginning of even more serious problems. Two Lost in the Filthy Night is a disturbing account of how a life of poverty can affect a person’s sense of morals and their value for human life. It is definitely worth recommending to any reader who is looking for a play with a gripping story and dynamic character and dialogue. (The play can be found in 3 Contemporary Brazilian Plays, which also features the work of acclaimed playwrights Leilah Assumpção and Consuelo de Castro—ask us for a copy next time you’re in the store!)